Book-of-the-Month® Club Announces the 2010 Winner of the First Fiction Award

NEW YORK, May 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Book-of-the-Month® club announced today the winner of the 2010 First Fiction Award.  The award has been given to Stephen M. Irwin for his novel The Dead Path (Doubleday), an incredible debut that is original, elegant and completely terrifying. You may never go into the woods again.

"Discovering and promoting new authors is something we've been doing for eighty-five years here at the Club," said Deborah Sinclaire, Editor-in-Chief of Book-of-the-Month® Club. "This award is our way of recognizing authors whose debut novels have had a powerful impact on our editorial team as well as our readers."

The Book-of-the-Month® Club First Fiction Award is granted annually by the club's editorial board to recognize an outstanding first work of fiction in the English language. The First Fiction Award, first given in 1995, represents the high standard of fictional writing published in the U.S. that the Book-of-the-Month® Club wishes to honor in new novelists. Past winners have included Push by Sapphire (the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film, Precious) and Justin Cronin's Mary and O'Neil. (Justin Cronin's The Passage, is currently being made into a Ridley Scott-produced film.)

"It is a thrill and a total delight to see The Dead Path selected for the Book of the Month Club First Fiction Award," said Steven Irwin.  As a debut novelist, this respected recognition is enormously gratifying and encouraging.  Very excitingly, I know this selection means that even more readers will have the opportunity to enjoy the chills in the book.  Thank you, Book of the Month Club."

About the book: A terrible accident has left Nicholas a widower, and now he's haunted not just by his wife's death, but also by ghostly visions of people forced to reenact their final moments over and over again. His journey home only makes things worse, especially when he sees the nearby forest. These woods always frightened him when he was a boy, and now he knows why: it's clogged with the ghosts of terrified children being dragged off into the grinning maw of trees. When a local child goes missing, he knows he must act. But how? What malignant evil dwells in the darkness... and why does it know his name?

Over the years, the Book-of-the-Month® First Fiction Award has recognized many new and upcoming authors.  A full list of winners, past and present, is listed here.

FIRST FICTION AWARD WINNERS:

2009: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

2008: The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson

2007: The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penny

2006: The Observations, Jane Harris

2005: Incendiary, Chris Cleave

2004: no award given

2003: Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger

2002: The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Gary Shteyngart

2001: Mary and O'Neil, Justin Cronin

2000: Some Things That Stay, Sarah Willis

1999: God is a Bullet, Boston Teran

1998: Caucasia, Danzy Senna

1997: The Man in the Box, Thomas Moran

1996: Push, Sapphire

1995: Private Alters, Katherine Mosby    

Founded in 1926, Book-of-the-Month® Club is one of the best-known and most respected book clubs in the world.  Book-of-the-Month® Club serves a large audience of general interest readers, offering a vast selection of the best new titles in popular fiction, nonfiction, entertainment, self-help and more.

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