Three
The number of consecutive years NielsenIQ BookScan’s Romance & Sagas category has crested the £60m mark, with 2025’s £63.5m the third-best year on record. Prior to 2020, the romance sector never exceeded £30m through BookScan, apart from the blip of the Fifty Shades of Grey-led 2012.
BOOK OF THE YEAR Romantic Fiction
Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life had the judges falling head over heels, and triumphs as the first winner of this new category. Henry is the “romance writer of her time”, said one judge; she is “the future of the genre”, added another. The panel agreed that Viking has nurtured a “genuine and passionate” relationship with Henry – with each book the publisher has cemented her brand and asserted the market strength of the genre. Great Big Beautiful Life was impossible to miss with its now quintessentially
Henry cover design, drenched in bright oranges and pastels. The publisher’s “innovative” and “original” campaign went further than ever before, rewarding long-time “EmHen” fans with a series of fun bookshop events at Waterstones branches and Book Lovers, Edinburgh. The judges agreed that Great Big Beautiful Life would “stand the test of time”.
THE SHORTLIST
All Together for Christmas SARAH MORGAN
An Almost Perfect Summer JILL MANSELL
King of Envy ANA HUANG
Our Sweet Violet ROSIE GOODWIN
The Strawberry Patch Pancake
House LAURIE GILMORE
Great Big Beautiful Life Emily Henry VIKING
The British Book Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction
The British Book Awards celebrates the work and legacy of Jilly Cooper, Sophie Kinsella and Joanna Trollope, three trailblazers of romantic fiction to whom we bid farewell last year. Cooper’s novels are as unique as the writer herself. This award recognises her witty, sexy and vivacious writing
and her totemic influence on the genre. Kinsella’s distinctive romcoms brim with emotional nuance, intelligence and heart; her books will continue to be adored by many for years to come. Trollope chronicled ordinary life with acuity and verve, bringing to light the problems and joys to be found in the everyday. Her novels stand tall in the romance canon. Beloved by readers of all ages, we are proud to recognise their titanic impact on the romance genre and the publishing industry at large.
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