Lex Croucher is the winner of the 2024 YA Book Prize for the book Gwen & Art Are Not in Love.

The YA Book Prize, launched in 2014, is a competition celebrating great fiction for teenagers and young adults and encouraging more teens to read and buy books. It is organised by book trade magazine The Bookseller and partners with the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Lex Croucher’s 2024-winning novel Gwen & Art Are Not in Love, published by Bloomsbury YA, is a romantic comedy set in a reimagined Arthurian world. It follows the characters Gwen and Arthur, who have been betrothed since birth but do not get along. The story takes a turn when Gwen discovers Arthur’s secret relationship with a boy, and Arthur learns of Gwen’s writings about the kingdom’s only female knight. Together, they navigate their complicated relationships and family expectations while pretending to be in love.

The judges described it as;

With a crew of flawed protagonists who each traverse huge emotional journeys, writing that fluctuates between hilarious witticisms and painfully relatable revelations, and a story that transports you to a magical Arthurian realm and doesn’t let you go – Gwen & Art Are Not In Love is a masterclass in teen romantic comedy.

Learn how to create exciting characters your readers will care about from this article.

Shortlisted writers of the 2024 YA Book Prize include:

• Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher 
• How to Die Famous by Benjamin Dean 
• Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald 
• This Book Kills by Ravena Guron 
• This Is How You Fall In Love by Anika Hussain 
• The First Move by Jenny Ireland 
• Yours From the Tower by Sally Nicholls 
• HappyHead by Josh Silver 
• Every Exquisite Thing by Laura Steven
• Murder on a School Night by Kate Weston

Interested in submitting to a competition like this? The first step would be learning how to write a novel. Read this article to learn the best ways to do it.