Book-of-the-Month(R) Club Announces the 2007 Winner of the First Fiction Award

NEW YORK, April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Book-of-the-Month(R) Club announced today the winner of the 2007 First Fiction Award. The award has been given to Stef Penny for her novel The Tenderness of Wolves (Simon & Schuster), a gripping and powerful novel set in a remote Canadian outpost about an unsolved murder and a quest for answers.

"Finding and promoting new authors is at the heart of what we do at the Club," said Deborah Sinclaire, Editor-in-Chief of Book-of-the-Month(R) 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(R) 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(R) Club wishes to honor in new novelists.

"I'm really thrilled and honoured to get this award -- it's lovely to know that people on the other side of the Atlantic respond to a book I wrote in a back room in East London. Thank you all so much!" -- Stef Penney, author of The Tenderness of Wolves

The Tenderness of Wolves takes place during the winter in an isolated settlement of Canada's Dove River in 1867 where a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year-old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township-journalists, Hudson Bay Company men, trappers, traders-but do they want to solve the crime or exploit it? One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape home only to wild animals, madmen, and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two missing sisters, a forgotten Native culture, and a fortune in stolen furs.

Over the years, the Book-of-the-Month(R) 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:

    2007: The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penny
    2006: The Observations, Jane Harris
    2005: Incendiary, Chris Cleave
    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(R) Club is one of the best-known and most respected book clubs in the world. Book-of-the-Month(R) Club serves one of the largest audiences of general interest readers, offering a vast selection of the best new titles in popular fiction, nonfiction, entertainment, self-help and more.