History was made at the Ngaio Marsh Awards as Taranaki author Jacqueline Bublitz’s debut novel ‘Before You Knew My Name’ was revealed as the winner of BOTH categories of the 2022 awards!
In the thirteenth instalment of Aotearoa’s annual awards celebrating excellence in crime, mystery, and thriller writing, Bublitz scooped both the Best First Novel and Best Novel prizes. It is the first time any Kiwi storyteller has won both fiction categories.
“Beautifully heart-breaking, stylishly written, and boldly pushing the envelope of crime fiction,” said the international judging panels. “Bublitz delivers a beguiling tale with great characterisation: Alice and Ruby are wonderful. This is a tragic but warm-hearted crime novel that gives victims agency and voice.”
While BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME shares an inciting incident familiar to any viewer of US cop shows – a jogger in New York City finds the body of a young woman – in her debut Bublitz flips the script by taking readers deep into the lives of Alice and Ruby, the victim and the jogger, rather than the detectives.
This excellent novel is getting a release in America on 1 November, with Bublitz fittingly being at a release event in New York for the occasion.
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