What Was Lost Was Lost" was the winner in the first novel category of the Costa Book Awards. O'Flynn received a £5,000 prize. It was short-listed for the overall Costa Book of the Year Award. The Costa Book Awards' judging panel, chaired by Joanna Trollope, praised the novel for "blending humour and pathos in a cleverly constructed and absorbing mystery." They described the novel as inventive, compelling, and poignant. "What Was Lost" was long-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. It was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. It won the Jelf Group First Novel Award
Oscar's Book Prize Oscar's Book Prize Oscar's Book Prize is a British children's book prize awarded annually to a book for pre-school age children, which was first published in the UK during the previous calendar year. The £5,000 prize is supported by the London Evening Standard and sponsored by Amazon and the National Literacy Trust, its patron is Princess Beatrice. The prize was founded in 2014 by James Ashton and Viveka Alvestrand in memory of their three year old son Oscar Ashton who died unexpectedly in 2012. It aims to celebrate a child's love for magical stories and to reward the creativity of