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
What Was Lost for which O'Flynn received a prize of £2,500. It was BBC Radio 5 Live's Book of the Month in March 2007. What Was Lost What Was Lost is the 2007 début novel by Catherine O'Flynn. The novel is about a girl who goes missing in a shopping centre in 1984, and the people who try to discover what happened to her twenty years later. "What Was Lost" won the First Novel Award at the 2007 Costa Book Awards, and was short-listed for the overall Costa Book of the Year Award. O'Flynn found inspiration for "What Was Lost" while she was