A borough author has won a regional book award for the third time in a row.

Cynthia Murphy, from Prestwich, won Lancashire's Book of the Year Award 2024, becoming the first person in the history of the competition to achieve the triple accolade.

In this year's competition, the former St Monica's High School pupil won in the "Young adult thriller author" category for her book, The Midnight Game, after previous wins with books, Last One to Die and Win, Lose, Kill, Die.

Cynthia said: "I am absolutely over the moon to have won the Lancashire Book of the Year for the third year in a row.

"When I saw this year’s list, I immediately gave up hope that I would retain my title.

“There are so many fabulous books written by wonderful, talented people on there, and then little old me with another one of my weird and creepy books!"

The winning book, The Midnight Game, tells the story of a group of strangers from an online forum who decide to meet in real life with one plan in mind- they are going to summon the Midnight Man.

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Launched in 1987, Lancashire Book of the Year is the longest-running young people's regional book award in the country.

Organised by Lancashire County Council, Year 9 pupils from 32 high schools took part in the judging process and were responsible for drawing up the shortlist and choosing the overall winner.

County councillor Jayne Rear, Lancashire County Council's cabinet member for education and skills, said: "Lancashire Book of the Year is a brilliant award that enables young adults across the county to share their love of reading.

"I want to thank everyone who took part in this year's judging process. I also want to give a huge congratulations to Cynthia Murphy for being the first person to win this award on three separate occasions, and even more extraordinarily winning it for the third year in a row."

Previous winners include authors Philip Pullman, who went on to write His Dark Materials trilogy, Malorie Blackman, Anthony Horowitz and Sarah Crossan.