Women's Fiction Prize Shortlist 2026: Marcia Hutchinson & Rozie Kelly join us for an in conversation event, Friday 2nd October 7pm

We're delighted to welcome two the shortlisted authors from the Women's Fiction Prize 2026, Marcia Hutchinson (The Mercy Step) and Rozie Kelly (Kingfisher) at Waterstones York, 2nd October.

More about the evening...

Our doors will open at 6.30pm and refreshments will be available. Why not join us early and relax before the event begins?

Both authors will be speaking from 7pm until approximately 7.50pm when a Q&A with the audience will take place.

There will be a book signing after the talk and a chance to purchase both books and speak with the authors.

About the book, The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson:

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2026

Winner of the British Book Awards Discover Book of the Year 2026

Bradford, December 1962.

A precocious Mercy makes her reluctant entrance into the world, torn from the warm embrace of her mother’s womb, to a chaotic household that seems to have no place for her. Her siblings do not understand her, her mother’s attention is given to the Church, and the entire family lives at the whims of her father’s quick temper.

Left to herself, Mercy finds solace in books, her imagination, and the quiet comfort of her faithful toy, Dolly. But escapism has its limits, and as the grip of family, faith and fear threatens to close in, Mercy learns she must act if she wants a different future; one where she is seen, heard, and her family set free.

The Mercy Step is a sharply-witted and tender portrait of a young girl’s quiet rebellion, and her refusal to be broken.

About the book, Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly:

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2026

She smelled like jasmine. No, not exactly. She smelled like the earth beneath a jasmine plant on a hot day.

"Most of us are poets", she said. "It’s just a question of how it comes out."

When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague – the poet – it is not long before it begins to threaten his relationship with his partner, Michael. Michael is beautiful. Michael is safe. But the poet is everything he isn’t; she has everything he wants.

While he writes about steel and sex, she dreams about the movements of swallows. While he tends to his budding career, she writes from her big, white house in the woods. As he slips between his old life and this new one, his fixation grows into something more powerful. The poet, his Kingfisher, is his sole focus. He is hypnotised.

But when simultaneous illnesses threaten to destroy the precarious reality he clings to, he’s forced to question what he can and cannot take from someone. This is a novel about grief, power and desire – and the tangles in between that make up a life.

Ticketing:

Tickets can be purchased online or in store. For in store purchases, please speak to one of our booksellers.

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Description supplied by the event organiser.