Winner — Maureen O'Donoghue

WINNER is the extraordinary saga of Macha, the spirited Irish gypsy girl, who, faced with poverty and betrayal, is driven by an impossible ambition. Set against the vivid canvas of the Edwardian horse-racing world, the novel moves from colourful scenes at Irish horse fairs to the grandeur of Epsom, Goodwood and Ascot, from disgrace and isolation to the great houses, grouse moors and high society revels of the frivolous era leading up to World War 1.

Macha, named after the terrible goddess of Irish legend, is cast from her clan for rejecting an arranged marriage and sets out alone to travel through Ireland, begging for food and trading horses like her father before her.

The foal, born to a weedy brown mare, and Molloy, the horse copper, hold all her dreams for the glittering prizes of the Sport of Kings. But cruel reality shatters their hopes and drives Macha into a world that is rich and glamorous, but far harsher to a stranger than any tinker tribe, a society in which exquisite manners hide deadly rivalry and where she needs all her courage to survive; a world in which Macha's fantasies come true at the cost of her innocence.