Beryl Bainbridge's novel Master Georgie, which won the WHSmith literary award earlier this year, was dropped from the final shortlist.
BBC: Writers slated for 'Bridget Jones' novels
2.
In a 2001 interview with the BBC, after she had won the WHSmith Book Award for fiction, Binchy described the five rejections she received for her first novel as "a slap in the face".