A SALISBURY author has been shortlisted for the Kindle Storyteller Award.

Andy Maslen is in the running to win a £20,000 cash prize and a marketing campaign with Amazon. His crime thriller Hit and Done was one of five books shortlisted from thousands of entries.

He said: “When I heard I’d been shortlisted for the Kindle Storyteller Award, I was knocked sideways. The fact that readers play a pivotal role in selecting the titles is fantastic, as they’re the people I care most about pleasing with my books.”

The UK Kindle Storyteller Award is in its second year and recognises newly published work in the English language across any genre.

The prize was open to all authors who published their book through Kindle Direct Publishing on Amazon.co.uk between May 1 and August 31, 2018.

The panel of judges includes journalist, author and TV personality Lorraine Kelly; best-selling author LJ Ross; Irish author and founder of The Alliance of Independent Authors, Orna Ross; last year’s winner of the Kindle Storyteller Award, David Leadbeater; Metro’s books reviewer and chairman of judges, Claire Allfree, editorial director for Amazon Publishing, Laura Deacon and Claire Johnson, UK head of Kindle Content.

Claire Allfree said: “This year’s shortlist endorses the values of original, imaginative storytelling the prize seeks to celebrate and has given us an extremely wide selection of books - from Regency romance to a riotous sounding urban fantasy, from a backstage memoir by a classical musician to a novel written intriguingly from the point of view of someone who has passed away.”

The winner will be announced on October 3 at the Royal Society in London.