The Costa Book Award is the only major UK book prize open solely to authors resident in the UK and Ireland. The top prize is now worth a whopping £35,000 and will be announced tomorrow evening in London.

The odds, from bookmakers William Hill have debut novelist, Andrew Michael Hurley, winner of the Costa First Novel Award, as favourite for the Costa Book of the Year at 6-4 with The Loney: a slow-burn gothic horror story the judges called ‘as close to the perfect first novel as you can get’.

In second place is novelist and 1995 Book of the Year winner, Kate Atkinson, with A God in Ruins: the story of Teddy Todd – would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband and father – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century, winner of the Costa Novel Award at 3-1.

Close behind in third place is historian and writer Andrea Wulf, winner of the Costa Biography Award, for The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science at 4-1. Biography won the 2014 Book of the Year with H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, her personal account of training a goshawk as a way of dealing with grief following her father’s death.

In joint fourth place at 5-1 are Young Adult fiction and children’s writer Frances Hardinge, winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award for The Lie Tree: a Victorian murder mystery; and Scottish poet, writer and musician Don Paterson for his latest collection, 40 Sonnets, winner of the Costa Poetry Award, which the judges called ‘a tour de force by a poet at the height of his powers..’