LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A former postwoman whose book about loss and relationships was rejected by 15 publishers won the 2007 Costa First Novel Award on Wednesday.

"What Was Lost", by Catherine O'Flynn, which has already been on the Orange and Man Booker long lists and featured on radio, was one of five category winners announced on Wednesday from among 553 entries.

The five, each of whom gets 5,000 pounds, will now be entered in the 2007 Costa Book of the Year, the winner of which will be announced on Jan. 22.

Other category winners of the former Whitbread Book Awards are Scottish novelist and comedian A. L. Kennedy whose fifth book "Day" took the novel award, and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore whose "Young Stalin" won the biography award.

Jean Sprackland won the poetry award with "Tilt" and Ann Kelley won the children's book award with "The Bower Bird".

Since the introduction of the Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won seven times by a novel, four times by a first novel, five times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and once by a children's book.

The 2006 Costa Book of the Year was won by Stef Penney for "The Tenderness of Wolves."