Last year it was my absolute pleasure to attend the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize awards in London where I had the most fabulous evening. My huge thanks to Charlotte Maddox for inviting me.
Today it’s my pleasure to take a look at 2025’s Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize shortlisted books and to add further thanks to Charlotte for sending me copies of them all so that I can read, share and recommend my favourites.
The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize
The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is a global prize that supports and celebrates the best adventure writing today. The Prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English. American, British, Filipina and Jamaican authors are represented on the shortlist.
Behind the Scenes
Novels are submitted by agents and publishers, and then read and reviewed by a volunteer panel of librarians and library staff from across the UK. This panel is responsible for selecting the long and shortlists with our ethos, ‘An Adventure for Everyone’, at the forefront of their minds.
The shortlist is now with the judging panel, comprising five experts in either the literature or adventure fields.
The 2025 judges are Nathan Gray, former high-risk test pilot and one of Britain’s most decorated military aviators; Keme Nzerem, journalist, filmmaker and co-founder of Opening Up The Outdoors; Francesca de Tores, author, academic and winner of the 2024 Adventure Writing Prize; and Corinne Turner, literary IP consultant and former Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications.
Alongside an online ‘Readers’ Vote’, which represents one seat on the judging panel, they will select the winning book.
The winner of the £10,000 award will be revealed on 11th September 2025 at a private reception in London, UK. The same event will also reveal the winners of the New Voices award, an editorial development programme for unpublished writers, and the Author of Tomorrow award for young writers.
The 2025 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize shortlist is:
Babylonia by Costanza Casati (Penguin Michael Joseph)
Ancient Assyria, 9th century BC. An orphan is raised on the outskirts of a brutal empire. Heir to a tragic prophecy, Semiramis dreams of wielding power and escaping her destiny.
Far away, a reluctant prince walks the corridors of his gilded palace in a city built by the gods. Ninus would rather spend his days in books and poetry than conquering the world of men. But when he meets Onnes, a broken, beautiful warrior, something awakens in them both.
That is until Semiramis arrives. A savage love soon erupts between them all. And before long, all three will be forced to learn the lesson of the gods – in Babylonia, you must bend the world to your will. What doesn’t bend, you break.
Babylonia is available for purchase here.
Sycorax by Nydia Hetherington (Quercus)
Born of the sun and moon, shaped by fire and malady, comes a young woman whose story has never been told . . .
They call her Sycorax. Seer. Sage. Sorceress.
Outcast by society and all alone in the world, Sycorax must find a way to understand her true nature. But as her powers begin to grow, so too do the suspicions of the local townspeople. For knowledge can be dangerous, and a woman’s knowledge is the most dangerous of all . . .
With a great storm brewing on the horizon, Sycorax finds herself in increasing peril – but will her powers save her, or will they spell the end for them all?
Sycorax is available for purchase here.
Redemption by Jack Jordan (Simon & Schuster)
‘Sometimes I wonder if I have it in me to kill someone . . . what my tipping point might be.’
AARON has just been released from jail after causing the death of a boy in a hit-and-run. Now a free man, all he wants to do is leave his troubled past behind him.
EVELYN, consumed by grief and rage, has been counting down the days until this moment. After eleven long years, she is finally able to exact the revenge her late son deserves.
TOBIAS knows what his wife is planning, and as they embark on a breathless pursuit across the Nevada desert, he is determined to do everything he can to save her from herself.
Even if it means protecting the man who killed their son.
Locked in a blood-soaked collision course, they’re about to find out what waits for them at the end of the road.
Redemption is available for purchase here.
A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay (Dialogue Books)
When the stones of her home begin to rattle and call out to her in the quiet of the night, Pauline Sinclair knows she will not live to see her 100th birthday.
From educating herself through stolen books to becoming one of the most successful ganja farmers in the area and raising a family, Pauline has lived a life on her own terms in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village.
Yet these whispering walls promise to topple the foundations of her security and exhume Pauline’s many buried secrets, including the mysterious disappearance of the man who came to claim the very land on which she built her home, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation.
Compelled to make peace before she dies, Pauline decides to leave the only home she has ever known on a final, desperate mission to uncover truths she could never have imagined…
Lyrical, funny, eerie and profound, A House for Miss Pauline tells a timely and nuanced tale, infused with the patois and natural beauty of Jamaica, which questions who owns the land on which our identities are forged.
A House for Miss Pauline is available for purchase here.
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao (Bantam, Transworld)
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just the chosen ones – those who are lost – will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike other customers. For he offers help, instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice – through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own – and risk making a choice she will never be able to take back.
Water Moon is available for purchase here.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
A wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion and the decisions we make in pursuit of belonging.
‘By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?’
Nadia is an academic who’s been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.
Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen.
Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.
Fundamentally is available for purchase here.
These six are in the running for the £10,000 award.
However, The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is as much about readers as it is about writers. The foundation aims to generate a conversation around the books that will lead to more readers for all of the authors on the shortlist, as well as more readers finding a new favourite book and author.
I have only read one of these fantastic sounding books so far – Redemption by Jack Jordan – and you’ll find my review here. It’s so exciting to have all the others on my TBR too now. As I took each one out of the box, I kept saying ‘Oh! That looks good!’ Indeed, I have a feeling that each of these books is going to transport me from recent events with the death of my 91 year-old mother and take me on journeys that will distract and entertain me in equal measure. I’m having considerable trouble deciding which one to read first. Is there one that appeals most to you and if so, why?
About The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation
The Prize is awarded by The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation, a charitable organisation established in 2015 by the late bestselling author Wilbur Smith and his wife, Niso. The Foundation empowers writers, promotes literacy and advances adventure writing as a genre, working to uplift, inspire and educate writers and readers of all ages across the world.
Wilbur Smith’s first book, When the Lion Feeds, was published in 1964 and he had a hugely successful career as an author. His books have sold over 140 million copies and are translated into 32 languages. Wilbur passed away in 2021, but the founder, his wife, Niso Smith, continues to support the Foundation to keep the adventure fiction flag flying.
For further information, visit the foundation website, or find them on Instagram, Twitter/X, and Facebook.
English (US) · 