Twelve novels were selected for the annual Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, Best Published Novel, longlist. The Prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English.

Niso Smith, Founder of The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation, commented:

‘Adventure is about possibility, taking chances, opening your mind and often your heart. We don’t always have a choice whether to take the adventure or not, it takes us. Each of these books fizz with the energy of unexpected adventure. They will transport you and teach you something new about the way you see the world.’

The Foundation encourages readers to select the one that appeals to them most, then read, share and recommend. Download a copy of the longlist poster to show your support and share in your library, bookshop, or in your living room window:

Download: 2022 Longlist Poster, Portrait

Download: 2022 Longlist Poster, Landscape

Find out more about the twelve books in the running for the £10,000 award:

Rosie Andrews THE LEVIATHAN (Raven Books)

SHE IS AWAKE...

Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.

Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.

Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.

Rory Clements THE MAN IN THE BUNKER (Bonnier Books UK)

Germany, late summer 1945 - The war is over but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant.

Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found - and many people believe he is alive. Newspapers are full of stories reporting sightings and theories. Even Stalin, whose own troops captured the bunker, has told President Truman he believes the former Führer is not dead. Day by day, American and British intelligence officers subject senior members of the Nazi regime to gruelling interrogation in their quest for their truth.

Enter Tom Wilde - the Cambridge professor and spy sent in to find out the truth…

Richard Cullen OATH BOUND (Head of Zeus)

First in an action-packed historical series featuring Danish warrior Styrkar, and his journey through the violent Norman Conquest.

Hastings, 1066. Styrkar the Dane stumbles wounded and delirious from the corpse-strewn battlefield of Senlac Hill. He has watched his king butchered at the hands of foreign knights, seen his countrymen defeated in battle, and he will not stop until there is a reckoning.

Styrkar embarks on a bloody quest to avenge his dead master, becoming an outlaw in the wilds and earning a fearsome reputation. When a Breton knight seeks to track down this fugitive and make his own name, he can little envisage the task he has set himself. For Styrkar, the Red Wolf, last surviving housecarl to King Harold Godwinson, will carve the story of his vengeance in Frankish flesh... or die in the attempt.

The champion of a dead king has nothing left to lose... And nothing more to fear.

Chris Hadfield THE APOLLO MURDERS (Quercus)

1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny module, a quarter of a million miles from home. A quarter of a million miles from help.

As Russian and American crews sprint for a secret bounty hidden away on the lunar surface, old rivalries blossom and the political stakes are stretched to breaking point back on Earth. Houston flight controller Kazimieras 'Kaz' Zemeckis must do all he can to keep the NASA crew together, while staying one step ahead of his Soviet rivals. But not everyone on board Apollo 18 is quite who they appear to be.

Full of fascinating technical detail, twists and tension, The Apollo Murders puts you right there in the moment. Experience the dark majesty of space, the fierce G-forces of launch and the rush of holding on to the outside of a spacecraft travelling at 17,000 mph, as told by a former Commander of the International Space Station who has done all of those things in real life.

Kim Hughes OPERATION BLACK KEY (Simon & Schuster UK)

THE ENEMY IS CLOSE TO HOME . . .

Left reeling from the disappearance of his daughter and ex-wife, Staff Sergeant Dom Riley is a haunted man. After months of investigating, he has exhausted nearly all leads in his hunt for answers.

As Riley decides to make one final, desperate push for the truth, it emerges that multiple bombs have been located on board a civilian cruise ship and he is thrown into action in the middle of the ocean.

With little information on the person behind the threat other than the alias BaseHeart, Riley must keep his head together if he has any chance of neutralizing the threat. And it’s not long until the first bomb detonates.

But it’s not the journey, nor the bombs themselves, that pose the real danger. In fact, in travelling halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, Riley will ultimately learn that the enemy is much closer to home…

Giles Kristian WHERE BLOOD RUNS COLD (Bantam Press, Transworld Publishers)

Erik Amdahl and his spirited daughter, Sofia, have embarked on a long-promised cross-country ski trip deep into Norway's arctic circle. For Erik, it's the chance to bond properly with his remaining daughter following a tragic accident. For Sofia, it's the proof she needs that her father does care.

Then, far from home in this snowbound wilderness, with night falling and the mercury plummeting, an accident sends them in search of help - and shelter. Nearby is the home of a couple - members of Norway's indigenous Sami people - who they've met before, and who welcome them in. Erik is relieved. He believes the worst is over. He thinks that Sofia is now safe. He could not be more wrong. He and Sofia are not the old couple's only visitors that night - and soon he and Sofia will be running for their lives . . .

...and beneath the swirling light show of the Northern Lights, a desperate fight ensues - of man against man, of man against nature - a fight for survival that plays out across the snow and ice.

A story of endurance and of the desperate, instinctive will to survive, of a father's love for his child, of knowing when to let go - and of a daughter's determination to prove herself worthy of that love, Where Blood Runs Cold is a pulse-racing thriller from a master storyteller.

John Marrs THE VACATION (Pan, Pan Macmillan)

How far would you run to escape your past?

Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A paradise on earth.

Tourists flock to the golden coast and the promise of Hollywood.

But for eight strangers at a beach front hostel, there is far more on their mind than an extended vacation.

All of them are running from something. And they all have secrets they’d kill to keep . . .

The Vacation is a compulsive, holiday-set thriller from John Marrs, the author of The One, now a Netflix Original Series.

T.L. Mogford THE PLANT HUNTER (Welbeck Publishing Group)

1867. King's Road, Chelsea, is a sea of plant nurseries, catering to the Victorian obsession with rare and exotic flora. But each of the glossy emporiums is fuelled by the dangerous world of the plant hunters – daring adventurers sent into uncharted lands in search of untold wonders to grace England's finest gardens.

Harry Compton is as far from a plant hunter as one could imagine – a salesman plucked from the obscurity of the nursery growing fields to become 'the face that sold a thousand plants'.

But one small act of kindness sees him inherit a precious gift – a specimen of a fabled tree last heard of in The Travels of Marco Polo, and a map.

Seizing his chance for fame and fortune, Harry sets out to make his mark. But where there is wealth there is corruption, and soon Harry is fleeing England, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing up the Yangtze alongside a young widow – both in pursuit of the plant that could transform both their lives forever.

Chibundu Onuzo SANKOFA (Virago, Little, Brown Book Group)

Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother - the only parent who raised her - is dead.

Searching through her mother's belongings, she finds clues about the West African father she never knew. Through reading his student diary, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London, she discovers that he eventually became the president (some would say the dictator) of a small nation in West Africa - and he is still alive. She decides to track him down and so begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children.

Lizzie Pook MOONLIGHT AND THE PEARLER’S DAUGHTER (Mantle, Pan Macmillan)

1886, BANNIN BAY, AUSTRALIA.

The Brightwell family has sailed from England to make their new home in Western Australia. Ten-year-old Eliza knows little of what awaits them on these shores beyond shining pearls and shells like soup plates – the things her father has promised will make their fortune.

Ten years later and Charles Brightwell, now the bay’s most prolific pearler, goes missing from his ship while out at sea. Whispers from the townsfolk suggest mutiny and murder, but headstrong Eliza, convinced there is more to the story, refuses to believe her father is dead, and it falls to her to ask the questions no one else dares consider.

But in a town teeming with corruption, prejudice and blackmail, Eliza soon learns that the truth can cost more than pearls, and she must decide just how much she is willing to pay – and how far she is willing to go – to find it...

Anuradha Roy THE EARTHSPINNER (Mountain Leopard Press, Welbeck Publishing Group)

When he wakes up, Elango knows his life has changed. His dream will consume him until he gives it shape. The potter must create a terracotta horse whose beauty will be reason enough for its existence. Yet he cannot pin down from where it has galloped into his mind – the Mahabharata, or Trojan legend, or his anonymous potter-ancestors. Nor can he say where it belongs – in a temple compound, within a hotel lobby, or with Zohra, whom he despairs of ever marrying.

The astral, indefinable force driving Elango towards forbidden love and creation has unleashed other currents. A neighbourhood girl begins her bewildering journey into adulthood, developing a complicated relationship with him. A lost dog adopts him, taking over his heart. Meanwhile, his community is driven by inflammatory passions of a different kind. Here, people, animals, and even the gods live on a knife's edge and the consequences of daring to dream against the tide are cataclysmic.

Moving between India and England, The Earthspinner reflects the many ways in which the East encounters the West. It breathes new life into ancient myths, giving allegorical shape to the war of fanaticism against reason and the imagination. It is an intricate, wrenching novel about the changed ways of loving and living in the modern world.

Jonathan Spencer EMPEROR OF DUST (Canelo)

The sands of Egypt carry whispers of rebellion… The much-anticipated third novel in the William John Hazzard series, following Lords of the Nile.

Egypt, September 1798. After tragedy at the Battle of the Nile, Hazzard is possessed by a dark vengeance: with the marines of 9 Company and their Bedouin allies he scours the Nile Delta for his nemesis, the French spy-catcher Citizen Derrien.

However, among the sacred ibis and ever-shifting sands, Hazzard catches wind of something far more deadly: the stirrings of revolt in Cairo, the outbreak of plague, and the cold hand of Admiralty Intelligence. When riot explodes in the capital, Hazzard fears he is simply too late.

Abandoned by the French Government, Napoleon and his army are now trapped in Egypt. When Bonaparte discovers that Al-Djezzar ‘the Butcher’ of Acre is gathering his forces to attack, he accepts the challenge.

Riding with the Mamluk and the beautiful Shajar al-Durr, Hazzard engages French cavalry in the shadow of Ozymandias in ancient Thebes – and the Admiralty calls upon him once more as Napoleon launches his bloody crusade on Syria and the Holy Land to become the new Emperor in the East.

Six of these titles will progress to the shortlist and then on to the 2022 judging panel. Have you read any? We will invite you to join a public vote over the summer with the reader’s choice equating to one seat on the judging panel. Tell us what you think using #AdventureWritingPrize.