Cheshire Novel Prize Long-list 2025

Hi Everyone,

Thank you to everyone who entered this year. It was a tough decision, but we finally decided on 15 standout titles across a variety of genres, and I am now delighted to announce our 2025 longlist:

1.     The Theory of love and Loss – Book Club

2.     My Dark Bowered Queen – Dark Academia

3.     The Checkout Girl – Commercial Fiction

4.     Troll – Crime/thriller

5.     Blood lines – YA/Fantasy

6.     Blood Floral – Crime/Thriller

7.     The Thin Places – Fantasy

8.     The Devil’s Uniform – Historical Fiction

9.     By Their Rules – Phycological Suspense

10.  The House in Order – Ghost Story

11.  Anatomy of a Killing – Crime/Thriller

12.  The Voices in Our Heads – Psychological Suspense

13.  The City of Lost Words – Fantasy

14.  The Bitches of Bliss – Book Club

15.  Salt, Water and Air – Literary Fiction

I am sure you will join me in congratulating the successful writers on this massive achievement. Our judges will now decide the shortlist which will be announced at 2pm on the 1st of October 2025.

The winner and Highly Commended will be announced at 2pm on the 5th of November 2025.
Feedback will go out until the 1st of January 2026.

If you made our Top 100, you will receive an email shortly after the longlist announcement and so please do check your junk/spam folder as we don’t list the names of the Top 100 on our website.

As you know, we are taking a break from both the adult and Kids’  prizes in 2026, but we will be back in 2027 with  a bang and so do make sure you sign up to our newsletter to get all the latest news and information.

We also have some exciting news for 2026 which is we will be offering Free 2026! What this means for you is we will be running monthly free tutorials and You-Tube videos plus Instagram lives in 2026 to say thank you for hanging in there with us! More details will follow in December 2025!

I often get asked why some novels made the long-list and some did not:

1.     An immediate strong and compelling voice; we need to know who is telling the story.

2.     A strong sense of time, place and setting in the opening chapters plus seasons always help too to add atmosphere.

3.     Good worldbuilding particularly for fantasy, dystopia and science fiction.

4.     A little bit of status quo so we can see the character as they are now before the inciting incident happens to ignite the engine of the story and change your character’s world as they know it.

5.     Conflict.

6.     Stakes.

7.     Ideally the inciting incident happens in the first 1000 -2000 words.

8.     A quest – the journey your characters go on after the inciting incident changes their status quo.

9.     Propulsive story – whether that be character driven or plot driven depending on genre. We need something to keep us wanting to turn the pages.

10.  Profluence – cause and effect of events that happen. For example instead of having a list of things that happen (this happens and then this happens) we like to see, this happens and then BECAUSE of this, this happens and then BECAUSE of this, this happens etc. This was originated by John Gardner in his book, ‘The Art of Fiction.’

11.  Good description that adds depth and texture and moves the story on.

12.  Dialogue that moves the story on and feels authentic

13.  Questions raised for the reader to keep us reading on!

14.  Some questions answered in the first 5000 words and more raised!

15.  Does the synopsis start where the story starts?

16.  Does the synopsis have a clear plot that is outlined with spoilers and the ending explained?

17.  Good character arcs shown in the synopsis?

18.  Can you show us in the synopsis how the character has changed?

Now to the famous prologue. Although they do have a great place in fiction when done well and can be used brilliantly to foreshadow plot events or characterisation, try to ensure if using one that it’s not a means to provide tons of background information or exposition to your story (rather than to slowly introduce these elements by weaving them into scenes throughout the book). Prologues also need to fit in somewhere to your main plot and need to be relevant. Sometimes writers use a prologue to throw us right into the middle of the action but if we don’t know the characters yet or their status quo, sometimes it can be hard to care. There are so many examples of writers that use prologues brilliantly. There is a brilliant book called "If on a winters night a traveler" by Italo Calvino which deals with the beauty of prologues and the beginnings of books, and it contains about a dozen of them if you want more information.

Autumn Summer School 2025

If you want to learn how to craft your novel from start to finish, I  will be teaching the last summer school until 2027, starting on the 25th of September 2025. This is a live taught class by me over 6 weeks. For more details please click on the link below. Places are limited and so please do book early. This closes on the 12th of September for registration, so you don’t have long!

https://cheshirenovelprize.com/summer-school

Finally don’t forget to add entry@cheshirenovelprize.com to your address book in order for you to receive your feedback from this year’s prize. Feedback will go out until January 2026, but we aim to get it out to you as soon as possible but please do be patient as we have a lot to get through!

Kind regards,

 Sara