Hooray! It’s time to announce the longlist for our Best Novel Opening for Children or Young Adults 2022 competition.

Thank you for your patience while our dedicated reading team have read and re-read your fantastic stories. They enjoyed every submission and found it exceptionally difficult to decide between them. The standard of writing was so high! A massive thank you to our team for their time and commitment.
Whether your story has been longlisted or not, you are all talented writers with great ideas and we urge you to keep writing and sending your words out into the world. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to read your work.
Best Novel Opening for Children or Young Adults 2022 Longlist
A Drop of Sun
A Fish Out of Water
Across The Moonlight Bridge
Carrigan Carter and the Map of Mystery
Death Dreamer
Disaster Tourist
Drowning the Light
I Am Now
Marvin’s Gift
Metamorphosis
Not With a Bang
Quark Spark and The Secrets of Superheroes
Railers
Sam Sifter: Shapeshifter
Southern Belles
The Chronicles of Cora Gunn
The Girl Who Met a Raven
The Heart That Wasn’t Just Caleb’s
The Penny Prophet
The Watchers
Truth Is Not A Solid Thing
Our highly respected judge, Literary Agent Amber Caravéo, will now read the longlisted entries and decide the top 10 stories, including an overall winner. Results will be published on 27th January, 2023.
If you’re one of our longlistees feel free to shout from the rooftops, but please don’t identify the title of your story on social media while judging is still taking place. Best of luck!
Thank you all for sharing your marvellous stories with us.