Debut Novels by Authors You’ll Love

“Christine Smallwood’s debut novel is that rare thing: an intellectual page-turner that commands one’s attention completely from the first sentence to the final line.”—Andrew Martin, author of Early Work and Cool for America

“Gold Diggers takes a wincingly hilarious coming-of-age story, laces it with magical realism and a trace of satire, and creates a world that’s both achingly familiar and marvelously inventive…This is a dizzyingly original, fiercely funny, deeply wise novel about the seductive powers—and dangers—of borrowed ambition.” —Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

Bursting with bittersweet nostalgia, a funny, poignant, perfectly voiced novel that brilliantly captures what it’s like to be a teenage girl.

For fans of The Farewell, this graceful and indelible debut about love, grief, and family welcomes you into its pages and invites you to linger, staying with you long after you’ve closed its covers.

“Ailsa McFarlane’s prose combines the razor sharp truth telling of Ottessa Moshfegh with the troubled heart of Raymond Carver. I’ve never read anything quite like it.”—Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of The Third Rainbow Girl

A woman returns to her small southern hometown in the wake of her mother’s sudden death—only to find the past upended by stunning family secrets—in this intimate novel, written with deep compassion and sharp wit.

From novelist Laura Maylene Walter comes a bold and dazzling exploration of fate and female agency in a world very similar to our own—except that the markings on women’s bodies reveal the future.

The start of an exciting new historical mystery series set during the Harlem Renaissance from debut author Nekesa Afia.

“A high wire act of a novel that expertly balances the uncanny and quotidian moments of early motherhood. Yoder’s writing is graceful, funny and unnerving as hell.”–Jenny Offill

An essential and revelatory coming-of-age narrative from a thrilling new voice, Rainbow Milk follows nineteen-year-old Jesse McCarthy as he grapples with his racial and sexual identities against the backdrop of his Jehovah’s Witness upbringing.

Smart, sexy, and provocative, The Bachelor is also an absorbing coming-of-age tale that tells the story of finding one’s footing in love and art. If salvation can no longer be found in fame, can it still be found in romantic relationships?

A woman desperate to turn a new page heads to the Scottish coast and finds herself locked in a battle of wills with an infuriatingly aloof bookseller in this utterly heartwarming debut, perfect for readers of Evvie Drake Starts Over.

Ever since her journalist mother died on assignment, Marin has played it safe, refusing to set foot outside the state of Tennessee. Her wild-child younger sister, Sadie, has trotted the globe as a photographer, living off of art and adrenaline.  When Sadie returns from a tough assignment abroad and looks a little worse for wear, Marin reluctantly agrees to a sisters’ spa weekend on the tropical island of Saba. But her lifelong fear of travel is affirmed when Sadie misses the flight, Marin’s luggage gets mixed up with another passenger’s, and an episode of turbulence sends her hurtling  into the lap of Lucas Tsai, the handsome stranger who stole her sister’s seat.

A bighearted debut with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology (“Wildly entertaining” –Richard Russo)

A scintillating debut from a major new voice in fiction, Songs in Ursa Major is a love story set in 1969, alive with music, sex, and the trappings of fame.

A smart, sexy, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about ex-boyfriends, imperfect parents, friends with kids, and a man who disappears the moment he says “I love you.”

A dazzling novel–set in the early 1970s in New York and rural India, the story of a turbulent, unlikely romance, a harrowing account of the lasting horrors of the Second World War, and a searing examination of one man’s search for forgiveness and acceptance.

Old friends discover how much has changed–and how much has stayed the same–when they return to their seaside hometown in this clever and poignant novel by the New York Times bestselling author of From the Corner of the Oval.