Dazzling Debuts

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction Debut Novel prize, this fableistic, "beautifully crafted, poetic" debut novel about a sister trying to hold back her brother from the edge of the abyss is for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Tommy Orange (The New York Times Book Review). In the tourist town of Ciudad ... Read More about

A woman turns herself into a forest after long being co-opted to serve as the subject of her husband’s novels—this surrealist fable challenges traditional gender attitudes and exploitation in the literary world Nowatari Rui has long been the subject of her husband’s novels, depicted as a pure woman ... Read More about

"[Leech] is The Thing meets The Alienist . . . beautifully written and so strangely humane . . . I will follow this writer anywhere going forward." —Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl A surreal and horrifying debut, Hiron Ennes's Leech defies our understanding of identity, ... Read More about

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s 2022 First Novel Prize! “Belinda Huijuan Tang’s debut novel is a beautifully drawn, sensitively rendered portrait of a man desperately searching for his father—and for reconnection to the past and people he once knew and loved. Both rich in historical detail a ... Read More about

A NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR From debut author Shannon Bowring comes a novel of small town America that Pulitzer-winner Richard Russo calls, "measured, wise, and beautiful." In most small towns, the private is also public. In the town of Dalton, one local makes an unthinkable decision that leaves t ... Read More about

GMA BUZZ PICK • How do we find belonging when love is unrequited? A "gorgeously written debut" (Celeste Ng, best-selling author of Little Fires Everywhere) filled with jazz and soul, about the perennial temptations of dangerous love, told by the women who love Circus Palmer—trumpet player and old-sc ... Read More about