Debut Novel

All great fiction writers start with a first novel - the seed of a flourishing literary career. Read and enjoy! Plant a seed, read!

Updated May 17, 2026
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua.
Paper Book
The most widely read book in modern African literature, presented here in stunning hardcover, tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around a fearless Igbo warrior in Nigeria in the late 1800s, before and after the European colonization of the continent. ...
The Martian chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphors -- of clear crystal pillars and fossil seas where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here that the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize and to grow and learn -- rushing from a...
Jane Eyre
Brontë, Charlotte
Paper Book
Neuromancer
Gibson, William
Paper Book
Red harvest
Hammett, Dashiell
Paper Book
From one of the great pioneers of detective stories, a classic novel reissued with a new introduction by S.A. Cosby The steadfast and sturdy Continental Op has been summoned to the town of Personville--known as Poisonville--a dusty mining community splintered by competing...
Catch-22
Heller, Joseph.
Paper Book
The dog stars
Heller, Peter
Ebook
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the author of The River: In this "end-of-the-world novel more like a rapturous beginning" (San Francisco Chronicle), Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. His gripping story is "an ode to...
The outsiders
Hinton, S. E.
Paper Book
Now a Broadway musical Inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's iconic film Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read First published in 1967, S. E. Hinton's novel was an...
The snow child : a novel
Ivey, Eowyn.
Paper Book
In this magical debut, a couple's lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep. Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart -- he...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper.
Paper Book
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made...
The heart is a lonely hunter
McCullers, Carson
Paper Book
The beloved classic that turned Carson McCullers into an overnight literary sensation and one of the Modern Library's top 20 novels of the 20th century. "A remarkable book...From the opening page, brilliant in its establishment of mood, character, and suspense, the book takes...
The time traveler's wife
Niffenegger, Audrey.
Paper Book
A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books.     "If you...
The thirteenth tale : a novel
Setterfield, Diane.
Paper Book
When Margaret Lea opened the door to the past, what she confronted was her destiny.All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and...
The help
Stockett, Kathryn.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film--a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't--nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Aibileen is a...
The secret history
Tartt, Donna.
Paper Book
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME * INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch. ...
Maisie Dobbs : a novel
Winspear, Jacqueline
Paper Book
"A female investigator every bit as brainy and battle-hardened as Lisbeth Salander." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air, on Maisie Dobbs Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.