2024 Round Up: Favourite Debut Fiction

Resolve to read new authors. In 2024, these authors debuted with their first novels.

Updated January 8, 2025
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I might be in trouble
Aleman, Daniel 
Paper Book
AN INDIE NEXT PICK AND A LIBRARYREADS SELECTION A suspenseful dark comedy about a struggling writer who wakes up to find his date from the night before dead--and must then decide how far he's willing to go to spin the misadventure into his next big book.
This great hemisphere a novel
Askaripour, Mateo 
Paper Book
Despite the odds, Candace, a young invisible woman, has done everything right her entire life - school, university, and now a highly sought-after apprenticeship with one of the Northwestern Hemisphere's premier inventors, a non-invisible man belonging to the dominant population who is as eccentric...
Holiday country
Atrek, İnci 
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A seductive and lyrical debut following a young woman's dangerous summer romance during an idyllic vacation on the Aegean coast "A gorgeous exploration." --Raven Leilani, author of Luster "A beautiful novel from a promising...
The Ministry of Time
Bradley, Kaliane 
Paper Book
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF SUMMER 2024 * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR SCIENCE FICTION * A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, VANITY FAIR, ESQUIRE, VOX, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING,...
The gardener's plot a mystery
Benoit, Deborah J. 
Paper Book
A woman helps set up a community garden in the Berkshires, only to find a body in one of the plots on opening day. After life threw Maggie Walker a few curveballs, she's happy to be back in the small, Berkshires town where she spent so much time as a child. Marlowe holds many...
Sky Full of Elephants
Campbell, Cebo
Paper Book
"Bold and imaginative." --Tananarive Due "This stunning allegory will spark much discussion." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A truly powerful and riveting story." --Booklist In a world without white people,...
Great expectations a novel
Cunningham, Vinson 
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award * A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man's life in this "coming of age story that captures the soul of America" (The Washington Post), the debut novel from The New Yorker<...
Eleanore of Avignon a novel
DeLozier, Elizabeth 
Paper Book
A Library Reads Pick!  An Amazon Best Book of the Month! An Aardvark Book Club Pick!  Rich with unforgettable characters, gorgeously drawn, and full of captivating historical drama, Eleanore of Avignon is the story of a healer who risks her...
The stranger at the wedding a novel
Gauntlett, A. E. 
Paper Book
Before love at first sight, there were things no one saw. Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. After crossing paths on morning commutes, they connect at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. Each recognizes something in the other, though...
The laundryman's boy a novel
Lee, Edward Y. C. 
Paper Book
Fall 1913, St. Catharines, Ontario. Thirteen-year-old Hoi Wing Woo, the son of a scholar, is forced to give up his dreams of an education when he is sent to work in a Chinese laundry in Canada. Hoi Wing is immediately thrust into relentless, mind-numbing toil, washing clothes by hand for...
The teller of small fortunes
Leong, Julie 
Paper Book
AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and wonderful debut fantasy, perfect for readers of Travis Baldree and Sangu Mandanna. Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with...
Arthur and Teddy are coming out
Love, Ryan 
Paper Book
The feel-good read of 2024. Perfect for fans of Mike Gayle, Beth O'Leary and Alice Oseman's Heartstopper. Selected as one of the Independent's 19 debut authors set to make their mark in 2023 'Gentle, honest and beautifully authentic' Julietta...
The champagne letters a novel
MacIntosh, Kate 
Paper Book
Perfect for fans of bubbly wine and Kristin Harmel, this historical fiction novel follows Mme. Clicquot as she builds her legacy, and the modern divorcée who looks to her letters for inspiration. Reims, France, 1805: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot has just lost her beloved husband but is...
Lenny Marks gets away with murder
Mayne, Kerryn 
Paper Book
Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life. She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is...
Death in the air a novel
Murali, Ram 
Paper Book
"Glamorous, gripping, absolutely heaps of fun. I loved this."--Lucy Foley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List and The Paris Apartment "Unexpected delights await on every page of Ram Murali's impressive and captivating debut. Crisp as a gin and tonic and...
Sunshine and spice
Palit, Aurora 
Paper Book
Naomi Kelly will do anything to make her new brand consulting business a success. When she lands a career saving contract to rebrand the Mukherjee family's failing local bazaar, she knows there can be no mistakes. But as the 'oops' baby of a free-spirited Bengali mother, Naomi's lack of connection...
Freedom is a feast a novel
Puyana, Alejandro 
Paper Book
Winner of the Westport Prize for Literature A multigenerational, Latin American saga of love and revolution in which a rebel who commits a youthful betrayal receives a late-life chance at redemption and a new life: "a tour de force" from "the new master" (Luis...
The blueprint a novel
Rashad, Rae Giana 
Paper Book
"The Blueprint is an astounding work, an unflinching portrait of misogyny and racism in a speculative world terrifyingly close to our own. Rae Giana Rashad chronicles the generational ghosts of womanhood, and how we understand ourselves through the stories of those we come from, in a way I...
The serpent and the wolf
Robinson, Rebecca, 1995- author. 
Paper Book
Perfect for fans of Raven Kennedy and Thea Guanzon, Rebecca Robinson's thrilling romantasy debut combines high-stakes political intrigue and a steamy, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance. All her life, Vaasa Kozár has been sharpened into a blade. After losing her...
This cursed house
Sandeen, Del 
Paper Book
One of Esquire's Best Horror Books of 2024 One of Crime Reads' Best Gothic Novels of 2024 In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth:...
The Crescent Moon Tearoom a novel
Sivinski, Stacy 
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER An "impossibly endearing" (Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author) debut novel about three clairvoyant sisters who face an unexpected twist of Fate at the bottom of their own delicate porcelain cups. Ever since the untimely...
Five-star stranger a novel
Tang, Kat 
Paper Book
An exciting and "inventive" (HuffPost) debut novel about a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app--a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or companion of any kind--who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself. Would you hire someone to be the...
Hard by a great forest
Vardiashvili, Leo 
Paper Book
ONE OF NPR's "BOOKS WE LOVE" 2024 NAMED ONE OF THE OBSERVER'S 10 BEST NEW NOVELISTS FOR 2024 "The stakes could barely be higher in Leo Vardiashvili's propulsive page-turner...It's a spellbinding achievement."--The Financial Times "Has a...
Catalina a novel
Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla 
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the...
The safekeep a novel
Wouden, Yael van der 
Paper Book
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE * Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize * A Best Book of 2024: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time, The Economist, The Globe and Mail<...

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