2025 Round Up: Favourite Debut FictionUnpublished

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"A beautiful and subversive take on the afterlife, as razor-sharp as it is deeply moving." --Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Amerie's dazzling, satirical adult debut tells the story...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Alice Austen uses her considerable gifts to remind us that the past and the present are more connected than we wish to believe, and that vigilance, loyalty and art hold the key to survival. This is a beautiful and deeply engaging novel." -- Ann Patchett, #1...

Combining the political intrigue of She Who Became the Sun with the gorgeous world-building of Children of Blood and Bone, Birth of a Dynasty is the start of a thrilling epic fantasy trilogy centered around three families' fight for power in Ahkebulin, a land where magic...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * BUZZFEED BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "[An] entrancing new voice . . . Aaron John Curtis will be your new literary obsession." --Marion Winik, The Boston Globe "An inspired novel by an author whose voice absolutely sizzles on...

"Sweet and sexy and satisfying enough to make me almost forget there were actual lives at stake." - Alicia Thompson, USA Today bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers Brooklyn 99 meets The Charm Offensive in this sparkling...

This atmospheric coming-of-age tale follows Ben, a sensitive boy struggling to unravel his family history while caught in the vortex of other people's lives. Vancouver Island, 1875. Three-year-old Ben comes to live with Agda and her volatile husband James in their small...

REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK | NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named a Best Book of 2025 by Time, NPR, Goodreads, and others. "[A] propulsive puzzle of a novel." --The New York Times Book Review "This story swept me away with its big...

"A riotous novel about a farewell party that celebrates all of life's emotions--big and small--while marking the arrival of an exciting new voice in fiction." --Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants For readers of Less and...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * In the first book of a sizzling dystopian romance series, psychic gifts are a death sentence and there are rules to survival: Trust no one. Lie to everyone. And whatever you do, don't fall for your greatest enemy.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Cool and concise; a talent to watch." --Jay McInerney author of Bright Lights, Big City "You're going to get papercuts, you're going to turn the pages so fast." --Brad Thor, Today A gripping debut from...

THE INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "A quietly moving and intimate tale about family mysteries in a small town." --People magazine "We'll make a list. A list of all the people and things we see that are suspicious. And then... we'll investigate them." Twelve-year-old Miv is...

A mind-bending speculative thriller where past lives collide with present danger and the truth follows you across every timeline. Federal agent Grant Lukather works in a shadow division of Homeland Security known only as Predictive Analytics, a unit trained to...

The story of a runaway mother's ten days of freedom--and the pain, desire, longing, and wonder we find on the messy road to enlightenment--from Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes. "The White Hot has the effect of pressing your hand to a barbed live wire. April's is one...

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY | AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! 2025 BOOK OF THE YEAR AS FEATURED IN THE INDEPENDENT, THE TIMES, THE SUNDAY TIMES, THE GUARDIAN, COSMOPOLITAN (UK), WOMEN'S HEALTH (UK), AND IRISH...

For fans of American War and Cloud Atlas, a hauntingly beautiful and prescient debut novel set in a future where a renamed China is the sole global superpower and citizens can record and transfer memories between minds. When I was a boy, my mother used to...

"A dark and endlessly enchanting fairy tale.... I adored every page."--#1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid An instant USA Today bestseller!Most Anticipated at Goodreads | Medium | LGBTQReads | Reactor | and more! ...

In northern Uganda in the 1990s, girls as young as eleven were abducted from schools and homes by the Lord's Resistance Army and thrust into the horrors of war. Facing long, perilous treks, gun battles, and underage marriages, while forced to be pawns in political machinations they did not...

*A NATIONAL BESTSELLER* "Fans of The White Lotus and Knives Out will gobble up this whip-smart whodunit... Good luck solving this especially twisty mystery before the big reveal--you'll need it."--Marie Claire  "The Riptons are American...

A SHELF AWARENESS BEST BOOK OF 2025 * A CBC BOOKS BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOK OF 2025 * A CRIMEREADS BEST BOOK OF 2025 The natural enemy of a Korean is another Korean. When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford,...

2025 CIBA Booksellers' List Selection A feminist gothic tale with a tough-as-nails female protagonist who must find her elderly aunt, long suspected of being a witch. Madeline is missing. Ordered to find her, Madeline's estranged niece Fade must return to the lonely...

From debut author Emily Yu-Xuan Qin comes a snarky urban fantasy novel inspired by Chinese and First Nation mythology and bursting with wit, compelling characters, and LGBTQIA+ representation Readers of Seanan McGuire, Ilona Andrews, and Ben Aaronovitch will devour this gory story...

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK: "A breathtaking debut about family, identity, and love across generations." --REESE WITHERSPOON "Eliana Ramage will break your heart and take you to the stars. From painfully accurate depictions of adolescence to effortless jumps through time...

For fans of Alison Espach's The Wedding People and Dolly Alderton's Good Material, a delectable comedy of manners about cooking, ambition, and friendship set in the food world as a young and socially awkward writer takes a job ghostwriting the cookbook for a famous (and...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A July Indie Next Pick * "A strikingly original and deeply moving debut." --People * "Begins with such a gasp-inducing twist that it's almost impossible to describe." --Real Simple * "The literary book of the summer." --Sarah Gelman, CBS...

A queer Palestinian refugee plans to come out at his elaborate birthday dinner party in this tragicomic modern reimagining of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Firas Dareer wakes up on his twenty-third birthday with a sense of purpose: today he'll jump from a Stage 3 to a...

A delirious and gripping story of fatherhood and masculinity, told through the reimagined Greek myth of Daedalus, Icarus, King Minos, Ariadne, and the Minotaur. Daedalus of Crete is many things: The greatest architect in the world. The constructor of the Labyrinth that...

The Witcher meets Howl's Moving Castle in this debut original faerie tale of revenge, redemption, and friendship--for fans of T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and cozy fantasy with a dash of gritty adventure. The night Lyssa Cadogan's brother was...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Not all hauntings are confined to houses With the mounting terror of the German Blitz on London in 1940, thousands of British "guest children" are sent abroad to escape the bombing. Among them are Michael and Frances Hawksby, who are shipped off to Canada to stay...

"Turpeinen matches the heights of Andrea Barrett" in this sweeping and intimate tale about a fateful encounter between man and nature spanning three centuries and linked by a long-extinct denizen of the northern oceans (Publishers Weekly starred review).   In...

A New York Times Notable Book. One of Time's 100 Must-Read Book of 2025. Summer's Best Beach Reads by The New York Times * Books You Should Read This July by New York magazine * Books We're Most Excited About by Today * Best Beach...

LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2026 INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER One of NPR's Books We Love for 2025 For fans of Bunny and Yellowface, this razor-sharp debut thriller blends biting satire with chilling suspense, as a young woman steps...