2025 Round Up: Favourite Debut Fiction

Resolve to read new authors. In 2025, these authors debuted with their first novels.

Updated January 9, 2026
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33 Place Brugmann
Austen, Alice
Paper Book
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...
The three lives of Cate Kay
Fagan, Kate (Sports writer)
Paper Book
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...
Silver elite
Francis, Dani
Paper Book
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.
Simultaneous
Heisserer, Eric
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 White Hot
Hudes, Quiara Alegria
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...
The names
Knapp, Florence
Paper Book
THE YEAR'S BREAKOUT NOVEL AND WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT--A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND READ WITH JENNA PICK "Dazzling. . . Knapp tirelessly and beautifully replicates not just loss and grief but endless rebirth and delight." --The Washington Post "Elegant. . ....
These memories do not belong to us : a constellation novel
Ma, Yiming
"Ma's brilliantly inventive These Memories Do Not Belong to Us weaves worlds around a central question: What happens when technology enables a totalitarian government to break into the last private frontiers of the internal mind? Chilling, poignant, and uncomfortably timely, Ma's braided memory...
The maiden and her monster
Martinez, Maddie
Paper Book
"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! ...
A killer wedding : a novel
O'Leary, Joan
*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...
To the moon and back : a novel
Ramage, Eliana
Paper Book
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...
Finding grace a novel
Rothschild, Loretta
Kill the beast
Swift, Serra
Paper Book
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...
Maggie; or, a man and a woman walk into a bar
Yee, Katie
Paper Book
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...

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