New year, new books to read... but what of the new novelists, the debuts that come out every year? That's why we've put together a list of some of our favourite debut novels of the last few years. Enjoy these writers at the very start of their career because each one of them will be going on to bigger things. Some of them already have.
Debut novels
New year, new books to read... but what of the new novelists, the debuts that come out every year? That's why we've put together a list of some of our favourite debut novels of the last few years. Enjoy these writers at the very start of their career because each one of them will be going on to bigger things. Some of them already have.
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Hope: A Tragedy
PicadorHilarious and gruesome by turns, Auslander's excursion into the mind of a dedicated paranoiac and self-obsessed neurotic fully merits an award for Book of the Year -
Submarine
PenguinMeet Oliver Tate, 15. Convinced that his father is depressed ('Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner') and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher. -
The Art of Fielding
Fourth EstateThe Art of Fielding is the newest heavyweight contender for Great American novel of the world. It arrives on a garlanded float of its own mythology (there’s a companion book detailing the struggles to get it published) and has garnered... -
Saraswati Park
Fourth EstateSaraswati Park is a book about loss and longing, love and regret. The prose sparkles like late afternoon sunshine and the characters hook you from their first introduction. This is a very special novel from a very special new talent. -
The Night Circus
Harvill SeckerA magical whimsical intense rollercoaster journey through a turn of the century circus filled with mystery, intrigue and true love. -
God's Own Country
PenguinReplete with dialect (‘I glegged another look at my watch’), Raisin’s dark tale has an unhinged quality that never strays from its perfectly realised world. Nothing is superfluous in this tense, unsettling and at times very funny novel. -
The Still Point
Portobello BooksAmy Sackville demonstrates that she is the mistress of narrative and structure in this stunningly crafted tale of icebergs and splintering marriages. -
Narcopolis
FaberNarcopolis is dark, set in dank rooms, embued with the stench of human sweat, vomit, and desperation. Narcopolis is narrated by an opium pipe. Narcopolis will hypnotise you. -
The Submission
William HeinnemanThe Submission walks a fine line between melodrama and emotional powerhouse and manages to succeed through the strength of its characters and what they represent. What emerges is a book that is about the human condition as much as it... -
After the Fire, A Still Small Voice
VintageA sweet, sun-drenched, heart-felt love affair. Evie Wyld's debut novel slips across hard-edged themes of masculine expression, war, paternal relationships and grief with such beauty and ease that it feels like she is already an old hand.
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