Here are the debut books that caught Debutiful’s eye this month. We think readers will find plenty to love among them.
To see our curated list of standout titles, check out our “12 Noteworthy Debut Books You Should Read This September.”
The Perils of Girlhood by Melissa Fraterrigo
From the publisher: Written with lyricism and insight, The Perils of Girlhood provides a reckoning and a reclamation. And while these personal narratives developed from Fraterrigo’s desire to guide her daughters, their universal truths compel us to consider how best to bring all of our daughters into the future.
Zone Rouge by Michael Jerome Plunkett
From the publisher: Zone Rouge is a brilliant reimagining of the Sisyphus myth suffused with our contemporary anxieties over war, climate, class, and the ghosts of our pasts.
Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno
From the publisher: Following a young woman over the course of one outrageous and insufferable downtown dinner party at the home of her estranged best friends—an artist and curator couple, whom she now realizes stands for everything she detests—Happiness and Love is a piercing debut novel about brazen materialism, self-obsession, and the empty careerism of so-called cultural elites.
To the Moon and Back by Eliana Rampage
From the publisher: In this dazzlingly powerful story of family, ambition and belonging, one young woman’s obsessive quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut irrevocably alters the fates of the people she loves most.
My Prisoner and Other Stories by Tyler McAndrew
From the publisher: Set largely in the Rust Belt of the 1990s and early 2000s, My Prisoner and Other Stories gives us protagonists who repeatedly confront helplessness in the face of others’ suffering.
From the publisher: A one-of-a-kind debut that asks what we owe those we love, The Same Man is an aching chronicle of the early days of parenthood and the wounds of the past. Haunted by memory and powered by the demands and joys of new life, Elliott’s poems wrestle with the father-son relationship at their core and the deep, unspoken harms that shape us. A relentless effort toward expression and autonomy, The Same Man is a reckoning and a balm, a rallying call and a father’s song of devotion.
What God in the Kingdom of Bastards by Brian Gyamfi
From the publisher: What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is a poetic exploration of grief, memory, Blackness, and the haunting legacy of familial trauma by way of colonialism, told through the lens of two brothers: Lot, the elder, who is flesh and alive, and Frank, the younger, a ghost navigating his post-suicide existence. Gyamfi delves into the ways trauma–both personal and systemic–permeates family, faith, and identity.
From the publisher: The Book of I is an entirely unique novel that serves as a philosophical commentary on guilt and redemption, but also humanity, love, and the things we choose to believe in.
From the publisher: In this richly atmospheric, dark academia debut novel, a young woman with a secretive past will risk everything—including her life—to fit in.
Little Movements by Lauren Morrow
From the publisher: A page-turning, tenderhearted debut about a Black woman who is finally given a chance to pursue her dream of becoming a renowned choreographer, only to find that it comes at a tremendous personal cost
Marrow by Samantha Browning Shea
From the publisher: A searing take on femininity and power, Marrow transports readers to a small island off the coast of Maine, where a coven has done the seemingly impossible.
Someone Else’s Hunger by Isabella DeSendi
From the publisher: Someone Else’s Hunger subverts the revenge to recovery plot, arguing that the truest testament to the speaker’s inner strength is the resilience it took to survive. DeSendi formally moves between restraint and excess, illustrating the great courage required to relinquish the control she won back when she became the master of her suffering. But the reward of risking exposure, daring to open herself to the world and let herself feed off it?
Kaplan’s Plot by Jason Diamond
From the publisher: Kaplan’s Plot is an astonishing balancing act between the ruthless and the tender, the superficial and the truth, by a writer with tremendous promise.
Boy From the North Country by Sam Sussman
From the publisher: Inspired by the author’s own uncertain celebrity paternity, Boy from the North Country is an emotionally searing meditation on the most essential human themes: loss, healing, memory, and the redemptive power of love.
The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét
From the publisher: The Waterbearers is a dazzling and transformative work of American storytelling that reimagines not just how we think of Black women, but how we think of ourselves—as individuals, parents, communities, and a country.
From the publisher: A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them.
From the publisher: Stay True meets Headshot in this intimate, bruising coming-of-age novel about the short and tumultuous life of a charismatic and enigmatic table tennis prodigy, as seen through the eyes of those pulled into his orbit.
Thank You, John by Michelle Gurule
From the publisher: A heartfelt, laugh-out-loud tragi-comedy of errors based on her time spent as an inexperienced sugarbaby in 2010s Denver.
From the publisher: An utterly contemporary send-up of My Best Friend’s Wedding and a riotous coming-of-age novel, Best Woman is rife with crackling wit and devastating poignancy and announces Rose Dommu as an exciting voice in fiction.
The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill
From the publisher: In this debut, for fans of J. Courtney Sullivan and Mary Beth Keane, three adult sisters grapple with a shared tragedy over a Thanksgiving weekend as they try to heal strained family bonds through the passage of time.
Great Disasters by Grady Chambers
From the publisher: Exploring the beauty, hope, and humor that can be found even in moments of deep loneliness and devastation, Grady Chambers’ Great Disasters moves between memories of high school and early adulthood to consider friendship, first love, patriotism, protest, addiction, and more.
Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa
From the publisher: From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class, an intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don’t even know her true name.
Dust Settles North by Deena ElGenaidi
From the publisher: It’s 2012, and post-revolution Egypt is sparking with political energy–but Hannah and Zain are numb. A tender reflection on the effects of grief and loss, this deeply felt novel explores how siblings come together to mend a fractured family and, in the process, find themselves.
Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park
From the publisher: Oxford Soju Club weaves a tale of how immigrants in the Korean diaspora are forced to create identities to survive, and how in the end, they must shed those masks and seek their true selves.