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 October.”
Sing Me A Circle by Samina Najmi
From the publisher: These exquisite personal essays trace the orbit of author Samina Najmi as she reflects on events, people, and places that shape her vision of the world. Whether she finds herself in Pakistan, England, or the United States, she keeps her family and her love of stories firmly at the center of her life. As Najmi navigates the process of forging her identity as a professor and mother, her extended family inspires, haunts, and stirs her to action. Through sorrows and singing, questions and growth, she passes along a centering love of family and beauty to her children. And like the unsung writers in her family, Najmi seeks home in time and on the page.
Something Small of How to See a River by Teresa Dzieglewicz
From the publisher: Something Small of How to See a River interrogates the idea of narrative. Who gets to tell a story and what does it mean when the official story, the story told by the governor, the police, or the local media, is a fundamentally dishonest one? The poems collected here meditate on failure: how systems fail us and our environment, how whiteness fails to hold itself accountable, how future generations and the land are being failed–and how, in the face of all this, the Standing Rock movement was not a failure. At the heart of this collection is the strength, care, and radical joy of the movement, which shines through and against the violence.
A Place in the World by Bill Gaythwaite
From the publisher: The eleven stories in A Place in the World are character-driven portrayals of various lives transformed by random events or twists of fate. In separate, first-person narratives, a struggling husband and wife take turns describing the impact of a scandalous crisis in their marriage, and a settled suburban dad arrives at a beach house for the weekend, only to realize he robbed one of the other houseguests thirty-four years earlier. In this poignant, engaging collection, Gaythwaite offers compassion and surprising optimism while celebrating astonishing resilience in the face of life’s persistent challenges.
If the Dead Belong Here by Carson Faust
From the publisher: Carson Faust captivates in this chilling literary debut that confronts the specter of colonization and the generational scars it leaves on Native American families. Steeped in Indigenous folklore and drawing from the author’s own family history, If the Dead Belong Here examines what it means to be haunted—both by the supernatural and by terrors of our own making. Faust crafts a powerful, kaleidoscopic tale about the complicated legacies of violence that shape our present, the importance of honoring our past, and the resilience of a family—and a people—determined to heal from old wounds.
From the publisher: A horror debut following a woman who seeks refuge at an all-trans girl commune only to discover that demons haunt her fellow comrades—and she’s their next prey! While trying to untangle the commune’s many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won’t be letting her go.
Sister Creatures by Laura Venita Green
From the publisher: In the muggy, insect-ridden town of Pinecreek, Louisiana, college dropout Tess Lavigne is watching two bickering siblings while their parents are away. Her listless day drinking is interrupted when someone emerges from the woods behind the house. Filthy and feral, the daughter of religious fundamentalists, the girl known in town as Sister Gail convinces Tess to take her in for the night. The strange events of that evening will set the course for Tess’s future, and Sister Gail’s ultimate fate. At times atmospheric and eerie, and at others all too real, Sister Creatures is about manufacturing resilience from nothing but the bonds that tie us together.
Happy People Don’t Live Here by Amber Sparks
From the publisher: The hotly anticipated debut novel from “master of the fantastic” (Roxane Gay) Amber Sparks, Happy People Don’t Live Here is an unforgettable portrait of family–whether by birth or by chance or by choice–and the sometimes dangerous myths we make to keep ours together.
Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds by Christian Moody
From the publisher: For fans of George Saunders and Haruki Murakami, Christian Moody delivers his debut speculative short story collection, Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds–tales of the strange beauty and shadowy fears that lurk beneath the surface of our everyday lives.
The Past is a Jean Jacket by Cloud Felfina Cardona
From the publisher: Reminiscent of being in a heavily postered room with rock music blasting, Cloud Delfina Cardona’s debut collection, The Past is a Jean Jacket, is a time capsule of a 90s queer, Latinx teenhood.
From the publisher: Hernan Diaz meets Ottessa Moshfegh in this madcap road trip chronicle; a moving display of human connection in the face of violence and climate destruction from a remarkable new voice in fiction.
I Make My Own Fun by Hannah Beer
From the publisher: The sinister side of celebrity worship is inverted in this razor-sharp debut following the descent of the world’s most beloved movie star into a dark and disastrous obsession–perfect for readers of You and My Sister, the Serial Killer.
This is the Only Kingdom by Jaquira Díaz
From the publisher: From the Whiting Award-winning author Jaquira Díaz, an epic novel of a mother and daughter wrestling with the aftermath of a murder, set against the backdrop of a tightknit, working-class barrio in Puerto Rico.
Book of Kin by Jennifer Eli Bowen
From the publisher: A remarkable debut that explores the imperfect ways we care for one another, and how we seek repair when care fails. Unflinching, vulnerable, and surprisingly funny, The Book of Kin encourages us not to abandon each other, reminding us that “harm is shared, and healing is too.”
Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex by Jesse James Rose
From the publisher: Following the aftermath of an assault, and the heartache of caring for a grandfather with Alzheimer’s, sorry i keep crying during sex tells a captivating story of identity, recovery, grief, survivorship, and transness. Through lists, theatrical scripts, flashbacks, and Grindr DMs, Jesse James Rose’s genre-defying memoir is raw and hysterically funny, and takes readers on the wild ride of overcoming the struggles of a trans twentysomething.
From the publisher: In Patchwork, a charming and evocative sewist’s diary, Maddie Ballard explores the making (and sometimes remaking) of seventeen specific garments over a period of great change in her life–from a jacket lined with the embroidered Cantonese names of her female ancestors, to a dressing gown made as a gift for a dear friend, to an eco-friendly, zero-waste dress.
From the publisher: The young transmasculine characters in Crawl navigate these and other questions in the dive bars, bathhouses, parks, workplaces, music venues, beaches, and college campuses of 2010s Seattle. Max Delsohn’s stories—by turns exuberant, heartfelt, tragic, and wry—portray the pleasures and pains of sex and romance, the possibilities and ambivalences of gender expression, and the joys and failures of community in a city and a time that has branded itself a radical queer utopia but proves much more complicated in reality.
When They Buried The Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee
From the publisher: In this fierce, glamorous adult fantasy debut, Silvia Moreno-Garcia meets Fonda Lee, with the feverish intensity of R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy. Singapore, 1972: Newly independent and grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters in Chinese secret societies are the last conduits of their ancestors’ migrant gods, and the back alleys where they fight are the last place magic has not been assimilated and legislated away.
Simultaneous by Eric Heisserer
From the publisher: From the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Arrival comes a phenomenal speculative thriller about a federal agent and a therapist who team up to stop an otherworldly killer. Full of thrilling reveals, stunning plot twists, and a mordant sense of humor, Simultaneous is a mind-bending, one-of-a-kind thriller by a true genre star.