Debutiful’s Adam Vitcavage recommends noteworthy debut books for readers to discover each month.
HUM by Sanam Sheriff (October 1)
From the publisher: Enriched by Urdu lyric traditions of love, and love mourned, HUM raises the queer erotic to the heavens, even as the grief of separation lingers as paradise lost. Here, Sheriff weaves together the two most potent threads of human life: pain and love, strummed until they sing.
What others are saying: “A reckoning painted with the colors of wounds, pleasures, dreams, and what one can find when they view the world and life with anointed honesty and wonder–HUM is proof of the transformational power of poetry in the hands of someone whose mind is kissed by the divine. Like me, you will find yourself bowing in the temple of this one-of-a-kind poet where the body–finally witnessed, loved, and transformed by that love–is ‘rising as though it is the prayer / itself.’ This is the debut of a poet already singing with a master’s wonder.”–Danez Smith, author of Don’t Call Us Dead and Bluff
Sanam Sheriff’s HUM is full of poems that surprise without losing their emotional clarity. This is a debut alive with tension, wit, longing, and a fierce sense of possibility.
The House Built on Alligator Bones by Sophia Honeycutt (October 6)
From the publisher: The Greers built their fortune on alligator bones.
What others are saying: “Full of mysterious occurrences, mythic family lore, buried histories, and the inescapable burdens of the past, Sophia Huneycutt’s compulsively readable The House Built on Alligator Bones has the hallmarks of the best of Southern Gothic. Underneath its intrigue and suspense lies a story about the longing for familial connection and one’s desire to find their place in the world.” —LaTanya McQueen, author of When the Reckoning Comes
If you’re a fan of homes that haunt, look no further than The House Built on Alligator Bones. Huneycutt gives readers the swampy, atmospheric horror vibe they’ve been waiting for.
We Radiant Things Franny Choi (October 6)
From the publisher: Blending lyric memoir and cultural criticism, acclaimed poet Franny Choi’s debut essay collection explores our obsession with cyborgs and what sci-fi representations of Asian femmes reveal about race, gender, sexuality, disability, labor, technology, and language.
What others are saying: “We Radiant Things is a continuation and expansion of what I like to refer to as the Franny Choi Expanded Universe, where things beyond the visible horizon are seen and pulled down for a reader to touch. Everything is interconnected: popular culture, technology, grief, pleasure. I most love this book for how it transforms an oftentimes displeasing world and offers new possibilities for seeing.” – Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year
We Radiant Things is a brilliant collection that moves through race, technology, identity, and culture with remarkable clarity. Franny Choi’s prose sings just like her poetry—sharp and surprising one moment, tender and expansive the next.
Carrying by Samantha Joseph (October 6)
From the publisher: In this electrifying horror debut that’s equal parts funny and harrowing, a stealth trans woman desperate to maintain her picture-perfect life discovers that she’s seemingly—impossibly—pregnant.
What others are saying: “Provocative and sharply original, Carrying is as unsettling as it is addictive. A body horror that pulls you in, disturbs you quietly, and doesn’t let you go. Samantha Josephs has a bold, singular voice.” —Raphael Montes, #1 internationally bestselling author of The Secret Dinner
Carrying delivers shock and awe with the confidence of a writer in complete control of the chaos. It satisfies completely, then somehow leaves you hungry for more.
Bruja’s Nest by Brenda Latorre (October 6)
From the publisher: The Love Witch meets Monstrilio in Bruja’s Nest, where a young woman’s abuse history and ambition erupt into body horror, class war, and monstrous motherhood.
What others are saying: “Bruja’s Nest is a potent and startling literary incantation that invokes the most powerfully complex elements of magic, motherhood, and unflinchingly grotesque body horror. This is an uncompromising and deeply affecting work exquisitely scrawled in blood, fury, and pain.” —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
This book BLEW! ME! AWAY! It was so original and written with such fearlessness. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the talk of the town come this Halloween. It’s going to be the Obsession of the literary horror world.
The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (October 13)
From the publisher: From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Award–longlisted, “vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive” (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, tall tale of a debut novel about the murder of an infamous moonshiner and the cacophony of true stories a small town can tell about itself.
What others are saying: “Nafissa Thompson-Spires is a one of one. The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford presents her humor and heart at full tilt. A beautiful novel that makes you smile even as it hurts.”—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars
Nafissa Thompson-Spires proves she is one of the greatest living writers. Her debut novel has somehow managed to outdo expectations that were exceedingly high. This book will enchant you from page to page, and on the sentence level. A pitch-perfect novel.
Another Name for Red by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala (October 13)
From the publisher: The debut novel by one of the bestselling Never Whistle at Night’s most memorable contributors, in which, after a young Anishinaabe woman vanishes, her sister tries to pick up the pieces of her broken family, even as her investigations put her at risk of suffering a similar fate.
What others are saying: “Another Name for Red is a beautifully written, poignant and propulsive debut novel about loss, hope, and the difficult relationships in the life of an Anishinaabe woman. I absolutely devoured this novel. Amber Blaeser-Wardzala is an engaging and extraordinary new voice in Native American literature. You will not be able to put this book down!” —Brandon Hobson, National Book Award finalist and author of The Removed
Blaeser-Wardzala’s story in Never Whistle at Night was a knockout, and Another Name for Red proves that was no fluke. Gripping from the first pages and deeply affecting by the last, this is a debut will leave readers buzzing.
Her Kind by Sophie Lefens (October 13)
From the publisher: An exquisite, mist-laced debut novel about friendship and motherhood, fear and love, in which a woman plagued by visions of being pulled away from Earth invites her three closest friends for a weekend, to see who might care for her son if she dies
What others are saying: “Sophie Lefens’s voice is blazingly original, her debut, an irresistible premise at the outset that will keep you rapt and enamored of its characters—each brimming with heart and mystery. The seasons of Her Kind are all-consuming; you’ll live inside the weather of this novel, the steady and cornucopian turn of nature. Sacred, too, is the mystical and the animal, the gentle wisdom of their dimensions. Her Kind is a poignant and revelatory meditation on motherhood, womanhood, and the friendships that sustain both. This novel will nourish, inspire, and console you—you’ll want to stay in it as long as you can.” – T Kira Madden, bestselling author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls and Whidbey
Lefens deftly explores friendship, motherhood, and love throughout this twisty novel. She writes with a weightiness that feels so easy to read. Every word matters, and she writes her characters with such great care. Truly felt like I was part of their world.
Work Lunch by Lee Bains (October 13)
From the publisher: In his debut poetry collection, Alabama poet and musician Lee Bains draws on his own experience at the intersection of work and food–the daily ritual of a workday lunch.
What others are saying: “Work Lunch is not simply the best of what poetry can be; it is proof that blues, soul and some god somewhere are real. This is what writing, witnessing with your senses, and giving a fuck can do. Lee Bains is one of them ones, y’all.” –Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division
Singer-songwriter Bains uses his lyrical prowess to bring the South alive on the page. I’ve only spent a sliver of time in the region by way of my wife, but the culture, the vibe, the people, the food come alive in the most subtle of ways, and this collection oozes that life. Bains has more soul in a single sentence than most writers do in entire chapters.
The Girl in the Pipes by Megan Mary Moore (October 13)
From the publisher: Unapologetically visceral and emotionally exacting, The Girl in the Pipes is a haunting meditation on illness, fertility, desirability, and the cost of being seen.
What others are saying: A haunting and fiercely original novel, The Girl in the Pipes pulls readers into a surreal, emotionally charged world that lingers long after the final page. Megan Mary Moore crafts a voice that is both raw and hypnotic, blending psychological depth with eerie, unforgettable imagery. Through pain, resilience, and unsettling mystery, this story grips you with its bold honesty and haunting beauty. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t just tell a story. It seeps into your bones and refuses to let go.” – Jessica Fahey, Manhattan Book Review
The Girl in the Pipes gets under your skin fast and stays there. Megan Mary Moore has written something eerie, raw, and completely its own.
To Stay, to Stay, to Stay by Devon Halliday (October 27)
From the publisher: An ensemble cast collides and crosses paths in their small corner of the Midwest where no one is a stranger: the baker, the realtor, the poet, the gardener, the frustrated artist. In Devon Halliday’s transcendent debut novel, secrets turn contagious, impulses transform into resolutions, and no one is certain whether they will remain in the confines of their Appalachian college town or step out into the unknown.
What others are saying: “What a delightful debut novel by Devon Halliday–its pages full of sun and shadow, love and gravity. To Stay, To Stay, To Stay handles its cast of characters with deftness and grace, showing us the many facets of people in a small town as they connect and disconnect from one another. Reading this book is like looking through a prism, vivid with shimmering rainbow light.” –Alix Ohlin, author of Dual Citizens
There is something so satisfying about watching ordinary lives get messier and messier on the page. Halliday understands how one choice can quietly rearrange everything, and To Stay, To Stay, To Stay kept pulling me deeper into these characters and the lives they were trying to hold together.
Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun (October 27)
From the publisher: A mysterious realm on the other side of our screens. A dark force that draws victims into its static. The unlikely hero called to save them and herself from this electric hell. Public Access Afterworld is the profound, binge-all-night, headrush of a novel by the celebrated filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
What others are saying: “Constantly yanking the magic carpet out from under the reader’s feet, this epic quest for the source of all television is psychedelic horror of the first order.”—Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Never has a novel made me feel less like I was reading a book and more like I was living inside its strange, shifting world. Public Access Afterworld completely took over my brain, and I’m not sure I’ve fully come back yet.