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.”
Continue reading “24 debut books to discover in September 2025”
Asa Drake is a Central Florida-based poet who was a 2024 National Poetry Series finalist. She also is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, the Florida Book Awards, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House, and Idyllwild Arts. Her debut poetry collection, Maybe the Body, will be published by Tin House on February 24, 2026 and it is now available for pre-order.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover, which was designed by Beth Steidle, along with a Q&A with Asa Drake about how this cover for the collection that explores the lineage and future lineage of a body shaped by economic, ecological, and political dissonance was created.
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Samuel Ashworth‘s writing has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Longreads, Eater, Hazlitt, Gawker, and the Rumpus. He published his debut novel, The Death and Life of August Sweeney, in March 2025. In it, an autopsy gives readers a glimpse into a legendary chef’s flavorful career.
We asked Ashworth to answer our recurring My Reading Life questionnaire to give readers insight into the books that shaped the writer throughout his life and the titles that influenced his debut book.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: The Death and Life of August Sweeney author Samuel Ashworth was forever changed by Macbeth”
Reza Ghassemi’s debut novel, Woodwind Harmony in the Nighttime, was first published in 1996 and went on to win several literary awards in its original Persian. Now, Deep Vellum is publishing it in English for the first time. Michelle Quay, who co-edited Routledge Handbook of Persian Literary Translation, was tasked with translating the novel from Persian.
Coming out on March 17, 2026, the book is about an Iranian exile in 1990s Paris whose live unravels into a surreal mystery. The book is now available for pre-order.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover, designed by Elisha Zepeda, along with a Q&A with Michelle Quay about how the American cover of this Persian classic came to be.
Continue reading “See the cover for Woodwind Harmony in the Nighttime by Reza Ghassemi”
Phoebe Greenwood is a London-based journalist who was a freelance correspondent in Jerusalem covering the Middle East for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, and Sunday Times between 2010 and 2013. From 2013 to 2021, she was an editor and correspondent at the Guardian specialising in foreign affairs.
Her debut novel, Vulture, is a war satire akin to Catch-22, where an ambitious young journalist is sent to Gaza to cover the war. Throughout it, her writing bites at how tragedy feeds the Western media machine.
We asked Greenwood to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that influenced her life and inspired her debut book.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: Vulture author Phoebe Greenwood believe the birthplace of stories are The Greek Myths”
The following is an excerpt from Hothouse Bloom by Austyn Wohlers. She is a writer and musician originally from Atlanta. Her fiction has appeared in The Baffler, The Massachusetts Review, Guernica, and elsewhere
Hothouse Bloom is about a woman named Anna who retreats to an orchard seeking solitude and communion with nature, but her old friend Jan disrupts her withdrawal, urging her back toward art and connection. As harvest looms and outsiders intrude, Anna becomes consumed by the need to make the orchard profitable, mirroring the obsessive patterns of her past. It is now available from Hub City Press.
Continue reading “Read an excerpt from Hothouse Bloom by Austyn Wohlers”
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Xenobe Purvis is a British-based writer who was born in Tokyo. She’s studied at the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway. Purvis was part of the London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme. Her debut novel The Hounding, is billed as The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides as it follows five sisters in a small village in eighteenth-century England whose neighbors are convinced they’re turning into dogs.
We asked the writer to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that influenced her life and inspired her debut book.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: The Hounding author Xenobe Purvis admires the toughness of Jane Eyre”
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Continue reading “Debutiful Podcast: Emily Hunt Kivel discusses Dwelling”