In The Lilac People, my debut novel about trans people in Weimar Berlin and Nazi Germany, I have a side character so small, they’re downright tertiary. Dora Richter has no speaking role, nor does she have any impact on the plot. And yet she’s included because she’s important, and she was real.... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-05-09 11:10:00 UTC ]
“Sleep,” the debut novel by Honor Jones, moves back and forth in time between a 35-year-old mother’s present and her disturbing, unresolved past. Continue reading >> [ Source: The New York Times | 2025-05-09 09:00:05 UTC ]
In “The Original Daughter,” the debut novel by Jemimah Wei, a Singaporean family craters under the weight of ambition, jealousy and things left unsaid. Continue reading >> [ Source: The New York Times | 2025-05-06 09:00:46 UTC ]
Set in the recent past, Austin Kelley's debut novel centers on a magazine underling who becomes entranced with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Continue reading >> [ Source: Los Angeles Times | 2025-04-14 10:00:06 UTC ]
Find Ariel Courage’s successful query to agent Samantha Shea for her debut novel Bad Nature, which includes what Shea liked in the query. The post Successful Queries: Samantha Shea and “Bad Nature,” by Ariel Courage appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading >> [ Source: Writer's Digest | 2025-04-12 16:00:00 UTC ]
Find London Sperry's successful query to agent Lily Dolin for her debut novel Passion Project, which includes what Dolin liked in the query. The post Successful Queries: Lily Dolin and “Passion Project,” by London Sperry appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading >> [ Source: Writer's Digest | 2025-04-09 01:30:03 UTC ]
It wouldn’t be wrong to call Kate Folk’s debut novel Sky Daddy a marriage plot. The protagonist, Linda, has had numerous lovers, but she wants to settle down. She’s looking for a “fine gentleman” who’s sleek, strong, and ready to commit, and she already has her dream wedding planned: hurtling to... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-04-08 11:00:00 UTC ]
The unnamed narrator of Zee Carlstrom's debut novel is full of anger at their AWOL dad, but over the course of a road trip home begins to question his certainty about their diverging views Continue reading >> [ Source: Los Angeles Times | 2025-04-04 10:00:40 UTC ]
Mariam Rahmani’s debut novel is both charmingly familiar and totally unpredictable. Continue reading >> [ Source: The Atlantic | 2025-03-26 14:00:00 UTC ]
In this land of opportunities, being an immigrant can often feel like playing a round of Twister. A certain contortion of mind, language, and will power seems written into the script; a lot of territory remains untouchable. Shubha Sunder’s debut novel Optional Practical Training is named after... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-03-07 12:05:00 UTC ]
Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel became a best seller, but was also heavily criticized for its portrayal of Black characters. Now, she has written second novel, “The Calamity Club.” Continue reading >> [ Source: The New York Times | 2025-03-07 10:04:33 UTC ]
Emily St. James’s debut novel Woodworking chronicles the developing friendship between a 16-year-old trans girl and her recently-out-to-herself English teacher in Mitchell, South Dakota in the months leading up to the 2016 election. In a town like Mitchell, secrets are few and far between,... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-03-06 12:00:00 UTC ]
Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of These Memories Do Not Belong to Us, the highly-anticipated debut novel by Yiming Ma, which will be published by Mariner Books in the US and McClelland & Stewart in Canada on August 12, 2025. You can pre-order here in US or here in Canada.... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-03-04 12:00:00 UTC ]
Dan Houser will publish his debut novel A Better Paradise Volume One: An Aftermath, an adaptation of his hit podcast, this fall. The book is the first title from the new publishing arm of his entertainment company, Absurd Ventures. Continue reading >> [ Source: Publishers Weekly | 2025-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
Georgia Hunter's debut novel about a Polish Jewish family that survived the Holocaust was turned into a Hulu series. Her second novel, 'One Good Thing,' revisits WWII Europe but is a more conventional work. Continue reading >> [ Source: Los Angeles Times | 2025-02-24 11:00:28 UTC ]
Mere pages into Nesting, the debut novel from Roisín O’Donnell, Ciara Fay makes a life-altering decision. After discovering she’s pregnant for the third time, she takes her two young daughters, throws them and some hastily-gathered possessions in the car, and flees her emotionally abusive... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-02-18 12:05:00 UTC ]
Olufunke Grace Bankole’s debut novel The Edge of Water opens with a prophecy: “A storm is coming.” The order of things, the Iyanifa tells us, will be disrupted by a soul who defies her fate. What follows is the story of three generations of Nigerian and Nigerian American women: Esther, who... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-02-04 12:00:00 UTC ]
Good Girl—the debut novel by award-winning poet Aria Aber—follows nineteen-year-old Nila as she becomes charmed in a Berlin club and falls manically in love with Marlowe, an older brooding American writer. Raised by Afghan refugees, Nila’s childhood remains haunted by the shadows of exile while... Continue reading >> [ Source: Electric Literature | 2025-01-24 12:00:00 UTC ]
“Those people. My whole existence, neatly packed into one demonstrative adjective,” says Nila, the protagonist of Aria Aber’s pulsing debut novel Good Girl. Nila was born in Berlin, “inside its ghetto-heart, as a small, wide-eyed rat, in the months after reunification.” As these quotations show,... Continue reading >> [ Source: Literrary Hub | 2025-01-16 09:56:24 UTC ]
A debut novel about an Afghan German party girl in Berlin shows that there are plenty of ways to dramatize the immigrant experience. Continue reading >> [ Source: The Atlantic | 2025-01-15 14:30:00 UTC ]