Fiction Debuts - 2008

A list featuring some selected first novels and debut short story collections (mostly hardcover). This list may not be comprehensive. First novel information is collected from a variety of sources. Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.
  • The Outlander
    Author: Adamson, Gil
    Publisher: Ecco $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780061491252 Date: 2008
    star PW
    Adamson's debut work is simply enough, a superb novel. . . . The frayed material of the North American west is rendered in an astoundingly fresh light. . . . a condition only occasioned by first rate fiction (Jim Harrison).
    Updated 2.26.08
  • A Golden Age
    Author: Anam, Tahmima
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061478741 Date: 2008
    star PW star Kirkus star Booklist
    In her deeply moving debut novel, Anam tells the story of a young widow who becomes embroiled in the violent political turmoil in 1971 that transforms a brutal Pakistani civil war into a fight for the death for Bangladeshi independence.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 11.19.07
  • Say You're One of Them
    Author: Arkpan, Uwem
    Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.99 ISBN: 9780316113786 Date: 2008
    star PW star Kirkus
    From a celebrated "New Yorker" writer comes a bold literary debut--a collection of brilliant short stories about children's lives in crisis in modern American.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • The Kept Man
    Author: Attenberg, Jami
    Publisher: Riverhead 24.95 $ ISBN: 9781594489525 Date: 2008
    star LJ
    A riveting debut novel from a rising literary star, this story tells of a young woman whose husband has fallen into a coma, and her discovery of evidence that casts doubt on their marriage.
    Updated 10.23.07
  • The Somnambulist
    Author: Barnes, Jonathan
    Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780061375385 Date: 2008
    star Booklist star PW
    This extraordinary tale involves Edward Moon, stage magician and detective, his silent sidekick the Somnambulist, and a devilish plot to re-create the apocalyptic prophecies of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and bring the British Empire crashing down.
    Updated 11.19.07
  • The Story of Forgetting
    Author: Block, Stefan Merrill
    Publisher: Random $ 25 ISBN: 9781400066797 Date: 2008
    star PW
    Three narratives intertwine to create a story that is by turns funny, smart, introspective, and revelatory. Through the fusion of myth, science, and storytelling, this novel offers the hard-learned truth that only through loss can one understand the value of what remains.
    Updated 2.26.08
  • Beautiful Children
    Author: Bock, Charles
    Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 9781400066506 Date: 2008
    star LJ
    Capturing Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance, this debut novel not only rushes toward a climax of heartache and redemption, but provides a deviously funny and unyielding portrait of a tragedy readers are sure to recognize as their own.
    Updated 10.2.07
  • Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me With a Goodly Amount of Murder
    Author: Chupack, Edward
    Publisher: Thomas Dunne $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780312373658 Date: 2008
    star PW
    These are the savage, heart-pounding memoirs of Treasure Island's Long John Silver--a pirate and a charming, unapologetic murderer in search of lost treasure.
    Updated 1.3.08
  • Beginner's Greek
    Author: Collins, James
    Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.99 ISBN: 9780316021555 Date: 2008
    star LJ
    Peter Russell finally meets the woman of his dreams, but in his room that night Peter discovers the paper on which she wrote her phone number is inexplicably gone. Both incisive and wonderfully funny, this is a brilliantly understated comedy of manners in which love lost is found again.
    Updated 10.2.07
  • The White King
    Author: Dragoman, Gyorgy
    Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 9780618945177 Date: 2008
    star Kirkus
    An international sensation, this startling and heartbreaking debut recounts the adventures of eleven-year-old Djata in one life-changing year. The depiction of life in a totalitarian state--the only world Djata knows--is tempered by the sheer, hilarious absurdity of the situations he finds himself in.
    Updated 1.30.08
  • The Gift of Rain
    Author: Eng, Tan Twan
    Publisher: Weinstein $ 23.95 ISBN: 9781602860247 Date: 2008
    star PW star LJ
    An epic novel nominated for the Man Booker Prize, this epic debut tells the story of a young man's perilous journey through the betrayals of war and into manhood.
    Updated 3.31.08
  • Finding Nouf
    Author: Ferraris, Zoe
    Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 9780618873883 Date: 2008
    star Kirkus
    A finely detailed literary mystery set in contemporary Saudi Arabia, Ferraris's debut centers on Nouf ash-Shrawi, a 16-year-old girl who disappears into the desert three days before her marriage and is later found dead and several weeks pregnant.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Atmospheric Disturbances
    Author: Galchen, Rivka
    Publisher: FSG $ 23 ISBN: 9780374200114 Date: 2008
    star PW star Kirkus
    At once a moving love story, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller, and a deeply disturbing portrait of a fracturing mind, this highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • The Monsters of Templeton
    Author: Groff, Lauren
    Publisher: Hyperion $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781401322250 Date: 2008
    star PW
    Wilhelmina Cooper is told that the key to her biological fathers identity lies somewhere in her family's history. She buries herself in the research of her twisted family tree and finds that a chorus of voices from the towns past--some sinister, all fascinating--rises up around her to tell their side of the story.
    Updated 1.3.08
  • Missy
    Author: Hannan, Chris
    Publisher: FSG $ 23 ISBN: 9780374199838 Date: 2008
    star PW star Kirkus
    his wildly entertaining first novel from Scottish playwright Hannan takes place in the down-and-dirty Wild West and features 19-year-old Dol McQueen as an unlikely heroine--an intelligent, strong-willed hooker with a weakness for liquid opium, or "missy."
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Dervishes
    Author: Helms, Beth
    Publisher: Picador $ 14 ISBN: 9780312426194 Date: 2008
    star PW
    This richly textured, panoramic story of an American mother and daughter stuck in the expatriate community of Ankara, Turkey, in 1975, shows both of them trying to discover a life in the larger world--hungry for experience but dangerously naive.
    Updated 10.23.07
  • And Sometimes Why
    Author: Johnson, Rebecca
    Publisher: Putnam $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780399154522 Date: 2008
    star Booklist
    With wit and warmth, Johnsons debut novel captures the fragile rhythm and unpredictable drama of family life.
    Updated 1.30.08
  • The Outcast
    Author: Jones, Sadie
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061374036 Date: 2008
    star PW star Booklist star Kirkus
    In this brilliant debut, Jones tells the story of a boy who refuses to accept the polite lies of a tightly knit community that rejects love in favor of appearances. Written with nail-biting suspense, The Outcast is an emotionally powerful testament to the powers of love and understanding.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 1.31.08
  • The Boat
    Author: Le, Nam
    Publisher: Knopf $ 22.95 ISBN: 9780307268082 Date: 2008
    star LJ
    In this stunningly inventive fiction debut, stories transport readers from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran, from a fishing village in Australia to the South China Sea.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Happy Family
    Author: Lee, Wendy
    Publisher: Grove $ 14 ISBN: 9780802170460 Date: 2008
    star Booklist
    quot;Wendy Lee's moving and assured first novel unravels the tangled knot of international adoption to reveal its finest, most delicate threads"--Dana Sachs, author of If You Lived Here.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Beaufort
    Author: Leshem, Ron
    Publisher: Delacorte $24 ISBN: 9780553806823 Date: 2008
    star Booklist star LJ
    By turns subversive and darkly comic, brutal and tender, Ron Leshem's debut novel is an international literary sensation, winner of Israel's top award for literature and the basis for a prizewinning film. Charged with brilliance and daring, hypnotic in its intensity, Beaufort is at once a searing coming-of-age story and a novel for our times--one of the most powerful, visceral portraits of the horror, camaraderie, and absurdity of war in modern fiction.
    Updated 11.19.07
  • Turning Tables
    Author: MacDowell, Heather and Rose
    Publisher: Dial $ 24 ISBN: 9780385338561 Date: 2008
    star PW
    Debut novelists and sisters Rose and Heather MacDowell treat readers to a fictional feast at one of New York's poshest restaurants--perfect for fans of The Devil Wears Prada and Kitchen Confidential.
    Updated 1.30.08
  • The House at Riverton
    Author: Morton, Kate
    Publisher: Atria $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781416550518 Date: 2008
    star PW
    Updated 1.3.08
    This gorgeous debut novel is set in England between the two World Wars. The story of an aristocratic family, a mysterious death, and a vanishing way of life is told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept secrets for more than 50 years.
  • Courting Shadows
    Author: Poster, Jem
    Publisher: Overlook $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781590200322 Date: 2008
    star PW
    Updated 10.2.07
  • Evening Is the Whole Day
    Author: Samarasan, Preeta
    Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 9780618874477 Date: 2008
    star Booklist star LJ
    Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding first novel by an acclaimed young writer introduces the prosperous Rajasekharan family as they slowly peel away their closely guarded secrets.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Harry, Revised
    Author: Sarvas, Mark
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781596914629 Date: 2008
    star LJ
    A sophisticated, sterling debut by a wonderful emerging talent--the founder of the popular literary blog "The Elegant Variation, "Harry, Revised is the hilarious and tender story of Harry Rent, a down-on-his-luck widower, who tries to reinvent himself following his wife's untimely death. Harry's emotional journey takes him from his own solipsistic and outrageously misdirected fantasies about an obsidian-haired, twenty-two-year-old waitress at his local greasy spoon to the tenuous beginnings of an actual personal transformation. At once deeply moving and darkly comedic , Harry, Revised is an extraordinary novel about the measure of a man's worth. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Resistence
    Author: Sheers, Owen
    Publisher: Talese $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780385522106 Date: 2008
    star PW
    After the fall of Russia and the failed D-Day landings, a German counterattack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Imbued with immense imaginative breadth and confidence, Sheers's debut novel unfolds with the pace and intensity of a thriller.
    Updated 10.23.07
  • Standing Still
    Author: Simmons, Kelly
    Publisher: Atria $ 23 ISBN: 9780743289726 Date: 2008
    star PW
    This riveting debut novel explores the darker side of motherhood and marriageas a kidnapped woman is forced to confront her own harrowing secrets.
    Updated 1.30.08
  • Private Arrangements
    Author: Thomas, Sherry
    Publisher: Bantam $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780440244318 Date: 2008
    star PW star LJ
    Filled with unforgettable characters, a refreshingly clever plot, and seductively witty writing, this dazzlingly sensual debut by an exciting new voice in historical romance is a love story about a lord and lady's seemingly perfect marriage.
    Suggested Reading: Romance
    Updated 2.26.08
  • All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well
    Author: Wodicka, Tod
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 21.95 ISBN: 9780375424731 Date: 2008
    star Kirkus
    A wildly inventive, mesmerizing, and deeply moving debut novel that features one of the most winning, oddball characters to come along in years.
    Updated 1.30.08