Must-Read Debut Novels

The Bucket List meets How Stella Got Her Groove Brack in this joyful, bighearted novel about permission, pleasure, and choosing yourself without apology.
 

It’s never too late to make amends in this hilarious and tender debut novel about intergenerational friendship, women’s ambition, and coming of age no matter what age you are.
 

An unexplained tragedy. A handsome stranger. A house of ghosts and memories. In this fresh take on the Gothic tale, a young Nigerian woman returns to the family mansion where her brother died—only to find the past ready to consume her—perfect for readers of Tananarive Due and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
 

From beloved content creator Taryn Delanie Smith, comes a luminous and comforting vision of the afterlife—told through her beloved character, Denise, Heaven’s sharp-witted and big-hearted receptionist.
 

From an acclaimed screenwriter comes a provocative, propulsive debut novel about a billionaire tech visionary who creates a method to stop aging, putting him in the crosshairs of an extremist group and forcing a tense reunion with his estranged son, who is dying of old age.
 

In this wise and warm debut novel, an Italian American grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter all named after the Roman myth of the Three Graces find their lives—and their secrets—colliding when, after years apart, they come to live under the same roof.
 

A paramilitary operative confronting his grief on a path of retribution. A CIA analyst hunting a conspiracy that leads to the Oval Office. A Russian agent hiding in plain sight. Jason Matthews’s Red Sparrow meets Jack Carr’s The Terminal List in Beyond Honor, a debut political thriller that plunges readers into a world of international espionage, where loyalty and duty are tested.
 

Three generations of the Ansaldo family grapple with the aftermath of a tragic murder in this sweeping, cinematic debut set in 1980s Rome, for fans of Elena Ferrante and Liz Moore.
 

Based on a true story, an exquisitely illustrated, singular graphic novel about a life-changing friendship between a seventeen-year-old girl and the dying stranger who moves into her family’s home.
 

A dreamy debut novel about the summer love that changes two girls at the edge of adulthood.
 

The solo debut from the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Widow's Point: The Complete Haunting, a post-apocalyptic/survival horror novel written in the bestselling traditions of Stephen King’s The Mist and Josh Malerman’s Bird Box.
 

"A delicious treat of a novel! Heartfelt, hilarious, poignant, and lovely!" —Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

Steel Magnolias meets Practical Magic in this charming contemporary fantasy about a thirty-something kitchen witch who is recruited to help a reclusive warlock and discovers love on the other side of the next bake.
 

Nora Ephron meets The Hangover in this screwball romantic comedy and family drama with a big, beating heart, set in the sun-bleached neon of Las Vegas.
 

For fans of The Love of My Afterlife and The Seven Year Slip, Reese’s Book Club LitUp Fellow Natalie Messier’s heartfelt contemporary romance debut follows a woman who gets a second chance at a formative time in her adult life—this time to win the “one that got away.”