Fiction
Novels from first-time authors, reviews, and the stories behind how they were written.
Patmeena Sabit's Good People Is the Only Debut Left in the Race for the $100,000 Giller Prize
The Kabul-born, Toronto-based author is the one first-time novelist among the five finalists for Canada's richest fiction award. The winner will be named in Toronto on November 16.
By RedSquibble Staff · 5 min read
From Accounting Ledgers to Literary Fiction. Why Samuel Okafor Kept His Day Job
Fiction★4MThe Houston CPA wrote Ledger of Quiet Things one hour at a time, before dawn and before the office. He has no plans to quit.
Why Quiet Science Fiction Is Having a Moment, Starting With Orbit of the Lesser Moons
Science Fiction4MKai Nakamura-Holt's debut has no villains and no battles, only a lonely engineer and a stack of 41-year-old letters. It may be the clearest sign yet of what science fiction readers want right now.
The Query Letter That Landed Imani Clarke an Agent in Nine Days
Craft4MImani Clarke sent a 250-word letter about a botanist, an architect, and a cracking Victorian greenhouse. Nine days later she had an agent. Here is the letter, and the two sentences she nearly deleted.
Rosa Delacroix-Vance Drew the Map Before She Wrote a Single Chapter
Fantasy4MThe Asheville beekeeper spent more than a year charting the kingdom of Vell in pencil before any of its people spoke. The result is Iron & Honey, a 496-page fantasy in which the bees choose the queen.
Latest in Fiction
Irene Spiegel Krasniansky's Under Rembrandt's Watchful Eye Follows Rembrandt's Daughter and a Girl Growing Up in 1990s Los Angeles
Her debut is a dual-timeline novel about two women three centuries apart, linked by art, legacy and the question of whether a soul carries on. It is rooted in history, she says, but it is no history lesson.
By RedSquibble Staff · November 4, 2026 · 5 min read
A Story About a Father's Fish Tanks Wins Zimbabwe's Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza the 2026 Caine Prize
The Harare-based writer takes the £10,000 award for African short fiction with “The Blue Fighter,” chosen from a record 407 submissions, according to Brittle Paper.
By RedSquibble Staff · October 7, 2026 · 3 min read
Amanda Rizkalla Began Hungered as a Stanford Sophomore. Now It's Oprah's 125th Book Club Pick
Oprah Winfrey has chosen a first novel about a 12-year-old girl living in her mother's car, published in May by Henry Holt, as the first selection since her book club began celebrating its 30th anniversary.
By RedSquibble Staff · October 6, 2026 · 5 min read
Seven Debuts, One $15,000 Prize. Inside the Center for Fiction's 2026 First Novel Shortlist
A stealth trans woman who finds herself pregnant, a bigamist's death in 1927 Oklahoma, a film screening in a community of women. Here is what publishers and critics say about the seven first novels still in the running.
By RedSquibble Staff · October 4, 2026 · 6 min read
Deesha Philyaw Started Her First Novel in 2006. Satire Is What Finally Finished It
The author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies has published The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, a comic novel about a megachurch pastor's wife. In a run of interviews this week, she explained why it took so long and what changed.
By RedSquibble Staff · October 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Before It Reaches Stores, Samantha Josephs's Carrying Has a Prize Nod and a Film Deal
The horror-comedy debut about a stealth trans woman who finds herself impossibly pregnant is on the First Novel Prize shortlist and headed to Tommy Dorfman's Good Girl Productions. It goes on sale Tuesday.
By RedSquibble Staff · October 4, 2026 · 4 min read
The Only Debut on the Booker Shortlist Is a Poet's Puzzle Box About a Reluctant King
Rebecca Perry's May We Feed the King, just published in the US, pairs a present-day curator with a medieval monarch who never wanted the crown. Here is what critics are saying ahead of the November 9 announcement.
By RedSquibble Staff · October 4, 2026 · 5 min read
A Hospice Nurse Wrote Her First Novel on Night Shifts Over Eleven Years. Now Readers Can't Stop Passing It Around
Mara Ellison drafted The Salt Orchard before dawn in a hospice break room in Tenney Harbor, Maine. Forty agents said no. One editor said yes in a single afternoon.
By Julian Hart · September 24, 2026 · 6 min read
Iron & Honey Builds a Kingdom Where the Bees Decide, and Mostly Makes It Sing
Rosa Delacroix-Vance's 496-page fantasy debut imagines a realm whose queen is chosen by a swarm. The world is astonishing. The first act takes too long to get airborne.
By Elena Voss · September 20, 2026 · 4 min read
The Undertow Club Is a Locked-Room Mystery With Ice Water in Its Veins
Beatrice Lang's debut sets a classic puzzle inside a changing hut at a century-old winter swim club. The clues are fair, the cold is real, and the cast is a little too crowded.
By Julian Hart · September 18, 2026 · 4 min read
In Low Tide Protocol the Villain Is the Water, and It Is Terrifying
Priya Venkataraman's debut thriller runs on the clock of a real-style storm surge model. The flood is flawless. The people trying to hide from the truth about it are less convincing.
By Marcus Bell · September 16, 2026 · 4 min read
Nine Lamps Over Kettle Street Lights Up 1924 Harlem One Secret at a Time
Jonah Adebayo-Reyes's debut follows the last lamplighter on a Harlem block and the ledger he keeps after dark. The research is extraordinary, and at times the story buckles under its weight.
By Noor Haddad · September 14, 2026 · 4 min read
The Salt Orchard Is a Slow, Unsparing Novel About What a Family Can Save
Mara Ellison's debut follows three sisters through one last harvest on a Maine orchard the sea is taking back. It is patient to a fault in places, and devastating when it counts.
By Elena Voss · September 12, 2026 · 4 min readFiction Debuts on the Shelf
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