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Best Debut Authors of 2021
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If you'd like personalized book recommendations, check out our Tailored Titles services for both fiction and nonfiction books. |
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Who is Maud Dixon?
by Alexandra Andrews
Working for a mysterious novelist known as Maud Dixon, Florence Darrow accompanies her to Morocco where her new novel is set and where she, after a terrible accident and no sign of Maud, decides to become Maud, claiming the life shes always wanted.
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The Push
by Ashley Audrain
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting, supportive mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter--Violet rejects her mother, screams uncontrollably, and becomes a disturbing, disruptive presence at her preschool. Or is it all in Blythe's head? Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. What he sees is an overwhelmed wife who can't cope with the day-to-day grind. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born--and with him, Blythe has the natural, blissful connection she'd always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.
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Dear Miss Metropolitan
by Carolyn Ferrell
Fern seeks refuge from her mother's pill-popping and boyfriends via Soul Train; Gwin finds salvation in the music of Prince much to her congregation's dismay and Jesenia, miles ahead of her classmates at her gifted and talented high school, is a brainy and precocious enigma. None of this matters to Boss Man, the monster who abducts them and holds them captive in a dilapidated house in Queens. On the night they are finally rescued, throngs line the block gawking and claiming ignorance. Among them is lifetime resident Miss Metropolitan, advice columnist for the local weekly, but how could anyone who fancies herself a "newspaperwoman" have missed a horror story unfolding right across the street? And why is it that only two of the three girls--now women--were found?
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Of Women and Salt
by Gabriela Garcia
The daughter of a Cuban immigrant battles addiction and the fallout of her decision to take in the child of an ICE detainee, while her mother wrestles with displacement trauma and complicated family ties.
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The Other Black Girl
by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books, 26-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel is hired until she after a string uncomfortable events, is elevated to Office Darling, leaving Nella in the dust.
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The Paper Palace
by Miranda Cowley Heller
While staying at "The Paper Palace," the family summer place she has visited every summer of her life, fifty-year-old Elle must decide between the life she has built with her husband and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love
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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
To come to terms with who she is and what she wants, Ailey, the daughter of an accomplished doctor and a strict schoolteacher, embarks on a journey through her family’s past, helping her embrace her full heritage, which is the story of the Black experience in itself.
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The Prophets
by Robert Jones
Two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation find refuge in each other while transforming a quiet shed into a haven for their fellow slaves, before an enslaved preacher declares their bond sinful.
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We are the Brennans
by Tracey Lange
When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in an LA hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it's not easy. She deserted them all--and her high school sweetheart--five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions. Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family's pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets--secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes--and ultimately find a way forward, together.
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No One is Talking About This
by Patricia Lockwood
As this book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms 'the portal,' where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.
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Milk Blood Heat
by Dantiel W. Moniz
A debut collection explores such topics as human connections, race, womanhood, inheritance and inner darkness in a series of intergenerational tales featuring protagonists in the sultry cities and suburbs of Florida.
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All Her Little Secrets
by Wanda M. Morris
Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta, great friends, and a "for fun" relationship with a rich, charming executive--her white boss, Michael. But everything changes one cold January morning when Ellice goes to meet Michael... and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head. And then she walks away like nothing has happened. Why? Ellice has been keeping a cache of dark secrets, including a small-town past and a kid brother who's spent time on the other side of the law. She can't be thrust into the spotlight--again. But instead of grieving this tragedy, people are gossiping, the police are getting suspicious, and Ellice, the company's lone black attorney, is promoted to replace Michael. While the opportunity is a dream-come-true, Ellice just can't shake the feeling that something is off. When she uncovers shady dealings inside the company, Ellice is trapped in an impossible ethical and moral dilemma. Suddenly, Ellice's past and present lives collide as she launches into a pulse-pounding race to protect the brother she tried to save years ago and stop a conspiracy far more sinister than she could have ever imagined.
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Acts of Desperation
by Megan Nolan
In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her.
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The Five Wounds
by Kirstin Valdez Quade
A first novel by the award-winning author of Night at the Fiestas finds a man accepting the role of Jesus in his New Mexico community’s Good Friday procession, before his personal goals of redemption are challenged by a daughter’s pregnancy.
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Nightbitch
by Rachel Yoder
An artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced that she is turning into a dog and, as her symptoms intensify, struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity a secret, until she meets a group of mothers who may also be more than what they seem.
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Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
A story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
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My Dark Vanessa
by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Asked to help defend an older high-school English teacher with whom she had an affair at age 15, Vanessa struggles to choose between her romantic teen illusions and harrowing adult perceptions.
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Take Me Apart
by Sara Sligar
When the famed photographer Miranda Brand died mysteriously at the height of her career, it sent shock waves through Callinas, California. Decades later, old wounds are reopened when her son, Theo, hires ex-journalist Kate Aitken to create an archive of his mother's work.
From Miranda's vast maze of personal effects, Kate pieces together a portrait of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood, and marriage. As the summer progresses, Kate navigates vicious local rumors and her growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, all while unearthing the shocking details of Miranda's private life. But Kate has secrets of her own, and when she stumbles across a diary that may finally resolve the mystery of Miranda's death, her curiosity starts to spiral into a dangerous obsession.
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One to Watch
by Kate Stayman-London
Bea Schumacher is a leading fashion blogger, known for her warm, honest body-positive message. But after an unexpected heartbreak, Bea's confidence is shaken and she feels hopelessly alone. In the midst of her sadness (and some drunken internet rantings), she receives a surprising proposition: Would Bea like to be the first plus-size woman to star in the next season of reality dating competition sensation Main Squeeze? Against her better judgment, she accepts. The producers promise it will be the most diverse cast yet and a great opportunity to expand her brand. And while she knows she'll never find love, she might find distraction from her broken heart and inspire other plus-sized women to believe that they have a right to the spotlight too. But as the cameras roll, she is forced to face down judgement, ridicule, and expectations amidst over-the-top dates and international travel with a line-up of men who feel like fantasies (a sexy French chef, a sardonic professor, a playful younger man) as she ultimately discovers the truth behind the fairytale, and the reality of falling in love.
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Shuggie Bain
by Douglas Stuart
A young boy growing up in a rundown 1980s Glasgow public housing facility pursues some semblance of a normal life as his older siblings move on and his mother increasingly succumbs to alcoholism.
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Sharks in the Time of Saviors
by Kawai Strong Washburn
When a child falls overboard and is returned safely to his mother by a shark, his miraculous rescue is hailed as a sign from ancient Hawaiian gods, complicating his family’s troubles amid a collapsing sugarcane industry.
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Valentine
by Elizabeth Wetmore
It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow.
In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.
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The Coyotes of Carthage
by Steven Wright
Despite being a successful political consultant, Toussaint Andre Ross's aggressive tactics have tarnished his firm's reputation. Now his boss is exiling him to the boondocks of South Carolina with $250,000 of dark money to introduce a ballot initiative on behalf of a mining company. The goal: to manipulate the locals into voting in favor of the sale of pristine public land to the highest bidder.
A local is needed as a strawman to collect signatures, and Dre hires blue-collar couple, oafish Tyler Lee and his pious wife Chalene, to act as the initiative's public face. Under Dre's cynical direction, a land grab is disguised as a righteous fight for faith and liberty. As lines are crossed and lives ruined, Dre’s increasingly cutthroat campaign threatens the last remnants of his own humanity and the very soul of Carthage County.
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Darling Rose Gold
by Stephanie Wrobel
For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold. Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar. After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes. Patty insists all she wants is to reconcile their differences. She says she's forgiven Rose Gold for turning her in and testifying against her. But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty Watts always settles a score. Unfortunately for Patty, Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling... And she's waited such a long time for her mother to come home.
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White Ivy
by Susie Yang
Years after she is sent away from Boston to China for shoplifting, a conflicted Chinese-American woman reconnects with her golden-boy childhood crush before a ghost from the past threatens her ambitions.
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How Much of These Hills is Gold
by C Pam Zhang
Two orphaned Chinese immigrant siblings flee the threats of their gold rush mining town across an unforgiving landscape where their survival is tested by family secrets, sibling rivalry and disparate goals.
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Avon Lake Public Library 32649 Electric Blvd. Avon Lake, Ohio 44012 440-933-8128alpl.org |
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