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The debut authors you’ll love in 2023

 (Evening Standard comp)
(Evening Standard comp)

This could be the year of the debut with a wave of new talent bringing untold stories, voices and perspectives to fiction. Tackling everything from complex love affairs to ageing and death, via political upheavals and the impact of colonialism, here are 10 of the debut novels set to make waves.

The End Of The Nightwork by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce

Jauntily referencing everything from Carmela Soprano to Keanu Reeves via author George Saunders and Play-Doh hair salons while also tackling the end of the world, inter-generational warfare and radical politics, Cottrell-Boyce’s assured debut is a wildly original story that considers everything we face in the modern age and then some. Pol and Caroline are in love but he can age suddenly overnight (aged 13, he developed the body of a 23-year-old) and — as tensions rise between young and the old — everything about their lives could be thrown into a state of terror.

Released January 5, Granta

The End Of The Nightwork by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce (Granta)
The End Of The Nightwork by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce (Granta)

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

A novel set in a palliative care hospice has no right to be this enjoyable but US food writer Newman’s fiction debut genuinely brings laugh out loud moments (a music therapist fretting that the final words he could say to someone is “Hang on a sec” as he Googles their favourite song). Imbued with love and humour, We All Want Impossible Things is about the final weeks of Edi and her best friend, Ash, and why we can’t, as humans, skirt around death. It’s being likened to Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss and Nora Ephron but this special book is in a class of its own.

Out on January 12, Doubleday

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (Doubleday)
We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (Doubleday)

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

Maggie is a mess. Aged 29, her husband has left her and she’s holed up in an apartment she can’t afford buying takeaways on maxed-out credit cards and swiping left and right on dating apps. She’s also methodically irritating and alienating her closest friends and colleagues with her chaos (the likeliest contributor to the breakdown of her marriage). Fortunately for readers, Maggie is very, very funny, turning what could be an endless pity party into a smart story of self-clarity and growth. Written by Schitt’s Creek and Workin’ Moms screenwriter Heisey, this is already one of the most talked-about releases for 2023.

January 19, 4th Estate

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey (4th Estate)
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey (4th Estate)

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

Where the Bullingdon Club meets Knives Out, Vassell’s highly entertaining and satirical whodunnit opens in Kentish Town McDonald’s where a black-tie birthday dinner fuelled by cocaine and champagne leads to the murder of the host’s girlfriend on Hampstead Heath. Faced with a baffling investigation, Detective Caius Beauchamp wades into a world of wealth and privilege in a story that pierces British society.

January 19, Faber

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell (Faber)
The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell (Faber)

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

Trinidad and Tobago-based biology teacher Kevin Jared Hosein has previously written young adult novels and won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2018. Inspired by the stories told to him by his grandfather, local archives and stories from the elders of his childhood village, Hungry Ghosts comes covered with praise from Bernardine Evaristo and the late, great Hilary Mantel who called it “‘deeply impressive”. Set in Forties Trinidad, it’s the story of two families whose interweaving lives are ruled by money, colonialism, violence and power; it’s also likely to be a major contender for next year’s big book awards.

February 16, Bloomsbury

Maame by Jessica George (Hodder & Stoughton)
Maame by Jessica George (Hodder & Stoughton)

Maame by Jessica George

With comparisons to Candice Carty-Williams’s Queenie, Bloomsbury assistant editor Jessica George’s debut was snapped up in the US for a seven-figure pre-empt and it’s easy to see why. From page one you’re rooting for likeable 20-something British-Ghanian Maame as she cares for her father who has Parkinson’s, while carefully navigating tricky relationships with her mother, her job in a creative industry that’s designed for well-connected white people and her closest friends. Funny, resonating and uplifting, Maame is going to be big in 2023.

February 16, Hodder & Stoughton

Queen K by Sarah Thomas (Serpent’s Tail)
Queen K by Sarah Thomas (Serpent’s Tail)

Queen K by Sarah Thomas

Sarah Thomas grew up in Kenya and now lives in London but has spent many years working as a tutor to the offspring of the super-rich — the perfect backdrop for this Patricia Highsmith-esque tale. Kata is the wife of a Russian oligarch and desperate for her daughter to gain entry to an English boarding school, hiring Mel to give her the education and inside knowledge to succeed. Instead, Mel becomes an untrustworthy narrator judging her employer’s life of excess and desperate attempts to infiltrate a glittering world with a cool, appraising eye.

February 16, Serpent’s Tail

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin (4th Estate)
Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin (4th Estate)

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin

An ambitious and assured debut, Pin presents the story of Anh, Thanh and Minh who flee Vietnam tragically separated from their parents and younger siblings only to find themselves in the hostile environment of Thatcher’s Britain. With elements of magical realism, this is a book that tackles the impact of trauma and loss but also how you can begin to create a new life when the worst things happen. As writer Ocean Vuong describes it: “A deeply humane and genre-defying work of love.”

March 2, 4th Estate

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling (John Murray)
Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling (John Murray)

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

With shades of Station Eleven and The Power, and inspired by her own family’s experience of immigration, Min Sterling’s Camp Zero is set in 2049 in an America brought low by soaring temperatures and the collapse in fossil fuels. The one per cent live in luxurious floating camps on the coast while the rest of humanity battle with the destructive impact of climate change. Up in the cool air of Canada, Camp Zero is an experiment set up by an elite group of women soldiers promising a better life — but nothing is as it seems when humanity is fighting for its selective survival.

March 30, John Murray

Rosewater by Liv Little (Dialogue)
Rosewater by Liv Little (Dialogue)

Rosewater by Liv Little

South Londoner Little is the founder and former chief executive of gal-dem — the acclaimed independent magazine for people of colour from marginalised genders — and with her first novel she’s created a paeon to a queer love affair that’s sexy, complex and romantic. Effortlessly capturing our uncertain zeitgeist, main character Elsie is facing down the bailiffs, terrible jobs and an estranged family but her relationship with best friend Juliet – while complicated — remains a beacon of light. Things, however, are about to unravel as Little peels back the surface of her characters’ lives to reveal the truth behind their actions.

April 20, Dialogue