![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a-beast-slinks-toward-beijing.jpg?resize=200%2C303&ssl=1\")
<\/a>A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing<\/a><\/strong> by Alice Evelyn Yang<\/p>\nA dark, magical realist debut family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate.<\/p>\n
Qianze has not seen her father in eleven years, since he walked out of her life the night of her fourteenth birthday and disappeared without a trace. But then she gets a call\u2014there is a man on the porch of her childhood home, and he\u2019s asking for her. This man isn\u2019t the Ba Qianze remembers: he is much older, more fragile, and worst of all, haunted by a half-forgotten prophecy.<\/p>\n
While Qianze wrestles with what she owes this near-stranger, Ba begins telling stories of his past. From his bloody days as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to his mother\u2019s youth under Japanese occupation, he circles around the prophecy he came to deliver. Qianze has always longed to know more about her family history, but as Ba reveals a past far darker than she could have imagined, she finds herself plagued by strange visions\u2014fox spirits trail her on her evening commute, a terrifying jackalope stalks her nightmares, and the looming prophecy slinks ever closer.<\/p>\n
Spanning decades and continents, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing employs a combination of stunningly rendered folklore and atmospheric prose to examine the legacy of colonialism through the eyes of three generations. Alice Evelyn Yang\u2019s debut novel is a story of family and forgiveness, of folklore and fate, that will leave you unsettled and undone. – William Morrow<\/p>\n
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As turmoil simmers within a divided nation, smoke from another blaze begins to rise. Sparked by individual acts of resistance among those enslaved across the American South, their seemingly disparate rebellions fuel a singular inferno of justice, connecting them in ways quiet at times, explosive at others. As these flames rise, so will they.<\/p>\n Luke, quick-witted and literate, and Henri, a man with a strong and defiant spirit, forge an unbreakable bond at a Virginia plantation called Magnolia Row. Both seek escape from unimaginable cruelty. And sure as the fires of hell, Luke and Henri will leave their mark, sparking resistance among the lives they touch\u2026<\/p>\n One is Josephine, a young, sharp, and observant girl who wields silence as her greatest weapon. A witness to Luke and Henri\u2019s resilience, she listens, watches, waits for the moment to make her move.<\/p>\n Then there is Charity Butler, her husband a formerly enslaved man who proved his ferocity as a young boy standing alongside Josephine. At his encouragement, Charity fights for her freedom in court and wins \u2013 only to battle a deeply unjust system designed to destroy the life they\u2019ve built.<\/p>\n And finally, there is Nathaniel, who ruthlessly exploits other Black people and mirrors the cruelty of the white men who, like him, are enslavers. A perversion of the system of slavery, his fragile and contradictory rule will become a catalyst of its own.<\/p>\n Inspired by the true stories of the profoundly courageous men and women who dared to fight back, Burn Down Master\u2019s House is a singular tour de force of a novel\u2014breathtaking in scope, compassion, and a timeliness that speaks powerfully to our present era. – Dafina<\/p>\n Jake has fallen head over heels for Dandelion. The only problem? Dandelion is dead.<\/p>\n When Poppy discovers unanswered messages from a charming stranger in her late sister\u2019s dating app, she makes an impulsive choice: She\u2019ll meet him, just once, on what would have been Dandelion\u2019s fortieth birthday. It\u2019s exactly the kind of wild adventure her vivacious sister would have pushed her toward.<\/p>\n Jake is ready to find something real\u2014and not least because his ex-wife\u2019s twentysomething boyfriend has moved into their old family home. When he meets the intriguing woman who calls herself Dandelion, their connection is undeniable, and he can think of little else.<\/p>\n As their relationship deepens, Poppy finds herself trapped in a double life she never meant to create. Every moment with Jake feels genuine, electric, and totally right\u2014despite the fact they\u2019re tangled in deceit. As the lines between grief and love blur, Poppy faces a choice: keep her sister\u2019s memory alive through her lies, or risk everything for a chance at her own happiness?<\/p>\n With sparkling wit and aching tenderness, debut author Rosie Storey gives us a modern love story about the courage it takes to live again after loss and finding hope in the most unexpected places. – Berkley<\/p>\n This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n I have the sense that something is being drawn between us. Not drawn as in line but as in arrow pulled back. Yet I don\u2019t know which of us holds the bow, and which of us faces the arrow.<\/p>\n Christine is on tour for her novel, a revenge fantasy based on a real-life relationship gone bad with an older professor ten years prior. Now on the road, she\u2019s seeking answers\u2014about how to live a good life and what it means to make art\u2014through intimate conversations with strangers, past lovers, and friends.<\/p>\n But when the antagonist of her novel\u2014her old painting professor\u2014reaches out in a series of sly communiques after years of silence to tell her that he\u2019s read her book, Christine must reckon with what it means to lose the reins of a narrative she wrote precisely to maintain control. When her professor invites her to join him at his house, on a remote island off the coast of Maine, their encounter threatens to change the very foundations of her life as she\u2019s imagined it.<\/p>\n A pristine and provocative high-wire act toggling the fictions we construct for ourselves just to survive and the possibilities that lie beyond them, Discipline launches a spellbinding inquiry into the nature of art-making and rigor, intimacy and attention, punishment and release. – Random House<\/p>\n Everyone gets the story arc they deserve.<\/p>\n Kent Duvall, a faded reality show winner, just wants another chance at glory\u2014to find his way out of his depressing life and back to his highlight reel. When a scandal is captured on camera at a charity event, he gets his shot, on a new jungle survival show with seven other contestants. Each of them has been cast as a type\u2014Ruddy the bully, Miriam the nerd, Ashley the love interest\u2014but everyone is more than they appear.<\/p>\n The contestants\u2019 goals seem simple\u2014survive the wild, build a raft, win treasure. But Beck Bermann, a reality producer who suffered her own public shaming, sees them as characters in her redemption arc.<\/p>\n As the schemes and strategies spiral out, breakout camps sabotage each other and rival producers struggle to control the storyline. Soon the question becomes less about who will win than who will make it out in one piece. – Dutton<\/p>\n This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn\u2019t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn\u2019t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it\u2019s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.<\/p>\n Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles\u2014or attempts to overcome them\u2014in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved. – Ballantine Books<\/p>\n This title is also available in large print.<\/p>\n Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin\u2014newly arrived from India\u2014into their house in rural Wyoming where they\u2019ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it\u2019s time for their uncle to die.<\/p>\n According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching, and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life. At its heart, the tale she weaves is:<\/p>\n Or maybe it\u2019s really:<\/p>\n The Remains of the Day meets The Royal Tenenbaums in this darkly funny debut novel about a wealthy, eccentric family in decline and the secrets held within the walls of their crumbling country manor.<\/p>\n Thornwalk, a once-stately English manor, is on the brink of transformation. Its keys are being handed over to a luxury hotelier who will undertake a complete renovation\u2014but in doing so, what will they erase? Through the keen eyes of an enigmatic neighbor, the reader is taken on a guided tour into rooms filled with secrets and memories, each revealing the story of the five Gilbert siblings.<\/p>\n Spanning the eve of World War II to the early 2000s, this contemporary gothic novel weaves a rich tapestry of English country life. As the story unfolds, the reader is drawn into a world where the echoes of an Edwardian idyll clash with the harsh realities of war, neglect, and changing times. The Gilberts\u2019 tale is one of great loves, lofty ambitions, and profound loss, and Angela Tomaski\u2019s mordantly witty yet loving account is an immersive experience. Reminiscent of the haunting atmospheres in Daphne du Maurier\u2019s Rebecca and Shirley Jackson\u2019s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Infamous Gilberts offers a fresh take on a classic genre, capturing the essence of a troubled but fascinating family. – Scribner<\/p>\n Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister\u2014a poignant and darkly funny exploration of grief, forgiveness, and redemption.<\/p>\n Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She\u2019s behind on rent for her studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she\u2019s being plagued by perpetual stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plants to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise for private life support for Daisy.<\/p>\n Dell is her stream\u2019s dungeon master, banishing those who don\u2019t abide by her terms and steadily rising up the platform\u2019s ranks with her sympathetic story and angry-funny screen presence. Once she discovers she has a talent for eating spicy food, her streaming fame explodes and her pepper consumption escalates from jalape\u00f1o to ghost to the hottest pepper on earth: the Carolina Reaper. Dell is finally good at something\u2014but as her behavior becomes riskier and a shadowy troll threatens to expose her dark past, Dell must reckon with what her digital life ignores, and what real redemption means.<\/p>\n Narrated in seven taut chapters, one for each day of Dell\u2019s livestream, Just Watch Me careens through a week in the life of this misguided striver with a heart of gold. Voyeuristic and visceral, audacious and outrageous, Lior Torenberg\u2019s debut is both a razor-sharp tragicomedy about the internet economy and a surreptitiously moving tale about the desire to be watched, and the terror of being seen. – Avid Reader Press \/ Simon & Schuster<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you want something new, try a debut novel! By choosing a debut novel, you are introduced to authors who are brand new to fiction. Below is a collection of new voices, stories, and characters just waiting to become someone\u2019s favorite. As of this writing, all of these titles are[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5,1,8,5991],"tags":[11636,11637,11649,11638,11639,11640,11635,11642,418,402,11645,11646,6609,11650,11643,11651,11647,11641,11644,11648],"class_list":["post-61527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-read-a-likes","category-reference","category-staff-picks","category-straight-off-the-shelf","tag-a-beast-slinks-towards-beijing","tag-alice-evelyn-yang","tag-angela-tomaski","tag-burn-down-masters-house","tag-clay-cane","tag-dandelion-is-dead","tag-debut-novels","tag-discipline","tag-escape","tag-fiction","tag-half-his-age","tag-how-to-commit-a-postcolonial-murder","tag-jennette-mccurdy","tag-just-watch-me","tag-larissa-pham","tag-lior-torenberg","tag-nina-mcconigley","tag-rosie-storey","tag-stephen-fishbach","tag-the-infamous-gilberts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-g0n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61527"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61534,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61527\/revisions\/61534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/burn-down-masters-house.jpg?resize=200%2C303&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Burn Down Master’s House<\/a><\/strong> by Clay Cane<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dandelion-is-dead.jpg?resize=200%2C303&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Dandelion is Dead<\/a><\/strong> by Rosie Storey<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/discipline.jpg?resize=200%2C301&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Discipline\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>by Larissa Pham<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/escape.jpg?resize=200%2C301&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Escape!<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by Stephen Fishbach<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/half-his-age.jpg?resize=200%2C301&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Half His Age<\/a><\/strong> by Jennette McCurdy<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/how-to-commit-a-postcolonial-murder.jpg?resize=200%2C284&ssl=1\")
<\/a>How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder<\/a><\/strong> by Nina McConigley<\/p>\n\n
\nb) a moving story of sisterhood
\nc) a playful ode to the 80s
\nd) a murder mystery (of sorts)
\ne) an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-infamous-gilberts.jpg?resize=200%2C308&ssl=1\")
<\/a>The Infamous Gilberts<\/a><\/strong> by Angela Tomaski<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/just-watch-me.jpg?resize=200%2C309&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Just Watch Me<\/a><\/strong> by Lior Torenberg<\/p>\n