There is something special about first-time fictiion: the energy, the enthusiasm, the sheer joy of readers discov


ion overing a writer


just finding their voice. The Fiction: Début Nib es shbbies shortlistees are an eclectic bunch, stretching the bounds onds of the novel and finding ways to both challenge and e


d entertain. Leïla


Slimani’s Lullaby (see pages 34–36), for efor xample, sees the French author turn the psychological crime thriller genre on its head, upending expectations. Stuart Turton experiments in The Seven De of Evelyn Hardcastle too, engagingly twisting th try house murder genre into a mash-up of Agatha C “Quantum Leap” and “Groundhog Day”.


al c ns. en


n Deaths g th


g the coun- a Christie, 6


One of the UK’s most fêteêted young literary authors is Bristol-based Hermes Gowar, whose The M and Mrs Hancock wowed critics an


ed Imogen Me


er


Mermaid a


aid


Début novels to test drive


ers alike. The Georgian London-set novel is a historical novel mixed with the surrea mermaid in the title may, or may not, be r with unforgettable characters. Our débuts are not all by tyr worked for decades in magazin marketing before trying h resulting in Dear Mrs Bir th


and read- el is


al ublishing Bird, a Second


on when ale


n


her hand at writing, w ting, nd Wor


rlld


War-set comic novel—think Bri get Jone in the Blitz. Kiwi author Heather Morris moved relatively late to fiction wh she met Holocaust survivor Lal Sokolov in the early 2000s. She decided to tell Sok


Sokolov’s


harrowing story in novel form, and The Tattooi Auschwitz has become one of the globe’s b selling books of the past couple of years Not all of our newbies are unkn


rs. knowns,


though. Many will be familiar wiith Ruth Jones as one of the stars, as well as the screenwriter and co-creatorof “Gavin & Stacey”. Jones took that ar d Never ec-


dialogue and created


at ear for er


Greener, a brilliant dissec- tion of the destructive effects of a love affair.


ve s biggest


oo st of st


think Bridget Jones er


is a


al (the real)rea


yros. A J Pearce ine publishing an


ng and


39


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