Best Fiction of 2012: Debuts

by Ayad Akhtar

Engaging and accessible, thoughtful without being daunting: This may be the novel that brings Muslim-American fiction into... Full review >

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by Jo Baker

Immediate, poignant and rarely predictable, this searchingly observant work captures a huge terrain of personal aspiration... Full review >

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by Wiley Cash

An evocative work about love, fate and redemption. Full review >

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by Amanda Coplin

Superb work from an abundantly gifted young writer. Full review >

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by Stephen Dau

A charity sends Jonas to live with the Martins, an evangelical family in Pennsylvania. There he attends high school, an... Full review >

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by Karen Engelmann

The setup is wonderfully engrossing; the denouement doesn’t deliver quite enough. But this is stylish work by an author of... Full review >

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by Patrick Flanery

Complex in theme, complex in narrative, this is a masterful literary exploration of the specter of conscience and the... Full review >

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by David R. Gillham

The blond beauty is Sigrid, a stenographer living alone with her unpleasant mother-in-law while her husband, Kaspar, serves... Full review >

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by Jonas Jonasson

A great cure for the blues, especially for anyone who might feel bad about growing older. Full review >

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by Christian Kiefer

A wonderfully executed debut novel, so rich as to inspire rereading, right down to its inevitable resolution, both ironic... Full review >

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by Owen Laukkanen

Let’s hope Laukkanen writes more thrillers like this one. Full review >

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by Jennifer Miller

A gripping thrill ride that’s also a thoughtful coming-of-age story. Full review >

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by Kevin Powers

Powers writes with a rawness that brings the sights and smells as well as the trauma and decay of war home to the reader. Full review >

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by Vaddey Ratner

Often lyrical, sometimes a bit ponderous: a painful, personal record of Cambodia’s holocaust. Full review >

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by Melanie Thorne

Failed by the adults in her life and forced to be the grown-up when she should be experiencing first dates and football... Full review >

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by Karen Thompson Walker

Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving. Full review >

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