There is no guaranteed path for a book’s success, and the paths that do exist are often meandering. Take the case of Lucas Schaefer’s The Slip, which won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction this fall. As a debut literary novel, released as readers were turning their attention to summer fare, it faced steep odds, and it’s always difficult for an unknown author to break through in the crowded publishing marketplace.

A positive Kirkus review, which typically lands about two months before a book’s publication, can certainly help. The Slip received a coveted Kirkus star, with our reviewer enthusing, “Franzen/Roth/Irving comparisons earned and deserved.” The Slip was off to a good start, and an ecstatic rave from Washington Post critic Ron Charles—“I spent most of the week not just reading this story but cheering it on in a state of unhinged excitement”—cued it up for a big splash.

But oh, the fickle business of book publishing! Admiring reviews were forthcoming from the Wall Street Journal and the Village Voice, but where was the New York Times? Neither Oprah nor Reese nor Jenna—queens of the book club scene—came calling. This novel of wildly outsize ambitions was enjoying a respectable but decidedly modest launch.

Still, The Slip was among the hundreds of books to be considered by the fiction jurors for this year’s Kirkus Prize. Like our reviewer and Charles, they fell in love. So did Kirkus’ editors. The novel was named a finalist in August, and at the ceremony in New York on October 8, it took the $50,000 prize. “To be a debut novelist means to constantly try against the odds to be part of the literary conversation,” Schaefer told the audience. It was gratifying to see a truly deserving book beat those odds.

As the year draws to a close, I like to look back on the titles we loved that didn’t always get the buzz they deserved. Here are three of my top candidates:

Beartooth by Callan Wink (Spiegel & Grau, February 11): This Western-flavored heist novel features two discordant brothers living off the grid who are roped into a bizarre plot to smuggle a large cache of valuable elk antlers out of Yellowstone National Park, part of the way on a river raft. What could possibly go wrong? Wink wraps his deft character study in an intensely suspenseful narrative.

Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper, June 24): Jeffers’ first novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, was anointed by Oprah’s Book Club. This less-accoladed work of nonfiction, like any collection, is uneven, but the author’s essays about her rural Georgia family and a diary of caring for her elderly mother are as moving as they come. I hope we’ll get a memoir from this gracious and graceful writer.

Endling by Maria Reva (Doubleday, June 3): This debut novel by a Ukrainian Canadian writer begins as an unruly satire of the romance tours that draw international bachelors to Ukraine—seen partially through the eyes of a scientist determined to save a rare breed of snail—and explodes into metafiction with the Russian invasion of 2022. Sure, it was longlisted for the Booker Prize, but I would have liked to hear more buzz about it on this side of the pond. It’s sui generis.

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.