It’s exciting to find a new author…and especially one who has you completely absorbed into their debut novel that you wish never finished…or that they would release another straight away!

We’re excited to share a few emerging authors who are bound to have you hooked from page one.

Lullaby by Leila Slimani

Okay, so this isn’t a debut novel but we’ve only just become aware of Slimani’s body of work and it’s amazing. Lullaby is a dark psychological thriller that opens with the murder of two young children by their nanny…hooked already right? When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect caretaker for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite and devoted woman who sings to their children, cleans the family’s chic apartment in Paris’s upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late without complaint and is able to host enviable birthday parties. The couple and nanny become more dependent on each other. But as jealousy, resentment and suspicions increase, Myriam and Paul’s idyllic tableau is shattered.

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

This is a spell-binding story of curiosity and obsession where Imogen Hermes Gowar has created an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart and wit where Gowar explores issues of class, family and women’s role in society.

One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost.

Brother by David Chariandy

This is the second novel by Chariandy and if it is anything like his first (which won a whopping 11 awards) it’s expected to be an enthralling book exploring universal themes of love between brothers as well as race, masculinity and the challenges faced by immigrant families.

Brother is the story of two sons of Trinidadian immigrants coming of age amidst the hip-hop scene on the deprived outskirts of Toronto, Canada in the Eighties and Nineties. Weaving past and present, the story explores the relationship between the boys and their mother struggling to make ends meet in their adopted home, the prejudices and low expectations they face each day, and a tragic event that changes their lives irrevocably.

White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht

White Chrysanthemum is the debut novel by Mary Lynn Bracht who was originally studying to be a fighter pilot when she visited her mother’s childhood village and the seeds of this novel were laid. This is a story of two sisters separated by the Second World War in South Korea when Hana, a proud haenyeo (a female diver of the sea), saw her younger sister captured and forced to become a “comfort woman” in a Japanese military brothel.

One day Hana sees a Japanese soldier heading for where Emi is guarding the day’s catch on the beach. Her mother has told her again and again never to be caught alone with one. Terrified for her sister, Hana swims as hard as she can for the shore.

So begins the story. Switch-backing between Hana in 1943 and Emi as an old woman today, White Chrysanthemum takes us into a dark and devastating corner of history. But pulling us back into the light are two women whose love for one another is strong enough to triumph over the evils of war.

The Feed by Nick Clark Windo

Nick Clark Windo has written a startling and timely debut which presents a world and explores what it is to be human in the digital age. How it makes us…and how it destroys us.

The Feed is everywhere. It can be accessed by anyone, at any time. Every interaction, every emotion, every image can be shared through it. Tom and Kate use The Feed, but they have resisted addiction to it which will serve them well when The Feed collapses. Until their six-year-old daughter, Bea, goes missing. How do you find someone in a world devoid of technology? And what happens when you can no longer trust that your loved ones are really who they claim to be?

Enjoy!