2024 Australian Debut Highlights
2024 has been a great year for Australian fiction, with new releases from beloved authors like Tim Winton, Robbie Arnott, Liane Moriarty and Anita Heiss; but there have also been lots of incredible new books from first-time authors who you might not have heard of. Here are our top picks for amazing debuts that you need to be sure not to miss and new authors you should keep your eye on!
Big Time by Jordan Prosser
Big Time is set in a not-too-distant future Australia, where the eastern states have become the world's newest autocracy – a place where pop music is propaganda, science is the enemy, nationalism trumps all, and moral indecency is punishable by indefinite detention.
The novel opens as Julian Ferryman, bass player for the Acceptables, returns to Melbourne after a year overseas. He reconnects with his band as they prepare to record and tour their highly anticipated second album, and is given his first taste of a new designer drug, F, a powerful synthetic hallucinogen that gives users a glimpse of their own future . . .
The Degenerates by Raeden Richardson
Following the interwoven lives of four characters across India, Australia and the United States, this novel takes root in Melbourne and brings its streets, shopping centres and laneways to life with astounding originality.
The Degenerates radiates with Titch's fanaticism and Ginny's obsessions. Somnath's devastating history reflects every life divided around the globe. And Maha, the heart of the novel, is an extraordinary creation, an abiding figure of modern salvation. Brimming with vitality, humour, intelligence and brilliant writing, The Degenerates engages with the realities of modern loneliness and every form of departure-from our homes, from our families and even from life itself.
Together We Fall Apart by Sophie Matthiesson
For the past seven years, Clare has been living in London. She works for a judge on child protection cases. Her partner, Miriam, is devoted to raising their young son, Rupert; their days are dominated by nap times, laundry, and hiding from each other.
When Clare returns to Melbourne to visit her ailing father, another family crisis looms: her brother Max's long-term drug addiction. She turns her efforts towards helping Max into rehab, but is this at the expense of her family back in London?
Moving, heartbreaking and insightful, Together We Fall Apart is a beautifully written novel about running away and coming home.
The Sunbird by Sara Haddad
Nabila Yasmeen is in her eighties. She lives alone with over a hundred plants that she keeps in pots because she can't bear to put them in the ground.
In June of 1948, as a six-year-old girl, she was expelled with her family from their village in Palestine. Now she carries the weight of that expulsion with her, and her past and present are one.
Told in time shift, The Sunbird is a modern parable which tells the story of millions who just want to go home.
Edenhope by Louise Le Nay
Marnie is sixty-three and downwardly mobile. Her middle-class marriage is long gone, her only child more or less estranged. She's living in a granny flat behind a stranger's house.
Still, things could be worse. She likes her new boss, Trinh, and her flat has a leadlight window depicting a galleon in full sail. Also, her daughter Lenny has just brought Marnie's adored grandchildren to stay. She's also brought her repellent boyfriend and raging drug habit, so nothing new there.
But this time it's different; Marnie can see with absolute clarity the danger the children are in. And this time – she's going to do something about it.
Ordinary Human Love by Melissa Goode
Mardi McKee, prodigal daughter, arrives at her father’s home in Lithgow, Australia, after drifting overseas for eighteen months. Her previous life is a memory. Her mother has died, she is divorced and is estranged from her former lover, Ian. Mardi had left Ian, at dawn before he awoke, with no explanation, only months after ending her marriage.
Ian’s teenage sister, Claudia, has also arrived, escaping her childhood home for Ian’s. Spiky, lovable, lost, Claudia forges an intense friendship with Mardi. But Mardi finds that repairing her relationship with Ian is not so easily done. Mardi is hiding something and Ian is having none of her quest for forgiveness, not until she explains why she vanished without a trace.
Translations by Jumaana Abdu
Amid a series of personal disasters, Aliyah and her daughter, Sakina, retreat to rural New South Wales to make a new life. Aliyah manages to secure a run-down property and hires a farmhand, Shep, an extremely private Palestinian man and the region's imam.
During a storm, she drives past the town's river and happens upon a childhood friend, Hana, who has been living a life of desperation. Aliyah takes her in and tries to navigate the indefinable relationships between both Hana and her farmhand. Tensions rise as Aliyah's growing bond with Shep strains her devotion to Hana.
Finally, all are thrown together for a reckoning alongside Hana's brother, Hashim, and Aliyah's confidante, Billie – a local Kamilaroi midwife she met working at the hospital – while bushfires rage around them.
Catherine Wheel by Liz Evans
Five years ago, Kate’s partner, Max, abandoned her for his pregnant lover. The affair has long since crumbled, but Kate has become fixated with Vee, her ‘replacement’. In a bid to find out what compelled Max to leave, she moves to Bridgewell, which stands in the shadow of St Catherine's Chapel, where Vee is now raising her four-year-old daughter, Iona.
Warm and trusting, Vee is juggling work, single parenthood and a controlling ex-partner, Max, with whom she is still secretly sexually involved. Glad of Kate’s friendship, she nevertheless wonders what has brought this glamorous but brittle woman to such a quiet corner of middle England.
When Vee meets charismatic artist Tom, she is hopeful of establishing her first meaningful attachment since Max. But Kate has her own plans . . .
