Debut Novel Showcase

At this special event, you will hear from some of the most exciting new voices in fiction, who will read from their debut novels. Whether you’re a reader who loves to see authors at the outset of their burgeoning literary careers or an aspiring writer yourself, you’re sure to find an exciting new literary match. The event will be hosted by award-winning broadcaster and writer Natalie Jamieson.

Each of the six authors you will hear from are published by a member of the Independent Alliance, a collection of eighteen independent publishing houses (including Faber as one of the founding members) who share a common vision of  editorial excellence in original, diverse publishing.

The Boyhood of Cain by Michael Amherst, Faber

‘Terrific.’ Guardian
‘A powerful, searing tale.’ André Aciman
‘I read this book with my heart in my mouth and could not put it down.’ Mary Costello
‘Amherst has created a young protagonist of extraordinary depth and complexity.’ Nathan Filer
‘A beautiful coming-of-age story.’ Michael Magee

Danny’s family live in a large house close to the school where his father is headmaster. At school, his father’s importance gives Danny certain privileges, but it also sets him apart from his classmates. When a new boy Philip, for whom everything seems easy, arrives, he surprises Danny by wanting to be friends. So when he and Philip are invited to work after school with inspiring, artistic teacher Mr Miller, Danny believes he has found somewhere he can shine. Until Danny’s world tilts: his father loses his job, and their house. And then Danny finds himself shut out from Mr Miller and Philip’s world too. Desperate to make amends, he keeps trying to find a way back in, but will Danny’s efforts send things spinning beyond everyone’s control?

Dark Like Under by Alice Chadwick, Daunt Books Originals

‘There are moments of real beauty in this book: sentences so well written, so balanced and satisfying, I went back to enjoy them again.’ Daily Telegraph
‘… a clever and compassionate debut.’ Observer
‘Impressively subtle, sensual and sympathetic.’ Guardian
‘Full of breathtaking passages . . . this is a quiet, understated book but one of bottled magic.’ Bookseller

A day in an English school in the 1980s unfolds in the aftermath of the death of a beloved teacher, Mr Ardennes. But while students and teachers grapple with this sudden loss, normal life, as it must, continues. Lessons, flirtations, arguments. The clock ticks on.

At the heart of it all is Tin. Burning bright with defiance, feared and adored in equal measure – and potentially betrayed by best friend Robin and boyfriend Jonah. As the heat of the baking hot day intensifies, rivalries and hormones simmer and old secrets surface.

Set against a backdrop of strikes and economic unrest, Dark Like Under is at the same time languorous with sun-soaked, rural beauty. Thrumming with life, this luminous debut captures the promise and risk of late adolescence and is a profound exploration of friendship, loneliness and grief.

Life Cycle of a Moth by Rowe Irvin, Canongate

Maya and Daughter live in complete isolation in a secluded woodland, their days aligned with the light and changing seasons, a complex pattern of routine and ritual. Daughter has never questioned the life her mother has chosen for them; the life that has meant she’s never met another soul or known anywhere except their forest home.

But one day, when Daughter is almost sixteen, a red-haired stranger steps into the confines of their territory. Where there was always two, suddenly there are three – and the carefully constructed world that Maya has built to keep her daughter safe may not survive it.

Urgent, haunting and thrillingly alive, Life Cycle of a Moth explores both the tenderness and ferocity of maternal love, asking what we might find ourselves capable of – and willing to sacrifice – in order to shelter those we hold dear.

Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal, Serpent’s Tail

A holy river rises, seven lives change course.

Centuries ago, the myths say, the holy river Saraswati flowed through Northern India. But when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother’s funeral, he is astonished to find water in the long-dry well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river and build a gleaming new city on its banks, and Satnam – adrift from his job, girlfriend and flat back in London – soon finds himself swept up in this ferment of Hindu nationalist pride.

As the river alters Satnam’s course, so it reveals buried ties to six distant relatives scattered across the globe – from an ambitious writer with her eye on legacy to a Kenyan archaeologist to a Bollywood stunt double – who are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Absorbing, moving and brimming with stories of love, lust, violence and loss, shifting seamlessly between the past and a boldly imagined near-future, Gurnaik Johal’s magisterial debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories, our lands and each other.

Shibboleth by Thomas Peermohamed Lambert, Europa Editions

Want to make it among the wealthy, upper-class students at the University of Oxford? Then you’d better have something interesting to say when people ask about your identity.

Luckily, Edward does. Though he can boast neither an expensive education nor a nice room in college, he does have a long-dead Muslim grandfather from an obscure African country… At the beginning of his second year, everyone wants to get close to him—including, to his astonishment, the beautiful and highly unstable Angelica Mountbatten-Jones.

As Edward scrabbles to fit in, his new friends start to grow suspicious. How will they react when they realise he hasn’t been entirely honest? What will Angelica do if she finds out about his complicated feelings towards a Jewish girl on his course? Will Edward manage to carve out a space for himself at Oxford, or will the truth get in the way?

A darkly comic debut, Shibboleth drags the English campus novel into the divided, multicultural, hyperactive present day.

A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland, Granta

‘…memorable, striking, dark, beautiful and one of the best debuts I’ve read in years.’ Guardian
‘…a joy to read, such a tender story, the finespun prose and meticulous description.’ Sara Baume
‘…a master craftsman in control of his form.’ Joshua Jones, author of Local Fires
‘There’s a moving uncertainty, a vulnerability on the page that allows the reader to hear, and to listen. There’s a quiet, brave strength in that.’ Cynan Jones, author of Cove

When two quiet men form a tentative connection, neither knows where it might lead. M has inherited his family’s ironmongery business and B is younger by eleven years and can see no future in the place where he has grown up, but when M offers him a job and lodgings, he accepts. As the two men work side by side in the shop, they also begin a life together in their one shared room above – the kind of life they never imagined possible and that risks everything if their public performance were to slip. Unfolding in South Wales against the backdrop of Section 28, the age of consent debate and the HIV and AIDS crisis, this is a tender and resonant love story, and a powerful debut.