2016’s Debut Titles to Watch

2016 is shaping up to be an amazing year already, with incredible big titles and sequels in popular series. My challenge was to find titles I felt were going under the radar that I’m really excited about. And I kept it at five because I could have gone on for about 500 tbh. So my rules were this – They had to be a debut author, this had to be their first book published in 2016 and it had to be titles I hadn’t heard about before from another blogger.

The Results?

I think I found a few things that I got really excited about. This was, by no means, a comprehensive list. I found so much great stuff, but I had to limit it to five. So here we go!

Fear the Drowning Deep by Sarah Glenn Marsh

To Be Published: Septermber 2016

Publisher: Sky Pony Press

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Witch’s apprentice Bridey Corkill has hated the ocean ever since she watched her granddad dive in and drown with a smile on his face. So when a dead girl rolls in with the tide in the summer of 1913, sixteen-year-old Bridey suspects that whatever compelled her granddad to leap into the sea has made its return to the Isle of Man.

Soon, villagers are vanishing in the night, but no one shares Bridey’s suspicions about the sea. No one but the island’s witch, who isn’t as frightening as she first appears, and the handsome dark-haired lad Bridey rescues from a grim and watery fate. The cause of the deep gashes in Fynn’s stomach and his lost memories are, like the recent disappearances, a mystery well-guarded by the sea. In exchange for saving his life, Fynn teaches Bridey to master her fear of the water — stealing her heart in the process.

Now, Bridey must work with the Isle’s eccentric witch and the boy she isn’t sure she can trust — because if she can’t uncover the truth about the ancient evil in the water, everyone she loves will walk into the sea, never to return.

Why I’m so excited:

First of all, I know this author on twitter and she is super nice! Second of all: Witches. Look at that synopsis. So good. So delicious. With the promise of so much goodness. Stealing hearts, evil ocean, villagers vanishing! It sounds so mysterious and good!

A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry

To Be Published: 2016

Publisher: Algonquin BFYR

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Samantha Mabry’s debut YA novel Leaves is a reimagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” It blends magical realism and mystery to tell the story of a boy who is lured into the world of a girl who is nourished by the poisonous plants that fill her scientist father’s home in San Juan, where legends collide with reality, the bodies of missing girls are washing ashore, and time is running out for the girl filled with poison.

Why I’m So Excited

Magical realism and mystery! Bodies washing up ashore and a girl filled with poison. It’s all just so dramatic, I love it!

Beyond the Red by Ava Jae

To Be Published: March 1st 2006

Publisher: Sky Pony Press

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Alien queen Kora has a problem as vast as the endless crimson deserts. She’s the first female ruler of her territory in generations, but her people are rioting and call for her violent younger twin brother to take the throne. Despite assassination attempts, a mounting uprising of nomadic human rebels, and pressure to find a mate to help her rule, she’s determined to protect her people from her brother’s would-be tyrannical rule.

Eros is a rebel soldier hated by aliens and human alike for being a half-blood. Yet that doesn’t stop him from defending his people, at least until Kora’s soldiers raze his camp and take him captive. He’s given an ultimatum: be an enslaved bodyguard to Kora, or be executed for his true identity—a secret kept even from him.

When Kora and Eros are framed for the attempted assassination of her betrothed, they flee. Their only chance of survival is to turn themselves in to the high court, where revealing Eros’s secret could mean a swift public execution. But when they uncover a violent plot to end the human insurgency, they must find a way to work together to prevent genocide.

Why I’m So Excited

Set on an alien planet with court intrigue and a sexy soldier? Risk of execution, preventing a genocide? Man, this thing sounds like its going to KILL. I’m already feeling anxiety about how action packed it’s going to be.

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

To Be Published: 2016

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

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A princess with a forbidden magical gift is shipped off to a neighboring kingdom to marry a prince, but she has to choose between her duty and her heart when she falls in love with his rogueish horse-training sister instead.

Audrey Coulthurst’s Of Fire and Stars pitched as Malinda Lo meets Game of Thrones, about a future queen who falls in love with her fiancé’s sister.

Why I’m So Excited

“When she falls in love with his rogueish horse-training sister instead.”

Do I need to say more?!

How To Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather

To Be Published: 2016

Publisher: Knopf BFYR

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Nancy Hinkel at Knopf pre-empted North American rights to How to Hang a Witch, a debut novel by producer and actress Adriana Mather, a direct descendant of Cotton Mather. Pitched as The Ghost and Mrs. Muirmeets The Craft, it follows Samantha Mather, who has moved to Salem with her stepmother 300 years after her family hanged witches there, to find she is ostracized by the witch descendants at school, as she unravels the lost secrets of the hangings and her family.

Publication is set for fall 2016; Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio negotiated the two-book, six-figure deal.

Why I’m So Excited

This book is either going to be badass or horrible. I don’t know which. The main character has the same last name as the author – always tricky. But The Ghost and Mrs. Muir meets The Craft? Gawd I am so down for that.