6 Sparkling 2016 Debuts to Watch For

Your Heart is A Muscle the Size of A Fist, by Sunil Yapa (January 12)
Yapa’s novel set during the 1999 World Trade Center protests in Seattle was the first book I read this year, and it offers everything you could want in a debut novel: heart, energy, an innovative structure, and a cast of characters to root for—even though they’re on opposite sides of a conflict. Yapa shifts perspectives among characters including 19-year-old Victor, who left home after his mom died and a fight with his stepdad—who also happens to be Seattle’s police chief. Victor meets some idealistic protestors and decides to join the demonstration, a decision that puts him in the crosshairs of his stepdad’s forces, who are determined to clear the way for the WTO meetings to continue.

The Longest Night, by Andria Williams (January 12)
On January 3, 1961, there was a meltdown at a U.S. Army experimental nuclear reactor near Idaho Falls, and three operators were killed. Williams has taken this little-known historical incident—America’s only fatal nuclear accident—and crafted what looks to be a fascinating story around it. The Longest Night opens in 1959, with Paul and Nat Collier moving to Idaho Falls for Paul’s new job overseeing the reactor. Paul learns its core was improperly constructed, but fears speaking up in the face of pressure from Army officials. Meanwhile, Nat is adrift because of the move, the cliquishness of the Army wives she encounters, and Paul’s evasiveness.

Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Fat Girl, by Mona Awad (February 23)
Lizzie is an overweight Goth teen growing up in Mississauga, Ontario—a town she un-affectionately refers to as Misery Saga—who determines to change her life by losing weight. Lizzie grows up to become a thin, dissatisfied young adult with an acid wit, working as a temp and dating a series of disappointing men until she marries one who first loved her when she was still fat. As Lizzie grows into Elisabeth, this witty, bitter, tortured character becomes ever more endearing.

Relief Map by Rosalie Knecht (March 28)
In her debut novel, Rosalie Knecht alternates between the perspectives of 16-year-old Livy Marko, growing up in the declining Rust Belt town of Lomath, Pennsylvania, and a fugitive from the Republic of Georgia who is hiding in the hills near her home. As the police and the FBI hunt him in the middle of a stifling heat wave, they cut off the electricity to the town and block the bridge, allowing no one to come or go until the fugitive is caught. As the tension increases, so does the town’s paranoia, as long-held secrets are revealed. This book has the character development to please readers who love coming-of-age narratives and the suspense to keep thriller fans on the edges of their seats.

The Atomic Weight of Love, by Elizabeth J. Church (May 3)
There must be something nuclear in the air, because Church has written another promising debut that also has to do with military nuclear experiments. In The Atomic Weight of Love, which spans the 1940s to the ’70’s, Meridian Wallace is a Ph.D. student in ornithology who falls in love with her physics professor. They marry and she follows him to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he’s been recruited to work on the Manhattan Project. Meridian, who longed for a career as a scientist, instead finds herself fulfilling the traditional duties of a wife and mother.

Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi (June 7)
Homegoing, the debut novel by the 25-year-old Ghana-born, Huntsville, Alabama-raised Gyasi, earned her a million-dollar book deal, so all eyes will be on this debut when it hits bookstores in June. Homegoing promises to be an engrossing epic, the story of two half sisters in 18th-century Ghana whose lives lead them on divergent paths. Born in two different villages and unaware of each other, Effia marries an Englishman and lives in comfort in Cape Coast Castle, while Esi is captured and sold into slavery in America. Gyasi follows the descendants of these women in a story that spans 300 years.