09 Jan Novelist Plus: Explore Books by New Authors for the New Year—Here’s a List

If you’ve ever been stuck on what to read next, you can use NoveList Plus with your library card and find great reading suggestions. Their January 2024 reading recommendations are all about authors’ debut titles and a great variety of reading genres through which you can explore those stories. NoveList offers this tip for finding brand-new authors’ and their first books: Do a genre search for “debut title.” You can also find the 2024 NoveList Reading Challenge link at the top of the far left column when you visit NoveList’s homepage.

Here is a small selection of titles on NoveList’s January recommended reading list that are available for checkout or to place on hold at the Eastern Oklahoma Library System:

1. The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong
   Noted for its gothic atmosphere set in the ancient Cornish countryside, and featuring ancient curses,  a terrifying fortress, and a mystery for Armstrong’s heroine Ruby Vaughn, introduced in this book, his debut novel.
2. The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
   Bartz brings readers a group of would-be famous writers, a remote estate, and a nefarious plot that includes rivalry and death. As the women invited to the writers’ retreat begin to compete in strange and sometimes terrifying games, fewer and fewer will make it to the end.
3. Camp Zero by Michelle Sterling
   This postapocalyptic thriller based on a world destroyed by climate change  has been described by Publishers Weekly as a “thrilling, urgent feminist climate fiction that the world needs.”
4. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
   An Indigenous Mi’kmaq family picking blueberries in Maine suffers the excruciating loss of a child—stolen by a woman and raised as her own in New England. The impact on the lives of her family—and on “Norma”—over many decades is a compelling exploration of grief, pain, loss, and all-consuming guilt.