Spring/Summer 2024 Debuts: Part 1

 

Discover the next literary sensation: These debut novels take readers on an unforgettable journey!

THE FERTILE EARTH by Ruthvika Rao | Available  8/13/2024

Available for download on Edelweiss here. 

Vijaya and Sree are the daughters of the Deshmukhs of Irumi. Hailing from a lineage of ancestral aristocrats, their family’s social status and power over villagers on their land is absolute. Krishna and Ranga, brothers, are the sons of a widowed servant in the Deshmukh household. When Vijaya and Krishna meet, they forge an intense bond that is beautiful and dangerous. But after an innocent attempt to hunt down a man-eating tiger in the jungle goes wrong, what happens between the two of them is disastrous, the consequences reverberating through their lives into young adulthood.

888 LOVE AND THE DIVINE BURDEN OF NUMBERS by Abraham Chang | Available  4/30/2024

Available for download on Edelweiss here. 

Young Wang has received plenty of wisdom from his beloved uncle: don’t take life too seriously, get out on the road when you can, and everyone gets just seven great loves in their life—so don’t blow it. This last one sticks with Young as he is an obsessive cataloger of his life: movies watched, favorite albums . . . all filtered through Chinese numerology and superstition. At the end of 1995, when Young is at New York University, he meets Erena. They fall in love and, for Young, it feels so real that he’s thrilled and terrified. As Young and Erena’s relationship blossoms, we get flashbacks to Young’s first five loves. That means Erena is “number six.” Was his uncle wrong—is she the one and only? Or are they fated for failure to make room for Young’s final, seventh love?

THE RED GROVE by Tessa Fontaine | Available  5/14/2024

Available for download on Edelweiss here. 

The Red Grove is a special place, protected. Some say a spell was cast by the community’s founder, Tamsen Nightingale. Some say the mountain lions who stalk the nearby hills guard its mysteries and its people. Some say the mighty redwoods keep them safe.Yet Luce’s mother, Gloria, has gone missing. A man came seeking answers among the Red Grove’s mysteries—a connection to the beyond—and died. And then Gloria vanished. The Red Grove is Luce’s whole world. She is devoted to its mission, its rituals and myths. But she knows that her mother, frustrated free spirit though she might be, wouldn’t just leave without a word, wouldn’t leave her little brother, Roo, and especially their aunt Gem, whose care in that suspended state of everdream depends on Gloria in every way. 

LONELINESS & COMPANY by Charlee Dyroff | Available  5/7/2024

Available for download on Edelweiss here. 

Lee knows she’s the best. A professor favorite and fellowship winner, there’s no doubt she’ll land one of the coveted jobs at a Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, Lee is instead assigned to an unknown company in the dead city of New York, her life goals are completely upended. In this new role, Lee’s task is to gather enough research to train an AI how to be a friend. But when the company reveals it’s part of a classified government mission to solve loneliness—an emotion erased from society’s lexicon decades ago—Lee’s determination to prove herself kicks into overdrive, and she begins chasing bolder and more dangerous experiences to provide data for the AI.

OFF THE BOOKS by Soma Mei Sheng Frazier | Available  7/30/2024

Available for download on Edelweiss here. 

Recent Dartmouth dropout Mei, in search of a new direction in life, drives a limo to make ends meet. Her grandfather convinces her to allow her customers to pay under the table, and before she knows it, she is working as a routine chauffeur for sex workers. Mei does her best to mind her own business, but her knack for discretion soon leads her on a life-changing trip from San Francisco to Syracuse with a new client.