We can always count on first-time novelists to deliver some of the buzziest, boldest, listens of the year. However, how each rising generation of emerging authors arrives on the literary scene with a polished batch of audiobooks is a whole other story. Recounting the challenges, surprises, and seeds of inspiration that led to some of this year’s freshest debuts, these new novelists are bringing us behind the scenes of their storytelling journeys.
What inspired me to write my debut?
Heba Al-Wasity, Weavingshaw: I had never intended to publish this story, it was merely a tool that allowed me to carry on my work. I was 23 years old, newly graduated as a doctor, and working in acute medicine during the first wave of the pandemic. I had never faced so much death, which was a terrible reality. So, I did what I always did: I escaped into fiction—a world of my own creation, filled with ghosts, secret-keepers, and restless souls searching for a semblance of peace, as I was.
Woody Brown, Upward Bound: I wanted to explore the “what-ifs” of my life: What if I was never exposed to a method of communication like my letter board? What if I ended up in an adult day care center after aging out of the school system? What if I hadn’t had parents who refused to allow that to happen? I wanted to show readers what it’s like to be constantly underestimated and misunderstood. I wanted to speak to the general population, those who have no intimate knowledge of profound disability.
Lisa Lee, American Han: Anger inspired me to write my novel. I grew up in a very angry household, though anger itself was something we rarely talked about or acknowledged. As an adult, I found myself wanting to understand the sources of the emotion that defined so much of my life.
Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear: In the winter of 2024, I found myself deeply immersed—and yes, a little bit obsessed—with the world of tradwives. I wrote deeply researched essays on the topic for my day job, and shared short-form content in my free time that analyzed this trend through the feminist and the media literacy lens. One morning, I woke up thinking of a single word: “yesteryear.” I started writing later that day.
Rosie Storey, Dandelion Is Dead: In my mid-thirties, I couldn’t stop thinking about personal authenticity. How do you build a life that feels true when there’s a constant, low-level pressure to tick the right boxes?
Patricia Finn, The Golden Boy: Writing a novel after years of ghostwriting was not what I had in mind at 25. Fresh out of grad school, I was surrounded by some of the best writers in the country. Surely it was only a matter of time before I was one of them. But life has a way of upending your plans, and it was that which inspired a novel, decades later, about two people handed that rarest of gifts―the chance to make things right.
Erin Van Der Meer, The Scoop: Would you ruin someone else’s life to save your own? This question gnawed at me during my years as a journalist in New York City. Under pressure for tabloid clicks, I sometimes published stories about people that were unkind or had a tenuous relationship to the truth. I felt pulled between the need to pay my bills versus my values. Eventually, I turned to fiction to explore another question: What if I went too far?
Leodora Darlington, The Exes: I love the gripping twistiness of thrillers like The Housemaid and The Silent Patient, which are my specialty as an editor. On top of that, I’m a huge romance fan, but I keep seeing so many horror stories of real-life romances gone wrong. With The Exes, I was excited to write the kind of page-turner I love to publish while exploring themes personal to me, like healing generational trauma and the dangers romantic relationships can hide.
Rebecca Lehmann, The Beheading Game: I wanted to showcase how fierce, intelligent and complicated Anne Boleyn was. I didn’t want to write a retelling that erased her execution, because it’s what makes her story resonate nearly 500 years later as a cautionary tale of how powerful women are punished.
Patmeena Sabit, Good People: I wanted to explore the dynamics within a community that could give rise to an honor crime, while writing about the sensationalist media coverage and larger Islamophobic discourse that a discussion of such crimes often gives rise to. As well, I wanted to explore the experience of being Muslim in the West in a post 9/11 world.
Erin L. McCoy, Underlake: I grew up near a lake under which a small town was submerged. There, I experienced the pangs of isolation and the ways in which it creates communities that have their own internal logic, moral systems, definitions of truth. Isolation breeds extremes—and it was through this lens that I started to explore how this might manifest in a sunken community.
Debra Curtis, Laws of Love and Logic: The idea for this story came to me like a gift that arrives in the mail from an unknown sender, quite unexpectedly, and a little mysteriously. I had a vision of a woman walking on a dock at a marina. She was searching for someone. I heard gulls and halyards on masts and then, the sound of a mandolin coming from one of the sailboats, down below. When I followed her, I met the protagonist of my story.
How does my story shine in audio?
Tiffany Crum, This Story Might Save Your Life: As an audiobook lover, I wrote this book dreaming it would be an excellent listen, and I’m thrilled to say it has surpassed every expectation. The first time I heard Julia Whelan and Sean Patrick Hopkins bring the story to life, I cried happy tears. They’re the best friends who’ve been living in my head these past few years! Between the phenomenal duet podcast segments, the call-in tip line, and the bonus episode, this immersive audiobook earns a gold star from me.
Nina McConigley, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder: Until I had babies, I had never much listened to audiobooks, but then I spent hours and hours listening with a baby on my chest, and I realized the power that an audiobook has. (I now have my favorite narrators that I seek out!) I think Reena Dutt, who captures Georgie and her innocence so well, has a strength and a vulnerability that adds another layer to the text. When I first listened, I forgot I wrote it!
Maria J. Morillo, The Ex-Perimento: This novel is fast-paced, witty, and somehow realistic and ridiculous at the same time. It’s also set in Venezuela, so in order for the audiobook to shine, we needed a narrator with great comedic timing who was also Venezuelan. We got both of these things in Sofía Palmero, who makes it feel like you’re listening to a 2000s rom-com.
Sarah G. Pierce, For Human Use: The dialogue was so central to the story—conversations that characters can’t believe they’re having—and I’m excited for that straight-faced absurdity to shine with these two voice actors. The most deranged world events always start with very mild-mannered professional discussions around a conference table. What’s it like to be in that meeting? This audiobook lets you listen in, with dread, knowing that once the "risks and opportunities" PowerPoint gets made, catastrophe is already irreversible.
Katie Bernet, Beth Is Dead: I got literal chills when I heard the audiobook for the first time. The performances by Piper Goodeve, Ferdelle Capistrano, Caitlin Kelly, and Emily Tremaine are filled with emotion and bring the story to life in a whole new way. Even if you’ve already read the novel, you have to experience the audiobook.
Marisa Walz, Good Intentions: So much of my protagonist’s unraveling is internal, and in audio it hits different, because you don’t have to imagine it—you can hear it. Her desperation, her grief, her panic as her decisions catch up to her, the moments of vulnerability. And the final chapter, already intense on the page, but Brittaney Pressley’s timing and tone hits like a punch. I couldn’t imagine a better performance.
Alice Martin, Westward Women: I realized that the story only worked when told through a chorus of voices who could articulate the common and yet still extraordinary experience of what it means to be a woman in the world. Thanks to the incredible talents of Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Mia Wurgaft, and Saskia Maarleveld—whose stunning performances capture the yearning, fear, and determination of these characters—these women can finally come to life.
What did I learn while writing my novel?
John Chu, The Subtle Art of Folding Space: I started writing novels by trying to fulfill what I thought were other people's expectations. Eventually, I just stopped caring about what other people thought and wrote the novel that is true to my own voice instead.
Jan Saenz, 200 Monas: I learned that I am at my most entertaining when I am being true to myself, not just as a writer but as a reader. I’m done with bleak—I want to laugh.
J.D. Myall, Heart's Gambit: I wrote this novel during a season of health battles and real-life drama, and on many days, the most peaceful escape I could find was inside the story. I learned I didn’t need perfect conditions to make something meaningful. Even when life and time are heavy, hope can lift you. I hope you feel that as you listen.
Gabrielle Sher, Odessa: I realized through the writing process that I was facing my own monsters alongside Yetta. I believe I wrote this book for some version of me that needed to learn how to have affection for the darkest parts of myself.
René Peña-Govea, Estela, Undrowning: I learned that high school me still needed to heal. As a teenager, I wrote poetry in response to any strong emotion (attraction, estrangement, grief), and writing this audiobook, I was reminded of this powerful tool to process experiences.
Kathleen Boland, Scavengers: I learned how important it is to trust the process. It took me over eight years to write Scavengers and I thought I had "finished" the novel multiple times. (It wasn't finished, I was just too impatient.) Eventually, I learned I had to let the book be what it was, rather than what I thought it was. This extended to other parts of my life, too, especially since I became a mother while writing. I've learned how to loosen up and let go, because that's when the magic happens.
Listen to the novels featured in this article:
