Sam at The Book in Hand book blog and I were talking about some of our favorite books. We were amazed that they were the author’s debut book because of how good they are. We got to like 5 or 6 authors before Sam suggested I should do a blog post about it. Thank you for the idea Sam!
To do anything extremely well the first time you do it is amazing and all of these authors deserve a ton of respect and acknowledgement for absolutely killing their debut novels. I had planned on only doing a top 5, but as I kept thinking about it and going through my “Read” shelf on Goodreads it ended up being a top 15….reader problems. This list is not based on the series as a whole, but rather how each individual book stands up on its own. I think the best books, at least for me, are those that you can’t quite put into words why you love them. With that in mind, I won’t be adding any thoughts about each one like I usually do. These are all books I abolutely love and highly recommend for any fan of SFF. In no particular order, here is the list of the debut books that I enjoyed the most.
Theft of Swords (Riyria Revelations #1-2) by Michael J Sullivan

“What would be the point in that?”
“Oh, so you’re saying that you’re going to hang on to this and throw it at me at some future, more personally beneficial moment?”
“I don’t see the point in wasting it now, do you?”
Age of Assassins (The Wounded Kingdom #1) by RJ Barker (Review)

We Are The Dead (The Last War #1) by Mike Shackle (Review)

We are the dead who face the night.
We are the dead whom evil fears.
We are the Shulka and we are the dead.”
Promise of Blood (Powder Mage trilogy #1) by Brian McClellan (Review)

Red Rising (Red Rising #1) by Pierce Brown

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter #1) by J.K. Rowling

The Blade Itself (First Law Trilogy #1) by Joe Abercrombie (Review)

Blood Song (Raven’s Shadow #1) by Anthony Ryan

The Forgetting Moon (The Five Warrior Angels #1) by Brian Lee Durfee

Malice (Faithful and the Fallen #1) by John Gwynne

The Rage of Dragons (The Burning #1) by Evan Winter (Review)

The Warded Man (The Demon Cycle #1) by Peter V Brett

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentlemen Bastards #1) by Scott Lynch (Review)

Ender’s Game (Ender Quartet #1) by Orson Scott Card

The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles #1) by Patrick Rothfuss (Review)

😁💖💖💖
I love this and your answers are dead- on! I can’t believe Red Rising was a debut! Can I borrow this idea (credit and link to you, of course)?
Isn’t it crazy?! Red Rising is so good! As I was going through these I just kept getting shocked at how good each of these debuts are.
Feel free to use the idea as a post!:)
All excellent debuts
I wonder if I’ll ever have my novel featured on this site one day haha
Hey you never know man! Keep up the writing!
will do!
Ugh, SO MANY of these are still on my TBR! But I guess that just means more things to look forward to, right? I adore Locke Lamora and am always happy to see it get some love. Fantastic list!
You definitely have some awesome ones to look forward to! I didn’t know you love Lies of Locke Lamora! Gah, it’s so good!