Debut novels of 2025: discover the year’s breakthrough new voices

Introducing 13 new Penguin authors as they share the inspiration behind their debut novels.

Katie Russell, Sarah McKenna, Rachel Deeley, and Derek Withshire21 January 2025

Penguin debut novelists Catherine Airey, William Rayfet Hunter, Chris Chibnall, Claire Lynch and Emma Nanami Strenner.

Two Harvard dropouts found a billion-dollar start-up that threatens to ruin them; a man falls in love in a sun-drenched French château; a Hollywood starlet blurs boundaries with her therapist. These are just a handful of the standout stories being published in 2025, penned by a fresh cohort of debut novelists.

Spanning romance, crime, literary fiction, and sometimes a combination of all three, these are the stories we can’t stop thinking about – the ones we’ve been speeding through, swapping, and urging each other to read in the Penguin office. Below, we get to know the 13 debut authors, as they share their real-life inspirations and literary influences, and shed new light on the fiction titles we predict will be among the best books of 2025.