A few weeks ago I posted some of the more interesting debut sales that had been recently made. There have actually been A LOT of exciting debut deals recently - a bright spot in a grim time! - and here are some of my faves:

-Sarita Mandanna's TIGER HILLS, set in a coffee plantation in southern India and focusing on several generations, stretching from the late nineteenth century until after WWII

-Chaya Bhuvaneswar's JACKSON HEIGHTS, about two Indian-American girls' gritty coming of age journey one summer, as they discover the stark realities of sex trafficking from South Asia into New York's immigrant Indian community and investigate the mysterious death of a girl their age

-Iowa MFA and University of Wisconsin Fiction Fellow Susanna Daniel's STILTSVILLE, a portrait of the thirty-year marriage of a husband and wife, set in Miami, beginning on the day they meet in 1969 and weathering such storms as infidelity, illness, parenthood, and Hurricane Andrew

-Jenny Nelson's GEORGIA'S KITCHEN, about a top Manhattan chef who's fired after a nasty review and escapes to Tuscany where she turns up the heat with a handsome winery owner who appreciates her skills in and out of the kitchen, but can't satisfy her wish to succeed back in New York and open her own restaurant

-Hana Samek Norton's untitled historical novel, in which a pious young woman, coerced into marriage by Eleanor of Aquitaine, conspires to wrest her inheritance from the hands of her mercenary husband and uncover the secrets that bind him to the fate of the crowns of England and France

-Anne Elisabeth Stengl's HEARTLESS, when a king informs his daughter that a prince from a mysterious land seeks her hand in marriage, the princess sets her heart against him because of his unromantic name, Aethelbald, but as other suitors, dragons, and a cunning jester seek her love or loyalty, her heart is stolen