WThe Age of Miracles is the debut novel by the American writer Karen Thompson Walker. It was published in June 2012 by Random House in the United States and Simon & Schuster in the United Kingdom. The book chronicles the fictional phenomenon of "slowing", in which one Earth day begins to stretch out and takes longer and longer to complete. The novel received positive reviews and publishing deals totaling £1.12 million, and has been translated into a number of languages. The book was nominated as part of the Waterstones 11 literary award in 2012.
WAmerican Dervish is a 2012 novel by Ayad Akhtar. The novel tells the story of a young Pakistani-American boy growing up in the American Midwest and his struggle with his identity and religion. The novel has been published in English, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish and Spanish. The book will be released in 17 more languages by the end of 2012.
WAsura: Tale of the Vanquished is Anand Neelakantan’s debut novel. It was published by Leadstart Publishing on 14 May 2012. This mythological fiction depicts the tale of Ramayana from the view point of Ravana and a common Asura, Bhadra.
WThe Book of Jonas is a 2012 debut literary novel by American writer Stephen Dau. The book was published in English on March 15, 2012 by Blue Rider Press, and in French as Le Livre de Jonas by Éditions Gallimard. The book takes its name from the Book of Jonah of the Hebrew Bible and features themes of war and its effect on others.
WCrewel is a 2012 young adult dystopian fantasy novel by Gennifer Albin. The book is Albin's debut novel and is the first entry in her Crewel World trilogy. Crewel was released on October 16, 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and follows a young girl in a dystopian society that is pulled from her family due to her ability as a Spinster to manipulate the world via weaving. Albin stated that she came up with the idea of using the term "Spinsters" while comparing the term for old maids with that of the usage of the term to describe someone who spins wool. The following book in the series, Altered, was released on October 29, 2013.
WHemlock Grove is a 2012 Horror-thriller debut novel by American author Brian McGreevy. The book was released on March 27, 2012 through Farrar, Straus and Giroux and is set in the fictional town of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania. A graphic novel tie-in and a television series based on the events in the book have been produced.
WHollow Earth is the debut novel from sibling writing pair John Barrowman and Carole Barrowman which was published in the United Kingdom on 2 February 2012 by Buster Books.
WHow I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company is a novel written by Varun Agarwal, an alumnus of the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, a first-generation entrepreneur and the co-founder of Alma Mater. This is his début novel and was published in 2012.
WKissing Shakespeare is a debut novel of a former American teacher and librarian-turned-writer Pamela Mingle. It was published as a young adult literature book on August 14, 2012 by Delacorte Books. There are no records of William Shakespeare's life between his birth in 1564 to his arrival in London in 1590, although he was speculated to be a schoolteacher before becoming a playwright. Mingle's novel sets during what historians referred as Shakespeare's "lost years," using clues from the 1580s, to create a romantic fantasy centering on a love triangle composed of a contemporary teenage girl from the 21st century, a time traveler from the past, and William Shakespeare. Mingle remains true to the history and events of the era, revealing the challenges of living in a time of religious persecution and suppression of women.
WThe Land of Decoration is the debut novel by British author Grace McCleen published in 2012 by Chatto & Windus. It won the Desmond Elliott Prize in 2012 and the Betty Trask Award in 2013. It was chosen along with three American novels by The Sunday Times Literary Editor as one of the four most promising debuts of 2012. It became one of Waterstones’ 11, an Oprah favourite, has so far been translated into nineteen languages and was selected by the Richard and Judy Book Club. It has been optioned by Life of Pi producer Gil Netter to be adapted by Kelly Marcel.
WThe Light Between Oceans is a 2012 Australian historical fiction novel by M. L. Stedman, her debut novel, published by Random House Australia on 20 March 2012. A film adaptation of the same name starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender was released on 2 September 2016.
WA Man Called Ove is a 2012 novel by Fredrik Backman, a Swedish columnist, blogger and writer. It was published in English in 2013. The English version reached the New York Times Best Seller list 18 months after it was published and stayed on the list for 42 weeks.
WThe Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up won the 2013 International Rubery Book Award and is a 2012 satirical novel by the American writer Jacob M. Appel. "Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States," the author explained, "I knew I wanted to write a book against the backlash of those events. It took me three years to complete…. At the time, I did not think it would take me another eight years to find a publisher. I came close many times, but American publishers appeared to fear the political content of the work and several of them admitted this candidly or even asked me to 'sanitize' the novel." In 2012, it won the Dundee International Book Prize, one of the UK's most lucrative prizes for an unpublished debut novel, and was published by Cargo Publishing.
WMe and Earl and the Dying Girl is a 2012 debut novel written by Jesse Andrews. The novel was released in hardcover by Amulet Books on March 1, 2012, and in paperback on May 7, 2013.
WMemory of Water is the debut novel by Finnish author Emmi Itäranta, published in 2014 by HarperCollins. The Finnish version of the novel, which Itäranta wrote simultaneously along with the English one, was published in Finland in 2013 by the publishing house Teos. Set in a dystopian future where fresh water is scarce, it tells the story of Noria, a young tea master's apprentice, who must come to terms with a great secret and even greater responsibility that follows this knowledge.
WThe Miseducation of Cameron Post is a coming-of-age teen novel by Emily M. Danforth published in 2012. The novel's protagonist is Cameron Post, a 12-year-old Montana girl who is discovering her own homosexuality. After her parents die in a car crash, she lives with her conservative aunt and her grandmother. When the romantic relationship she develops with her best friend is discovered she is sent to a conversion camp.
WMr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a 2012 novel by American writer Robin Sloan. It was chosen as one of the best 100 books of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, was a New York Times Editor's Choice, and was on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list as well as the NPR Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List. The US book cover, which glows in the dark, was done by Rodrigo Corral and chosen as one of the 25 best book covers for 2012 by BookPage.
WNarcopolis is the debut novel of Indian author Jeet Thayil. It is set in 1970s Old Bombay and concerns opium and its influence. The novel's narrator arrives in Bombay, where he becomes seduced into the opium underground. The story expands to encompass such characters as Dimple, a hijra, Rashid, the opium house's owner, and Mr Lee, a former Chinese officer, all of whom have stories to tell.
WPenpal is a 2012 self-published horror/thriller novel and the debut novel of the American author Dathan Auerbach. The work was first published in paperback on July 11, 2012 through 1000Vultures and is based on a series of popular creepypasta stories that Auerbach posted to Reddit. The stories were adapted for The NoSleep Podcast's debut season in 2011 and narrated by Sammy Raynor.
WThe Ragnarök Conspiracy is the 2012 debut thriller novel by biomedical scientist Erec Stebbins, and the first novel in the Intel 1 Series of thrillers. The novel is about a Western terrorist organization attempting to instigate a global war with the Islamic world. A group of FBI and CIA agents work together to uncover and stop their plot. The Ragnarök Conspiracy follows two main characters, an "American Bin Laden" and an FBI agent, who both suffer a terrible loss on 9/11, but clash over how to respond to terrorist threats from radicalized Muslims.
WThe Rook is the 2012 debut novel of Australian author Daniel O'Malley. It follows protagonist Myfanwy Thomas as she attempts to re-integrate into her life of administrating a clandestine government organization responsible for protecting the U.K. from supernatural threats. Following a magically-induced bout of amnesia, she works to uncover the identity of a traitor inside the organization while simultaneously keeping her amnesia a secret. The title of the book is a reference to Thomas' rank in her organization, the Checquy.
WThe Selection is a young adult novel by Kiera Cass first published on April 14, 2012 by HarperCollins. It is the first in a five-book series, followed by The Elite (2013), The One (2014), The Heir (2015) and The Crown. The last two take place twenty years after the events in the first three.
WSeraphina is a 2012 fantasy novel by Rachel Hartman and is her debut novel. The book was published on July 10, 2012, by Random House Publishing and was ranked at number 8 The New York Times Best Seller list in its first week of publication. Seraphina was awarded the 2013 William C. Morris Award for the best young adult work by a debut author. Foreign language rights to the novel have been sold in twenty languages, including Spanish and Hebrew. A sequel entitled Shadow Scale came out in 2015, and a companion novel Tess of the Road set in the same milieu was published in 2018.
WThe Snow Child is the debut novel by Eowyn Ivey. It was first published on February 1, 2012 by Little, Brown and Company. The novel was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was generally well received by critics.
WSolacers is a 2012 memoir written by Iranian-American author Arion Golmakani. The book is a first-person narrative about an abandoned boy growing up on the streets in 1960s Iran, before the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
WThe Tailor's Needle (2009) is the debut novel of Indian writer Lakshmi Raj Sharma, who is a professor in the Department of English, University of Allahabad. It was first published in the UK in 2009 (ISBN 0956037046) by Picnic Publishing Limited, UK and then by Penguin Books India. It is a Raj novel covering the era from 1917 to the 1940s and ends a little before India gets its independence. The characters are Indians and Brits, including a fictional British Viceroy of India. Sir Saraswati is educated at Cambridge and employed with the Maharaja of Kashinagar. He must leave Kashinagar and settle down in Mirzapur after a debauched Maharaja is enthroned. The Viceroy and Sir Saraswati have a battle of wits and diplomacy. His wife and three children, and their problems, form the thrust of the novel.
WTell The Wolves I'm Home is the debut novel of American writer Carol Rifka Brunt, published by Random House in 2012. It follows the life of June Elbus, a 14-year-old girl, whose gay uncle had died of AIDS in the 1980s, and the subsequent friendship she develops with his boyfriend. Throughout this friendship June finds comfort in knowing that her uncle, a man who inspired the love of so many, is mourned not only by the family and his partner but by the art community.
WThat Extraordinary Day is a science fiction novel written by Predrag Vukadinović. The novel connects the theme of time travel with the Second Coming of Christ, using cosmological and religious concepts.
WThrone of the Crescent Moon is a fantasy novel written by American writer Saladin Ahmed. It is the first book in The Crescent Moon Kingdoms series. The book was published by DAW Books in February 2012. The book was nominated for the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel, 2013 David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer and the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel. It won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
WThe Twelve Tribes of Hattie is the 2012 debut novel of American author Ayana Mathis. In December 2012, the novel was selected for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie revolves around the matriarch of a black family of the Great Migration and her children and grandchildren.
WUnder the Never Sky is a 2012 young adult debut novel by Veronica Rossi and is the first in a trilogy. The book follows two teens, a girl that has always lived within a protected city and a boy who is both a Night Seer and a Scire, as they attempt to survive. Film rights to the trilogy have been optioned by Warner Brothers Studios, with the novel being sold in more than 25 international markets. Book 2 of the trilogy, Through the Ever Night, was released in the United States on January 8, 2013 and became both a New York Times and a USA Today Best Seller before the month was over. The final installment, Into the Still Blue, was released January 28, 2014 however the final novel did not receive as much praise as the preceding books.
WWonder is a children's novel by Raquel Jaramillo, under the pen name of R. J. Palacio, published on 14 February 2012.
WThe Yellow Birds is the debut novel from American writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers. It was one of The New York Times's 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 and a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. It was awarded the 2012 The Guardian First Book Award, and the 2013 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.