Credit: courtesy of publishers
Books
Everything you need to know about the British Book Awards 2025 debut book of the year shortlist
By Amy Beecham
2 months ago
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5 min read
From Green Dot to The Ministry Of Time, who will take home the debut fiction prize (supported by Stylist) at the British Book Awards 2025?
Do you remember the first time you read Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth or Donna Tartt’s The Secret History? Stand-out pieces of debut fiction tend to stay with us long after we’ve turned the final page, which is why – alongside categories like pageturner of the year and author of the year – the British Book Awards has dedicated a whole category to shining a light on the new talent of the literary world.
And with the debut fiction category (sponsored by Stylist) jam-packed with burgeoning literary talent, we can’t wait to see who goes home with the coveted award. Will it be the epic romantasy novel that swept readers into a world of faes and dragons? Or the searing exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan?
Winners will be announced on 12 May, but until then, you can read on for all the nominees for debut fiction of the year, supported by Stylist.
The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Her role is to work as a ‘bridge’: living with, supporting and monitoring expat 1847 – Commander Graham Gore, a former Victorian polar explorer. Gore, an adventurer by trade, soon adjusts to this bizarre new world of washing machines, feminism and Spotify, and during a long, sultry summer, the pair moves from awkwardness to friendship to something more.
But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy that history when it is living in your house?
Shop The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton) at Bookshop.org, £16.99
The List Of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, drainpipe jeans are in and Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family down south. Because of the murders.
Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend, Sharon, simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking. Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all?
So, Miv and Sharon decide to make a list: a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. People they know. People they don’t. But their search for the truth reveals more secrets in their neighbourhood, within their families – and between each other – than they ever thought possible.
What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home?
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
Hera is in her mid-20s, which seems young to everyone except people in their mid-20s. Since leaving school, she has been trying to kick and scream into existence a life she cares about, but with little success so far.
Until she meets Arthur.
He works with her, he is older than her, he is also married. But in her soulless office – the large cold room she feels destined to spend her life in – he is a source of much-needed sustenance. And though Hera has previously dated women, she soon falls headlong into a workplace romance that will quickly consume her life.
Shop Green Dot by Madeleine Gray (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion) at Bookshop.org, £9.99
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
Ancient Sicily. Enter Gelon: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter Lampo: lovesick, jobless, in need of a distraction. Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads.
They’re fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food. And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry.
It’s audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life – love, friendship, art itself – it will reveal the very worst and the very best of what humans are capable of.
What could possibly go wrong?
Shop Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree, Penguin General) at Bookshop.org, £16.99
When The Moon Hatched by Sarah A Parker
As an assassin for the rebellion, Raeve’s job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter shatters her world, Raeve finds herself captured by the Guild of Nobles – a group of powerful fae.
Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon rider Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to quell the never-ebbing ache in his chest, a clue lures him into the capital’s high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve …
Together, they seek truths that threaten to unravel everything they knew about their world – and each other.
Shop When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A Parker (HarperVoyager, HarperCollins UK) at Bookshop.org, £20
Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back.
Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought?
Images: courtesy of publishers
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