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Review Archive
Here you can find all of our past book reviews.


Review of Can I Stray by Jenna Adams
This is a story told in 3 acts. In act one, we meet Brooke at 14 and Matt at 17. They are cast side by side as Romeo and Juliet and their...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Orpheus Builds A Girl by Heather Parry
Dr Wilhelm von Tore is a depraved Nazi doctor forced to leave Germany after WW2 ends. Luciana is a young Cuban immigrant to America...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse
Set in a near future where global warming and pathogenic viruses have caused society to unravel, Mosse imagines a dystopia not so far...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman by Elizabeth Train-Brown
From divine to demonic, this debut poetry collection is full of myth and metaphor. Inspired by Ovid’s tales, Train-Brown draws upon the...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of The Hive by Scarlett Brade
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In this debut thriller, protagonist Charlotte plans to take the ultimate revenge on her...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors by Aravind Jayan
Sreenath is from a traditional Indian family so when he and his girlfriend are unknowingly filmed having sex and the clip ends up on a...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel
In this debut, Sheena Patel uses a single speaker to examine the tenderness and the cruelty of human behaviour. Our unlikeable narrator...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Watching Women and Girls by Danielle Pender
Danielle Pender's debut short story collection examines how women and girls are looked at, and how the ways in which we are observed and...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of The Arena of the Unwell by Liam Konemann
i-D describes The Arena of the Unwell as "A sweaty, sticky mosh pit of a novel" and they got it exactly right. Liam Konnemann's debut is...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Women and Love by Miriam Burke
Miriam Burke's debut collection of 17 short stories is a love letter to women and how they love. Surprising in its breadth, this...
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1 min read


Review of New Animal by Ella Baxter
Amelia loves her job as a beautician at her family's funeral home, but this is the only thing about herself that she is sure of....
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Paul by Daisy LaFarge
Set across various destinations in the South of France, Lafarge’s atmospheric prose makes reading this debut novel feel like a holiday....
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1 min read


Review of Safely Gathered In by Sarah Schofield
Sarah Schofield's debut short story collection is a stunning rumination on themes of family, motherhood, grief, difficult relationships,...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Larger than an Orange by Lucy Burns
1 in 3 UK women will have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old (British Pregnancy Advisory Service), this fact and the recent...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Send Nudes by Saba Sams
In this impressive debut, Sams has taken a magnifying glass to the nitty gritty of girlhood, and the result is a collection of stories...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell
For fans of crime novels, Charlotte Vassell is one to watch. Originally a lockdown project, you can tell Vassell's debut has had a lot of...
thedebutdigest
1 min read


Review of Love Me Tender by Constance Debre
Set in Paris, this debut is autofiction about a strained relationship between mother and son. When Constance's ex-husband takes her to...
thedebutdigest
1 min read
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