These samplers are so fun to read! I'm obsessed with these right now! I'm gonna dig all the way down to find th rest!

I enjoy reading these samplers as they offer a wonderful way to discover books that I often end up loving. They provide just enough of a glimpse to pique my interest and draw me into stories I might not have encountered otherwise.

Fantastic sampler to understanding the booking coming out during a time period. We enjoy using these during book club meetings when trying to plan future reads. Please keep these coming.

What a fun sampler pack! I ended up purchasing K-Ming Chang's Bestiary: A Novel. I absolutely love Chang's playful language and energetic storytelling. I look forward to reading more!

I look forward to these samplers to help me making up my TBR. Always good selections from a variety of genres.

Fall 2020 Debut Fiction Sampler contains extracts from The Push by Ashley Audrain, No Heaven for Good Boys by Keisha Bush, Bestiary by K-Ming Chang, The Mermaid from Jeju by Sumi Hahn, Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han, The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson, Night in Tehran by Philip Kaplan, Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie and Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood. This sampler was a great way to discover new authors I might not have found otherwise.

The Push is a psychological thriller about a woman who believes her own daughter is evil. I read this sampler in 2023 when this book has gone somewhat viral on Tiktok and is extremely popular so I was beyond excited to read this extract. I loved the second person POV and felt it immediately made the atmosphere of the book more tense and I'm now desperate to finish this book.

No Heaven for Good Boys is a literary fiction novel set in Senegal and is about two young boys who are trying to navigate the streets of Dakar to find their way home. I found the extract extremely dense with descriptions and quite slow to get going meaning it didn't grip me enough for me to want to continue to read on.

Bestiary is a literary fiction novel which follows three generations of one family from Taiwan to America. The writing in this extract was far too vulgar and I found the excessive use of profanity quite off putting so I wasn't able to really focus on the story so therefore I won't be reading this book.

The Mermaid from Jeju is a historical fiction novel set just after World War 2 in Korea which explores the theme of love. The extract was dual timeline which I found hard to get into especially as the extract was quite short so we didn't really see enough of either timeline for me to become engrossed and want to read on.

Nights When Nothing Happened is a literary fiction about Chinese immigrants living in America and how their reality differs from the image they project to the world. From the extract I enjoyed learning about the Cheng family and would be intrigued to read on to see how the story develops.

The Space Between Worlds is a science fiction novel in which Cara can move between different worlds within the multiverse. I really enjoyed the premise which was introduced in the extract and could see myself picking up this book at some point in the future when I fancy something a bit different.

Night in Tehran is a historical fiction novel revolving around a diplomat who lives in Tehran in the year leading up to the Iranian Revolution. The premise of this book sounded really interested and I have never read any books set in Iran. However this extract felt quite slow so I'm not sure if I would give the rest of the book a chance.

Fifty Words for Rain is a historical fiction novel set in Japan after World War 2. Over the past year or so I have found myself really enjoying Japanese fiction so I was excited for this however the extract wasn't engaging enough for me to want to read the rest.

Fortune Favors the Dead is a mystery/thriller set in the 1940s. I love detective novels so this sounded right up my street. This extract had me gripped from the first line and I'm now so excited to delve into this book series!

Thanks for this sampler of upcoming books. I enjoyed itand will be looking for some of these titles.

This was a nice collection of previews. It gave just enough to get a good feel for the books and to get me interested in them. I definitely think these could end up being some great reads.

I’m so addicted to these I’ve even been hunting down the old ones to see if there’s any interesting books I’ve missed!

I am eager to read the Mermaid from Jeju and will likely make a purchase. Loving the samplers as they gave me a good idea of what to purchase.

I always look forward to the seasonal samplers. They are the perfect way to line up the books I should have on my TBR.

I recognize that reading this book at the end of December 2021 makes me late to the party, but I finally had holiday vacation time to work my way through the last unread book in my NetGalley queue.

This anthology has extracts from nine works of fiction published in 2021; each extract was approximately fifteen to twenty pages. At least one of the books - The Push by Ashley Audrain - hit it big in 2021 (it’s now the January 2022 book club read for my alumni book club). Otherwise, I had never heard of the remaining books featured in the anthology.

After The Push, which was set in suburban America with American characters, came a novel set in Dakar, Senegal with two Senegalese teenaged males as main characters. The next three novels seemed to be about Asian Americans (based on my reading the first chapter) but could turn out to be more about the Asian experience than the American one. The sixth novel was a science fiction novel based on the existence of alternate earths. The next was an espionage thriller set toward the end of the reign of the Shah of Iran. After that was a story set in 1950s Japan. The final story was set in 1940s New York City.

The idea that a reader can form an opinion about a book after reading its first chapter is an interesting one. A few excerpts in, I realized that I prefer the way Buzz Books does their advance reader anthologies: Buzz Books offers a paragraph or two of context about the author and/or the book as an introduction to the excerpt, whereas this anthology just launched into the first chapter without preamble.

Of the nine excerpts, I’m only tempted to read one in full, which is The Push for my alumni book club. Before reading the excerpt, I wasn’t too excited about reading it, but I am more so now.

I received this book as a digital advance reader copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

Several of the excerpts provided in this sampler are worth adding to your TBR. My favorites are The Push, Night in Tehran, and Fortune Favors the Dead. Highly recommended!

I received this book from the through Netgalley for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Excerpts are a valuable way to find the next good read or to select for book clubs. I found several books from this collection that I would like to add to my to-be-read list.

this is not a published book that I could adopt but I do enjoy having access to excerpts of upcoming titles. I hope these continue.

The sampler books are a great resource for new literature and popular topics. I recommend the 2020Fall Debut Sampler for anyone who reviews books for libraries or author events.

Even though this sampler was put out in 2020, I had never read or even heard of most of these books. I love these samplers because I can read little bits of a lot of books and decide which ones I want to add to my TBR list.

This is a great taste of books I want to add to my to-read list. I enjoy these samples for tastes of new books.

The Space Between Worlds was such a great book. Knowing that it was included in this group of excerpts makes me interested in checking the others out!

Pros: This is the first sampler I've read. What interested me is that I just read and really enjoyed The Push, so I thought I'd learn about more books in this sampler to add to my to read list! When I saw the list of titles, I also noticed that several had been mentioned on the podcast What Should I Read Next. I've already requested a few of these titles from my library, including Fifty Words for Rain and The Space Between Worlds.

Cons: None except I'm impatient to know what happens in these books!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Samplers for the opportunity to read a bit from these books!