This great graphic novel is set at Younwity’s Institute of Magic. When Abby’s best friend Noreen goes missing, her coven elders don’t seem all that concerned. “DO NOT LOOK INTO IT,” they insist. Which Abby takes to mean that she should definitely look into it, and soon uncovers a whole lot of secrets and an old case involving another missing girl.

Devastated by the death of her mother, high schooler Bree Matthews leaves for a residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill, her mother’s alma mater. Shortly after arriving, Bree is attacked by a demon, which is weird. Even weirder, the students nearby then attempt to cast a spell on Bree to make her forget the attack — and it doesn’t work. Instead, it unlocks powers she didn’t know she had, powers that are tied to Arthurian legend — and her mother. 

And this thriller adds a supernatural twist on a very real, serious societal problem. Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston has learned to live with the fact that he sees dead people. In fact, he’s happy to help them move along to the next plane or whatever. But he has a new problem besides his racist teachers at St. Clair Prep — the violent ghost of a school shooter has begun to haunt him and he’s resistant to Jake’s attempts to get him to leave.

Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux is excited to attend her new boarding school in London, of all places! But her joy is damped when a series of murders occur that mimic the legendary serial killer Jack the Ripper. Now Rory finds herself having to watch her back everywhere she goes, but it’s not going to help. The killer seems to have a specific interest in her, and he’ll be harder to stop…because he’s already dead. (Be sure to also check out Johnson’s fabulous non-fantasy dark academia YA series that starts with Truly Devious!)

In the dystopian world of this novel, young women at the Medio School for Girls are trained in one of two areas: how to be a good wife or how to raise their husband’s children. Either of these jobs is considered a luxury in their dangerous society. Daniela Vargas is a top student, but she’s not who she says she is, and when she’s asked to spy at the school for a resistance group, she’ll have to make the most difficult choices of her life.

At Dalloway House, the centuries-old school, there resides an exclusive dorm that is haunted by the ghosts of five murdered students. Felicity Morrow once lived there, until her girlfriend died and she left school. Now she’s back to finish high school, and to continue looking into the school’s secret occult history. She meets an eager new student who wants to help Felicity with her research, to use in a book. But when old mysteries and repeat terrors begin to surface, Felicity begins to question her choice to return.

In arguably the darkest of the dark academia on this list, three best friends investigate the death of the fourth in their group at Grimrose Académie. The police has ruled Ariane’s death a suicide, but Ella, Yuki, and Rory know that there are weird things going on at the school. With their help of their new roommate, they dig into the secrets of the school and find another case of a missing girl, with possibly deadly consequences.

And last but not least, it wouldn’t be a fun list of dark academia books without some bloodsuckers! When Kat Finn is accepted to the Harcote School, the prestigious vampires-only boarding school, she thinks things are finally going her way. Instead of scraping by and drinking synthetic blood, she’ll be rubbing elbows with the children of the vampire elite. But things immediately take a terrible turn when it turns out her roommate is her ex–best friend, Taylor, who finds a body on campus.

America Chavez finally gets a break from the Young Avengers and is trying to forge her own path and be her own person. But of course, things start to get a little wild, After all, it can be hard to be a queer, super-powered individual just trying to survive school. Luckily, America has her moms to support her, an incredible mentor, and some really good friends to back her up. This is a fast-paced thrill ride perfect for any comic fan.

Adopted by her two moms, Mira has always felt out of place in her mostly white community. All she knows about her mother is that she had Mira in high school and then returned to India. But then Mira finds some letters addressed to her from her birth mom and decides the time has come to learn more about where she came from. But, is she really prepared to finally meet her bio mom? This is a heartwarming story of family, belonging, and self discovery that will stay with long after reading.

Nova works for her grandmas’ bookshop, and knows a lot about magic and being a witch. One night her childhood crush, who is a werewolf, gets into some trouble, and it’s up to Nova to find out what happened and help her friend. Backed up by magic, her two grandmothers, and some absolutely delicious desserts, Nova and Tam work together, and maybe find something more than friendship along the way.

The Secret Series is a delightful tale that I can’t tell you a single thing about! It’s all a secret, even the main characters names, so we just call them Cass and Max-Earnest. One day Cass finds a mysterious item delivered to her grandfathers’ antique shop, it’s said to come from the home of a magician. Cass starts to investigate and soon finds out about a secret, two secret societies, and a whole bunch of magic.

It’s really hard to be a teenage superhero. Especially one that no one knows about. Struggling to keep her powers a secret, Nubia does her best to blend in, hang out with her friends, and be normal. But how can she be normal when she secretly has super strength and other amazing powers? When a student threatens her friends and their school, Nubia steps in to save the day, and prove to her moms that she is ready to be an actual hero. The art and story in this book is simply breathtaking.

Nova has had enough with the “so-called heroes” that have taken over the world. Sure they claim they want the world to be a better place, but they killed her uncle. After an attack goes wrong, Nova must go undercover with these people to bring an end to their rule. But are they as corrupt as she thought? Or are they really trying to do good in the world? This is a fantastic book with a very nuanced discussion about good and evil, right and wrong, and the responsibility of the powerful.

Monty finds a “mystical amulet” for only six bucks and decides to buy it. However, soon strange things start happening. This amulet called “the Eye of Know” seems to cause strange things to happen to people who Monty hates. Can Monty use this newfound power for good? Like taking down the preacher who hates her moms? Or are some powers too great for one person to have? This is a delightful and magical book with truly unforgettable characters.

Bri has always been able to make plants grow from the smallest seeds, to the biggest bloom. When her moms decide it’s time to get out of Brooklyn after the death of her aunt, Bri finally has the chance to understand and control her powers. Surrounded by flowers, and idyllic vistas, not all is perfect in this new summer home. Strangers keep appearing to ask for strange elixirs, and this house seems to hold a mystery that could be the key to answering all of Bri’s questions.

From the author of Love, Simon comes this adorable tale of Molly, who has been in love a total of 26 times. And not once has that love been returned. But, when her sister starts dating the new girl and spending less time with Molly, she cooks up a plan. She’s gonna date the brother of sister’s girlfriend, get her sister back, and, most importantly, get her first kiss. That’s the plan until for the first time Molly realizes she might actually have an impossible crush on her best friend Reid. But that can’t be? Can it?

Alexis has it all! A group of best friends, and magic. But all good things must come to an end, and after a freak magical accident that results in the death of a boy, Alexis starts to feel helpless. Now this group of friends must come together to make things right, no matter how may times they fail. Which turns up being a lot. But this group has got each other’s backs and Alexis just might be remembering what brought them all together as friends in the first place. This is a dark, but heartwarming look at friendship, love, and the painful process of growing up.

These are just a few of the amazing YA books out there that feature queer parents. Some have been around a while, and some came out pretty recently, but no matter what you’re looking for, there’s bound to be the perfect book on this list for you.

Warsaw, 1942. Sixteen-year old Mira smuggles food into the Ghetto to keep herself and her family alive. When she discovers that the entire Ghetto is to be “liquidated”—killed or “resettled” to concentration camps—she desperately tries to find a way to save her family.

She meets a group of young people who are planning the unthinkable: an uprising against the occupying forces. Mira joins the resistance fighters who, with minimal supplies and weapons, end up holding out for twenty-eight days, longer than anyone had thought possible.

Orpha doesn’t speak about what got her into prison.

No one would listen.

No one would believe her.

Haunted by nightmarish flashbacks and withering in the miserable conditions of Tothill prison, 16-year-old Orpha perseveres, doing what she can to befriend and protect the other girls imprisoned alongside her.

But then a mysterious letter arrives, offering her a place at a women’s home called Urania cottage. It sounds too good to be true–but with nowhere else to go, Orpha decides to take her chance. Soon she discovers the letter-writer is none other than Charles Dickens.

With the support of the other women of Urania and the promise of a real future, Orpha will have to confront the darkest parts of her past– and let go of her secrets.

This atmospheric historical novel, full of heartbreakingly real characters, celebrates the strength and resilience of young women throughout history. Virginia Frances Schwartz’s powerful prose, structured to echo Dickens’ serialized style, illuminates an era of startling inequality and extreme poverty. Fans of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793, Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, and Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie will enjoy this riveting title.

No one can be at peace until he has his freedom.

In Charlestown Prison, Malcolm Little struggles with the weight of his past. Plagued by nightmares, Malcolm drifts through days, unsure of his future. Slowly, he befriends other prisoners and writes to his family. He reads all the books in the prison library, joins the debate team and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm grapples with race, politics, religion, and justice in the 1940s. And as his time in jail comes to an end, he begins to awaken — emerging from prison more than just Malcolm Little: Now, he is Malcolm X.

Here is an intimate look at Malcolm X’s young adult years. While this book chronologically follows X: A Novel, it can be read as a stand-alone historical novel that invites larger discussions on black power, prison reform, and civil rights.

“We don’t see color.” “I didn’t know Black people liked Star Wars!” “What hood are you from?” As a student in a largely white high school, Frederick Joseph often simply let wince-worthy moments go. When he grew older, he saw them as missed opportunities to stand up for himself and bring awareness to those who didn’t see the hurt they caused. Here,Joseph speaks to the reader as he wishes he’d spoken to his friends, unpacking hurtful race-related anecdotes from his past and sharing how he might handle things differently now. Each chapter also features the voice and experience of an artist or activist, including Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give; April Reign, creator of #OscarsSoWhite; and Jemele Hill, sports journalist and podcast host. From cultural appropriation to power dynamics, “reverse racism” to white privilege, this book is a conversation starter, tool kit, and window into the life of a former “token Black kid.” Back matter includes an encyclopedia of racism, including details on historical events and terminology.

Britt Pheiffer has trained to backpack the Teton Range, but she isn’t prepared when her ex-boyfriend, who still haunts her every thought, wants to join her. Before Britt can explore her feelings for Calvin, an unexpected blizzard forces her to seek shelter in a remote cabin, accepting the hospitality of its two very handsome occupants.

But her luck takes a turn for the worse when she discovers the men are fugitives, and they take her hostage. Britt is forced to guide them off the mountain, knowing she must stay alive long enough for Calvin to find her. Along the way, Britt finds chilling evidence of a series of murders that could be linked to her captors…

But nothing is as it seems, and everyone is keeping secrets, including Mason, one of her kidnappers, whose seemingly genuine kindness confuses Britt. While facing the threats of frigid snowstorms and wild grizzly bears, can Britt figure out who her real enemies are?

(This is a reissued paperback)

In Nazi-ruled Germany, Joe St. George is forced to watch as the country is divided around him by fear and hate. Joe thinks he and his family are safe, but when his father disappears one night, everything changes. Suddenly Joe and his mother are suspects of the state, but for what, Joe has no idea. They plan their escape from Germany, even though it means leaving Joe’s father behind. However, Joe and his mom are separated before they make it out, and he is forced to go on without her.

Eventually Joe arrives in London but quickly realizes he’s not free of the Nazis. Since Joe’s escape, Hitler has been marching west, and London is under constant attack from the skies. Desperate to find his parents, Joe begins to dig into what happened back home. But the truth is a lot more complicated and dangerous than Joe ever imagined, and soon he is recruited by MI5 and given a deadly mission that will put him in the very center of Hitler’s ruthless reign. From vital convoys across the frozen North Atlantic, to the terror of the Blitz, to the shadowy world of the French Resistance, just how far will Joe have to go to save his family … and himself?

In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles, and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird — a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of world power. Both the Americans and the Soviets want Bluebird, and it is something that neither should ever be allowed to possess.

But Eva hasn’t come to America for secrets or power. She hasn’t even come for a new life. She has come to America for one thing: Justice. And the Nazi that has escaped its net.

Empress Margaraux has had plans for her daughters since the day they were born. Princesses Sophronia, Daphne, and Beatriz will be queens. And now, age sixteen, they each must leave their homeland and marry their princes.

Beautiful, smart, and demure, the triplets appear to be the perfect brides—because Margaraux knows there is one common truth: everyone underestimates a girl. Which is a grave mistake. Sophronia, Daphne, and Beatriz are no innocents. They have been trained since birth in the arts of deception, seduction, and violence with a singular goal—to bring down monarchies—and their marriages are merely the first stage of their mother’s grand vision: to one day reign over the entire continent of Vesteria.

The princesses have spent their lives preparing, and now they are ready, each with her own secret skill, and each with a single wish, pulled from the stars. Only, the stars have their own plans—and their mother hasn’t told them all of hers.

Life abroad is a test. Will their loyalties stay true? Or will they learn that they can’t trust anyone—not even each other?

Welcome to New York. . . . He’s been waiting for you.

Margot hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Zach, the dreamy American boy she met one magical night in Paris. In an instant, they fell head over heels in love and spent the perfect evening ensemble—sealed with a kiss and a promise: if the universe wants them to be together, fate will find a way. 

Flash forward one year later: Margot has finished high school and is newly arrived in New York, ready to roll up her chef’s-coat sleeves in Manhattan’s bustling restaurant scene, celebrate her father’s upcoming wedding . . . and reconnect with Zach. 

But a lot can happen in a year, and promises made in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower look different in the neon glow of the Big Apple. Margot spends the summer desperate to find Zach and enlists the help of Ben, the sweet line cook at her restaurant. Margot is convinced she found her soul mate that night in Paris . . . but what if the universe has a different plan?

Anything’s possible in New York City. Especially l’amour, American-style.

Ashley “Ash” Bishop has always known who he is: a guy who loves soccer, has a crush on his friend Michelle, and is fascinated by the gruesome history of his hometown—Salem, Massachusetts. He’s also always known that he’s intersex, born with both male and female genitalia. But it’s never felt like a big deal until his junior year of high school, when Ash gets his first period in front of the entire boys’ soccer team. Now his friends and teachers see him differently, and his own mother thinks he should “try being a girl.”

As tensions mount with his parents and Ash feels more and more like an outcast, he can’t help feeling a deeper kinship with his ancestor Bridget Bishop, who was executed for witchcraft. She didn’t conform to her community’s expectations either; she was different, and her neighbors felt threatened by her. And she paid the ultimate price. Ash is haunted by her last recorded words: You will keep silent.

Ash realizes that he needs to find a way to stand up for who he really is, or the cost of his silence might destroy his life, too.

Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals. They are hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.

Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory after her family was murdered by a rival line. For years she’s pushed away any thought of revenge against the man―now a god―responsible for their deaths.

Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek her out: Castor, a childhood friend Lore believed to be dead, and Athena, one of the last of the original gods, now gravely wounded.

The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and a way to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore’s decision to rejoin the hunt, binding her fate to Athena’s, will come at a deadly cost―and it may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.

This summer, Reese Camden is trading sweet tea and Southern hospitality for cold brew and crisp coastal air. She’s landed her dream marketing internship at Friends of Flavor, a wildly popular cooking channel in Seattle. The only problem? Benny Beneventi, the relentlessly charming, backwards-baseball-cap-wearing culinary intern—and her main competition for the fall job.

Reese’s plan to keep work a No Feelings Zone crumbles like a day-old muffin when she and Benny are thrown together for a video shoot that goes viral, making them the internet’s newest ship. Audiences are hungry for more, and their bosses at Friends of Flavor are happy to deliver. Soon Reese and Benny are in an all-out food war, churning homemade ice cream, twisting soft pretzels, breaking eggs in an omelet showdown—while hundreds of thousands of viewers watch.  

Reese can’t deny the chemistry between her and Benny. But the more their rivalry heats up, the harder it is to keep love on the back burner. . . .

With exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, critically acclaimed and award-winning journalist Jack Fairweather brilliantly portrays the remarkable man who volunteered to face the unknown in the name of truth and country. This extraordinary and eye-opening account of the Holocaust invites us all to bear witness.

Occupied Warsaw, Summer 1940:

Witold Pilecki, a Polish underground operative, accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands interned at a new concentration camp, report on Nazi crimes, raise a secret army, and stage an uprising. The name of the camp — Auschwitz.

Over the next two and half years, and under the cruellest of conditions, Pilecki’s underground sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying Nazi plans to exterminate Europe’s Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so meant attempting the impossible — but first he would have to escape from Auschwitz itself…

Savannah Howard sacrificed her high school social life to make sure she got into a top college. Her sights were set on an HBCU, but when she is accepted to the ivy-covered walls of Wooddale University on a full ride, how can she say no?

Wooddale is far from the perfectly manicured community it sells on its brochures, though. Savannah has barely unpacked before she comes face to face with microagressions stemming from racism and elitism. Then Clive Wilmington’s statue is vandalized with blackface. The prime suspect? Lucas Cunningham, Wooddale’s most popular student and son of a local prominent family. Soon Savannah is unearthing secrets of Wooddale’s racist history. But what’s the price for standing up for what is right? And will telling the truth about Wooddale’s past cost Savannah her own future?

A stunning, challenging, and timely debut about racism and privilege on college campuses.

When a secret society has you in their sights, it can lead to power, privilege… or death.

It’s been two weeks since Polly St. James went missing. The police, the headmistress of Torrey-Wells Academy, and even her parents have ruled her a runaway. But not Maren, her best friend and roommate. She knows Polly had a secret that she was about to share with Maren before she disappeared― something to do with the elite, ultra-rich crowd at Torrey-Wells.

Then Maren finds an envelope hidden among Polly’s things: an invitation to the Gamemaster’s Society. Do not tell anyone, it says. Maren is certain her classmates in the Society know the truth about what happened to Polly, though it’s no easy feat to join. Once Maren’s made it through the treacherous initiation, she discovers a world she never knew existed within her school, where Society members compete in high-stakes games for unheard-of rewards―Ivy League connections, privileges, favors.

But Maren’s been drawn into a different game: for every win, she’ll receive a clue about Polly. And as Maren keeps winning, she begins to see just how powerful the Society’s game is―bigger and deadlier than she ever imagined. They see, they know, they control. And they kill.

This is the vibrant story of George, Garrett, Rall, and Rasul — four children raised by Nanny, their fiercely devoted grandmother. The boys hold one another close through early brushes with racism, memorable experiences at the family barbershop, and first loves and losses. And with Nanny at their center, they are never broken.

George M. Johnson captures the unique experience of growing up as a Black boy in America through rich family stories that explore themes of vulnerability, sacrifice, and culture.

Complete with touching letters from the grandchildren to their beloved matriarch and a full color photo insert, this heartwarming and heartbreaking memoir is destined to become a modern classic of emerging adulthood.

An immigrant teen fights for her family, her future, and the place she calls home.

In the spring of 2018, Guatemalan American high school senior Milagros “Millie” Vargas knows her life is about to change. She has lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, ever since her parents sought asylum there when she was a baby. Now a citizen, Millie devotes herself to school and caring for her younger siblings while her mom works as a housekeeper for the wealthy Wheeler family. With college on the horizon, Millie is torn between attending her dream school and staying close to home, where she knows she’s needed. She is disturbed by what’s happening to asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, but she doesn’t see herself as an activist or a change-maker. She’s just trying to take care of her own family.

Then Mr. Wheeler, a U.S. Senate candidate, mentions Millie’s achievements in a campaign speech about “deserving” immigrants. It doesn’t take long for people to identify Millie’s family and place them at the center of a statewide immigration debate. Faced with journalists, trolls, anonymous threats, and the Wheelers’ good intentions―especially those of Mr. Wheeler’s son, Charlie―Millie must confront the complexity of her past, the uncertainty of her future, and her place in the country that she believed was home.

Welcome to Almost, Maine, a town that’s so far north, it’s almost not in the United States―it’s almost in Canada. And it almost doesn’t exist, because its residents never got around to getting organized. So it’s just . . . Almost.

One cold, clear Friday night in the middle of winter, while the northern lights hover in the sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in the strangest ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. Love is lost and found. And life for the people of Almost, Maine will never be the same.

With characters you’ll adore in a setting you’ll never forget, Almost, Maine is a love story like no other, for fans of “Dear Evan Hansen.”

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.

As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.

Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming…human or demon. Princess or monster.

After Kiran Noorani’s mom died, Kiran vowed to keep her dad and sister, Amira, close—to keep her family together. But when Amira announces that she’s dating someone, Kiran’s world is turned upside down.

Deen Malik is thrilled that his brother, Faisal, has found a great girlfriend. Maybe a new love will give Faisal a new lease on life, and Deen can stop feeling guilty for the reason that Faisal needs a do-over in the first place.

When the families meet, Deen and Kiran find themselves face to face. Again. Three years ago—before Amira and Faisal met—Kiran and Deen dated in secret. Until Deen ghosted Kiran.

And now, after discovering hints of Faisal’s shady past, Kiran will stop at nothing to find answers. Deen just wants his brother to be happy—and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep Kiran from reaching the truth. Though the chemistry between Kiran and Deen is undeniable, can either of them take down their walls?

 Joy Abara knows her place. A commoner from the lowly planet Hali, she lives a simple life—apart from the notoriety that being Kindred to the nobility’s most infamous playboy brings.

Duke Felix Hamdi has a plan. He will exasperate his noble family to the point that they agree to let him choose his own future and finally meet his Kindred face-to-face.

When the royal family is assassinated, putting Felix next in line for the throne…and accused of the murders, he must leap into action to save himself and Joy. Meeting in person as they steal a spacecraft and flee amid chaos might not be ideal…and neither is crash-landing on the strange backward planet called Earth. But hiding might just be the perfect way to discover the true strength of the Kindred bond and expose a scandal—and a love—that may decide the future of a galaxy.

Moth has lost her family in an accident. Though she lives with her aunt, she feels alone and uprooted.

Until she meets Sani, a boy who is also searching for his roots. If he knows more about where he comes from, maybe he’ll be able to understand his ongoing depression. And if Moth can help him feel grounded, then perhaps she too will discover the history she carries in her bones.

Moth and Sani take a road trip that has them chasing ghosts and searching for ancestors. The way each moves forward is surprising, powerful, and unforgettable.

Here is an exquisite and uplifting novel about identity, first love, and the ways that our memories and our roots steer us through the universe.

It’s 1830s England, and Culinarians—doyens who consult with society’s elite to create gorgeous food and confections—are the crème de la crème of high society.

Helena Higgins, top of her class at the Royal Academy, has a sharp demeanor and an even sharper palate—and knows stardom awaits her if she can produce greatness in her final year.

Penelope Pickering is going to prove the value of non-European cuisine to all of England. Her contemporaries may scorn her Filipina heritage and her dishes, but with her flawless social graces and culinary talents, Penelope is set to prove them wrong.

Elijah Little has nothing to his name but a truly excellent instinct for flavors. London merchants won’t allow a Jewish boy to own a shop, so he hawks his pasties for a shilling a piece to passersby—but he knows with training he can break into the highest echelon of society.

When Penelope and Helena meet Elijah, a golden opportunity arises: to pull off a project never seen before, and turn Elijah from a street vendor to a gentleman chef.

But Elijah’s transformation will have a greater impact on this trio than they originally realize—and mayhem, unseemly faux pas, and a little romance will all be a part of the delicious recipe.

All Luis Gonzalez wants is to go to prom with his boyfriend, something his “progressive” high school still doesn’t allow. Not after what happened with Chaz Wilson. But that was ages ago, when Luis’s parents were in high school; it would never happen today, right? He’s determined to find a way to give his LGBTQ friends the respect they deserve (while also not risking his chance to be prom king, just saying…).

When a hit on the head knocks him back in time to 1985 and he meets the doomed young Chaz himself, Luis concocts a new plan-he’s going to give this guy his first real kiss. Though it turns out a conservative school in the ’80s isn’t the safest place to be a gay kid. Especially with homophobes running the campus, including Gordo (aka Luis’s estranged father). Luis is in over his head, trying not to make things worse-and hoping he makes it back to present day at all.

In a story that’s fresh, intersectional, and wickedly funny, David Valdes introduces a big-mouthed, big-hearted, queer character that readers won’t soon forget.

A lone girl determined to survive. The feral wolf she must learn to trust.

Only one chance to escape their icy planet: a race across the deadly tundra.

Seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen hates the sled race, especially after it claimed both her mothers’ lives five years ago. Alone on her frozen planet, she makes money any other way she can–until she double-crosses a local gangster.

Desperate to escape, Sena flees with his prized fighting wolf, Iska, and takes an offer from a team of scientists. They’ll pay her way off-world, on one condition–that she uses the survival skills her mothers taught her to get them to the end of the race. But the tundra is a treacherous place. When the race threatens their lives at every turn, Sena must discover whether her abilities are enough to help them survive the wild, and whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.

As the girl and the wolf forge a tenuous bond and fight to escape ice goblins, giant bears, and the ruthless gang leader intent on trapping them both, one question drives them relentlessly forward: Where do you turn when there is nowhere to hide?

Eva has never felt like she belonged . . . not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So, when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something.

But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried?

1962:

There is only one reason why Connie would volunteer to be one of the six students to participate in testing Hardwick’s nuclear fallout shelter: Craig Allenby. While the thought of nuclear war sends her into a panic, she can’t pass up the opportunity to spend four days locked in with the school’s golden boy.

However, Connie and the other students quickly discover that there is more to this “test” than they previously thought. As they are forced to follow an escalating series of commands, Connie realizes that one wrong move could have dangerous consequences.

Separated by sixty years, Eva and Connie’s stories become inextricably intertwined as Eva unravels the mystery of how six students went into the fallout shelter all those years ago . . . but only five came out.

Charlotte lost her mother six months ago, and still no one will tell her exactly what happened the day she mysteriously died. They say her heart stopped, but Charlotte knows deep down that there’s more to the story. 

The only person who gets it is Charlotte’s sister, Maddi. Maddi agrees – people’s hearts don’t just stop. There are too many questions left unanswered for the girls to move on.

But their father is moving on. With their mother’s personal assistant. And both girls are sure of one thing: She’s going to steal everything that’s theirs for herself. She’ll even get rid of them eventually.

Now, in order to get their lives back, Charlotte and Maddi have to decide what kind of story they live in. Do they remain the obedient girls their father insists they be, or do they follow their rage to the end? 

Mimi’s relationship with her mother has always been difficult. But lately, her mother has been acting more withdrawn than usual, leaving Mimi to navigate the tricky world of turning sixteen alone. What she doesn’t expect is her mother’s advice to start journaling—just like all the woman in her family before her. It’s a tradition, she says. Expected.

But Mimi takes to poetry and with it, a way to write down the realities of growing into a woman, the pains of online bullying, and the new experiences of having a boyfriend. And all in the shadows of a sexual assault case that is everywhere on the news—a case that seems to specifically rattle her mother.

Trying to understand her place in the world, Mimi dives into the uncovered journals of her grandmother, great-grandmother, and beyond. She immerses herself in each of their lives, learns of their painful stories and their beautiful sprits. And as Mimi grows closer to each of these women, she starts to forge her own path. But it isn’t until her mother’s story comes to light that Mimi learns about the unyielding bonds of family and the relentless spirit of womanhood.

Sam Dickson is a charismatic actress, ambitious and popular with big plans for her future. Ros Shew is one of the smartest people in school―but she’s a loner, and prefers to keep it that way. Then there’s Christian Powell, the darling of the high school soccer team. He’s not the best with communication, which is why he and Sam broke up after dating for six months; but he makes up for it by being genuine, effusive, and kind, which is why they’re still best friends.

When Christian falls for Ros on first sight, their first interaction is a disaster, so he enlists Sam’s help to get through to her. Sam, with motives of her own, agrees to coach Christian from the sidelines on how to soften Ros’s notorious walls. But as Ros starts to suspect Christian is acting differently, and Sam starts to realize the complexity of her own feelings, their fragile relationships threaten to fall apart.

This fresh romantic comedy from debut author Rachel Roasek is a heartfelt story about falling in love―with a partner, with your friends, or just with yourself―and about how maybe, the bravest thing to do in the face of change is just love somebody.

“This page-turner offers a peek into the dark side of Silicon Valley and sheds light on issues hidden beneath the glitz of startup culture, including old-boy networks, unsustainable lifestyles, and the lure of promises that are too good to be true. A riveting cautionary tale.” –Kirkus Reviews

Xia is stuck in a lonely, boring loop. Her only escapes are Wiser, an artificial intelligence app she designed to answer questions as her future self, and a mysterious online crush she knows only as ObjectPermanence.

Until one day Xia enrolls at the Foundry, an app incubator for tech prodigies in Silicon Valley, and suddenly anything is possible. Flirting with Mast, a classmate also working on AI, leads to a date. Speaking up generates a vindictive nemesis intent on publicly humiliating her. And running into Mitzy Erst, Foundry alumna and Xia’s idol, could give Xia all the answers.

And then Xia receives a shocking message from ObjectPermanence. He is at the Foundry, too. Xia is torn between Mast and ObjectPermanence—just as Mitzy pushes her towards a shiny new future. Xia doesn’t have to ask Wiser to know: The right choice could transform her into the future self of her dreams, but the wrong one could destroy her.

Don’t forget the rule. No one can know what you are. What we are. You must never tell anyone about monsters.

Joan has just learned the truth: her family are monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers.

And the cute boy at work isn’t just a boy: he’s a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to destroy her family.

To save herself and her family, Joan will have to do what she fears most: embrace her own monstrousness. Because in this story…she is not the hero.

Dive deep into the world of Only a Monster: hidden worlds dwell in the shadows, beautiful monsters with untold powers walk among humans, and secrets are the most powerful weapon of all.

Dylan has always wanted a boyfriend, but the suburbs surrounding Philadelphia do not have a lot in the way of options. Then, in walks Jordan, a completely normal (and undeniably cute) boy who also happens to run at a cool 110 degrees Fahrenheit. When the boys start spending time together, Dylan begins feeling all kinds of ways, and when he spikes a fever for two weeks and is suddenly coughing flames, he thinks he might be suffering from something more than just a crush. Jordan forces Dylan to keep his symptoms a secret. But as the pressure mounts and Dylan becomes distant with his closest friends and family, he pushes Jordan for answers. Jordan’s revelations of why he’s like this, where he came from, and who’s after him leaves Dylan realizing how much first love is truly out of this world. But if the attraction between them defies the laws of physics, love may be the only thing that can keep Jordan and Dylan together.

Nothing will get in the way of Millie Price’s dream of becoming a Broadway star. Not her lovable but super introverted dad, who raised Millie alone since she was a baby. Not her drama club rival, Oliver, who is the very definition of Simmering Romantic Tension. And not her “Millie Moods,” the feelings of intense emotion that threaten to overwhelm. Millie needs an ally. And when an accidentally left-open browser brings Millie to her dad’s embarrassingly moody LiveJournal from 2003, Millie knows just what to do―find her mom.

But how can you find a new part of your life and expect it to fit into your old one without leaving any marks? And why is it that when you go looking for the past, it somehow keeps bringing you back to what you’ve had all along?

Love—and Fen Sarafian—do not care about your summer plans.

Eighteen-year-old chauffeur’s daughter Jane Marlow grew up among the domestic staff of a wealthy LA rock producer, within reach of bands she idolizes, but never a VIP. Every summer, Jane and her father head to the Sierras to work at the producer’s luxury lodge at Lake Condor—a resort town and the site of a major musical festival.

The legendary family who runs the festival are the Sarafians, and Jane’s had a longtime crush on their oldest son, Eddie—doltish but sweet. So, when a long-distance romance finally sparks between them, she doesn’t hesitate to cross class lines.

But Jane’s feelings for Eddie are thrown into question after she returns to the lake and reconnects with his alluringly intense brother, the dark horse of her placid summer plans. A fellow lover of music—and hater of the game—Fen Sarafian has been ousted from the family and is slumming it at a vinyl record shop. He burns for Jane like a house on fire and will do anything to sabotage his older brother, even if it means taking a wrecking ball to a multi-million-dollar music festival. Or Jane’s heart.

Rani Kelkar has never lied to her parents, until she meets Oliver. The same qualities that draw her in–his tattoos, his charisma, his passion for art–make him her mother’s worst nightmare.

They begin dating in secret, but when Oliver’s troubled home life unravels, he starts to ask more of Rani than she knows how to give, desperately trying to fit into her world, no matter how high the cost. When a twist of fate leads Rani from Evanston, Illinois to Pune, India for a summer, she has a reckoning with herself–and what’s really brewing beneath the surface of her first love.

Winner of SCBWI’s Emerging Voices award, Anuradha D. Rajurkar takes an honest look at the ways cultures can clash in an interracial relationship. Braiding together themes of sexuality, artistic expression, and appropriation, she gives voice to a girl claiming ownership of her identity, one shattered stereotype at a time.

Luca Mason knows exactly who he is and what he wants: In six months, he’s going to be accepted into the Australian Ballet School, leave his fancy private high school, and live his life as a star of the stage―at least that’s the plan until he falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his foot in a way he can never recover from.

With his dancing dreams dead on their feet, Luca loses his performing arts scholarship and transfers to the local public school, leaving behind all his ballet friends and his whole future on stage.

The only bright side is that he strikes up unlikely friendships with the nicest (and nerdiest) girl at his new school, Amina, and the gorgeous, popular, and (reportedly) straight school captain, Jordan Tanaka-Jones.

As Luca’s bond with Jordan grows stronger, he starts to wonder: who is he without ballet? And is he setting himself up for another heartbreak?

With Lay Li I don’t have to think too hard

I’m the friend of the star

& I don’t mind, not at all

It gives me time to think about my dreams & the WNBA

But when I call Lay Li & she don’t pick up

A pit in my stomach grows like a redwood tree

Sky is used to standing in the shadow of her best friend. Lay Li is the sun everyone orbits around. But since high school started, Lay Li has begun attracting the attention of boys, and Sky is left out in the cold. The only place Sky can find her footing is on the basketball court. With each dribble of the ball, Sky begins to find her own rhythm. Lay Li may always be the sun, but that doesn’t mean Sky can’t shine on her own.

With gritty and heartbreaking honesty, a critically acclaimed poet, delivers her first novel in verse about broken promises, fast rumors, and learning to generate your own light.

I did my part, BFF. Now it’s your turn.

Seventeen-year-old film noir fan Neve Lanier is a girl who just wants to be seen, but doesn’t really fit in anywhere. When Neve is betrayed by her best friend, Yasmin, at the end of the school year, she heads off to a girl’s empowerment camp feeling like no one will ever love her again. So when she grabs the attention of the beautiful, charismatic Diane, she falls right under her spell, and may accidentally promise to murder Diane’s predatory step-brother, Javier, in exchange for Diane murdering Yasmin. But that was just a joke…right?

Wrong. When Yasmin turns up dead, Diane comes calling, attempting to blackmail Neve into murdering Javier. Stalling for time, Neve pretends to go along with Diane’s plan until she can find a way out that doesn’t involve homicide. But as she gets to know Javier – and falls for him – she realizes that everything Diane told her is a lie. Even worse, she discovers that Yasmin probably wasn’t Diane’s first victim. And unless Neve can stop her, she won’t be the last.

In this twisted game of cat and mouse, the reader never quite knows who’s telling the truth, who’s playing games, and who is going to end up dead.

Escape ’56 is a novel based on the life of young Elizabeth Molnár (the author’s mother) and her family as they lived through the harrowing days of the Hungarian Revolution. The book recounts the story of the inspiring student-led uprising and the shocking Soviet invasion that followed, leading to Elizabeth’s perilous nighttime escape from Hungary through the border woods in November, 1956. Weaving historical fact with the accounts of his relatives’ dramatic experiences, Panchyk’s cinematic, fictional narrative feels both personal and universal. 

When the Hungarian Revolution failed, more than 200,0000 Hungarians (two percent of the population) fled the country, fearing for their lives and an even more oppressive regime than they’d already endured. Elizabeth’s adventure continues, first as a refugee in Austria, and then in the United States where she and her family start a new life with little money, few possessions, and almost no understanding of English. Escape ’56 is a gripping novel, filled with historical detail and incorporating recollections from the author’s mother, aunt, and grandmother.

It’s the summer before senior year. Gabriel, Reese, Sal, and Heath are best friends, bonded in their small, rural town by their queerness, their good grades, and their big dreams. But they have plans for the summer, each about to embark on a new adventure.

Gabriel is volunteering at an environmental nonprofit in Boston.

Reese is attending design school in Paris.

Sal is interning on Capitol Hill for a senator.

Heath is heading to Florida, to help out at his aunt’s boardwalk arcade.

What will this season of world-expanding travel and life-changing experiences mean for each of them–and for their friendship?

You should know, right now, that I’m a liar.

They’re usually little lies. Tiny lies. Baby lies. Not so much lies as lie adjacent. But they’re still lies…

Golden-haired Max Monroe has it all: beauty, friends, and tons of followers. Her picture-perfect existence seems eminently enviable.

Except it’s all fake.

“Max” is actually Kat Sanchez, a quiet and sarcastic 17-year-old living in drab Bakersfield, California. Nothing glamorous about her existence—just bad house parties, a crap school year, and the awkwardness of dealing with best friend Hari’s unrequited love.

But while Kat’s life is far from perfect, she thrives as Max: doling out advice, sharing beautiful photos, networking with fans, even finding a real friend (or more?—Is Kat into girls!?) in a gorgeous Fat follower named Elena. But the closer Elena and “Max” get, the more Kat feels she has to keep up the façade. “Max” is the first time people have really listened to what Kat has to say—and after a lifetime of invisibility (including ice-cold indifference from her parents) can she really give that up?

But when one of Kat’s posts goes viral and gets back to the girl she’s been stealing photos from, her entire world—real and fake—comes crashing down around her. Can she escape the web of lies she’s woven without hurting the people she loves?

Two girls. One wild and reckless day. Years of tumultuous history unspooling like a thin, fraying string in the hours after they set a fire.

They were best friends. Until they became more. Their affections grew. Until the blurry lines became dangerous.

Over the course of a single day, the depth of their past, the confusion of their present, and the unpredictability of their future is revealed. And the girls will learn that hearts, like flames, aren’t so easily tamed.

It starts with a fire.

How will it end?

Jamal Lawson just wanted to be a part of something. As an aspiring journalist, he packs up his camera and heads to Baltimore to document a rally protesting police brutality after another Black man is murdered.

But before it even really begins, the city implements a new safety protocol…the Dome. The Dome surrounds the city, forcing those within to subscribe to a total militarized shutdown. No one can get in, and no one can get out.

Alone in a strange place, Jamal doesn’t know where to turn…until he meets hacker Marco, who knows more than he lets on, and Catherine, an AWOL basic-training-graduate, whose parents helped build the initial plans for the Dome.

As unrest inside of Baltimore grows throughout the days-long lockdown, Marco, Catherine, and Jamal take the fight directly to the chief of police. But the city is corrupt from the inside out, and it’s going to take everything they have to survive.

The Queen’s Gambit meets The Hunger Games in this “brisk and brutal…harrowing and intriguing” (Kirkus Reviews) novel about a teen girl whose abusive father teaches her the finer points of chess and hunting, all for his own sinister ends…drawn from the author’s own experiences.

For forever, Didi has had to be the best at anything her father demanded of her—the fastest runner, the master at chess, able to take down a deer with a bow and arrow at a dead sprint. If she fails, he denies her food. Clothes. Kindness. Yet he claims he loves her—he says he does—it’s why he pushes her. To be ready. Prepared. For anything. Ready to fight. Ready to…

…Didi is terrified of what he may one day ask.

But she might be more prepared than her father ever expected.

Drew is an army brat in West Berlin, where soldiers like his dad hold an outpost of democracy against communist Russia. Drew’s cousin Matthias, an East Berliner, has grown up in the wreckage of Allied war bombing, on streets ruled by the secret police.

From enemy sides of this Cold War standoff, the boys become wary friends, arguing over the space race, politics, even civil rights, but bonding over music. If informants catch Matthias with rock ’n’ roll records or books Drew has given him, he could be sent to a work camp. If Drew gets too close to an East Berliner, others on the army post may question his family’s loyalty. As the political conflict around them grows dire, Drew and Matthias are tested in ways that will change their lives forever.

Set in the tumultuous year leading up to the surprise overnight raising of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, and illustrated with dozens of real-life photographs of the time, Walls brings to vivid life a heroic and tragic episode of the Cold War.

Andromeda is a debtera — an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. She would be hired, that is, if her mentor hadn’t thrown her out before she could earn her license. Now her only hope of steady work is to find a Patron — a rich, well-connected individual who will vouch for her abilities.

When a handsome young heir named Magnus Rochester reaches out to hire her, she takes the job without question. Never mind that he’s rude and demanding and eccentric, that the contract comes with a number of outlandish rules… and that almost a dozen debtera had quit before her. If Andromeda wants to earn a living, she has no choice.

But she quickly realizes this is a job like no other, with horrifying manifestations at every turn, and that Magnus is hiding far more than she has been trained for. Death is the most likely outcome if she stays, the reason every debtera before her quit. But leaving Magnus to live out his curse alone isn’t an option because — heaven help her — she’s fallen for him.

Sabriya has her whole summer planned out in color-coded glory, but those plans go out the window after a terrorist attack near her home. When the terrorist is assumed to be Muslim and Islamophobia grows, Sabriya turns to her online journal for comfort. You Truly Assumed was never meant to be anything more than an outlet, but the blog goes viral as fellow Muslim teens around the country flock to it and find solace and a sense of community.

Soon two more teens, Zakat and Farah, join Bri to run You Truly Assumed and the three quickly form a strong friendship. But as the blog’s popularity grows, so do the pushback and hateful comments. When one of them is threatened, the search to find out who is behind it all begins, and their friendship is put to the test when all three must decide whether to shut down the blog and lose what they’ve worked for…or take a stand and risk everything to make their voices heard.

A twisted world. A beautiful power.

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orléans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful.

But it’s not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite―the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land.

But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favorite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that the very essence of her existence is a lie―that her powers are far greater, and could be more dangerous, than she ever imagined. And when the queen asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia now faces an impossible decision.

With the future of Orléans and its people at stake, Camellia must decide: save herself and her sisters and the way of the Belles, or resuscitate the princess, risk her own life, and change the ways of her world forever.

(This is a reissued paperback)

For Ri Fernández’s entire life, she’s been told, “We live in America and we speak English.” Raised by her strict Mexican grandma, Ri has never been allowed to learn Spanish.

What’s more, her grandma has pulled Ri away from the community where they once belonged. In its place, Ri has grown up trying to fit in among her best friend’s world of mansions and country clubs in an attempt try to live out her grandmother’s version of the “American Dream.”

In her heart, Ri has always believed that her mother, who disappeared when Ri was young, would accept her exactly how she is and not try to turn her into someone she’s never wanted to be. So when Ri finds a long-hidden letter from her mom begging for a visit, she decides to reclaim what Grandma kept from her: her heritage and her mom.

But nothing goes as planned. Her mom isn’t who Ri imagined she would be and finding her doesn’t make Ri’s struggle to navigate the interweaving threads of her mixed heritage any less complicated. Nobody has any idea of who Ri really is—not even Ri herself.

Everything Within and In Between is a powerful new young adult novel about one young woman’s journey to rediscover her roots and redefine herself from acclaimed author Nikki Barthelmess.

Cara Hawn’s life fell apart after her father cheated on her mother and got remarried to a woman Cara can’t stand. When Cara accidentally posts a rant about her father online, it goes viral—and catches the attention of the TV producers behind a new reality dating show for single parent families.

The next thing Cara and her mother know, they’ve been cast as leads on the show and are whisked away to sunny Key West where they’re asked to narrow a field of suitors and their kids down to one winning pair. All of this is outside of Cara’s comfort zone, from the meddling producers to the camera-hungry contestants, especially as Cara and her mother begin to clash on which suitors are worth keeping around. And then comes Connor.

As the son of a contestant, Connor is decidedly off-limits. Except that he doesn’t fit in with the cutthroat atmosphere in all the same ways as Cara, and she can’t get him out of her head. Now Cara must juggle her growing feelings while dodging the cameras and helping her mom pick a bachelor they both love, or else risk fracturing their family even more for the sake of ratings. Maybe there’s a reason most people don’t date on TV.

Russia, 1918: With the execution of Tsar Nicholas, the empire crumbles and Russia is on the edge of civil war―the poor are devouring the rich. Anna, a bourgeois girl, narrowly escaped the massacre of her entire family in Yekaterinburg. Desperate to get away from the Bolsheviks, she offers a peasant girl a diamond to take her as far south as possible―not realizing that the girl is a communist herself. With her brother in desperate need of a doctor, Evgenia accepts Anna’s offer and suddenly finds herself on the wrong side of the war.

Anna is being hunted by the Bolsheviks, and now―regardless of her loyalties―Evgenia is too.

Daughters of a Dead Empire is a harrowing historical thriller about dangerous ideals, inequality, and the price we pay for change. An imaginative retelling of the Anastasia story.

Her name is unimportant.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men.

She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.

Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?

This searing and lyrically written novel by the critically acclaimed author of Sawkill Girls beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood—where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it.

At the bottom of the world lies a Serpent, the last of its kind.

Finding the Serpent will change lives.

Tess is a girl on a mission to save a friend.

Spira is a dragon seeking a new identity.

Marga is an explorer staking her claim on a man’s world.

Jacomo is a priest searching for his soul. 

There are those who would give their lives to keep it hidden.

And those who would destroy it. 

But the only people who will truly find the Serpent are those who have awakened to the world around them—with eyes open to the wondrous, the terrible, and the just.

Overachiever Luz “Lulu” Zavala has straight As, perfect attendance, and a solid ten-year plan. First up: nail her interview for a dream internship at Stanford, the last stop on her school’s cross-country college road trip. The only flaw in her plan is Clara, her oldest sister, who went off to college and sparked a massive fight with their overprotective Peruvian mom, who is now convinced that out-of-state-college will destroy their family. If Lulu can’t fix whatever went wrong between them, the whole trip—and her future—will be a waste.

Middle sister Milagro wants nothing to do with college or a nerdy class field trip. Then a spot opens up on the trip just as her own spring break plans (Operation Don’t Die a Virgin) are thwarted, and she hops on the bus with her glittery lipsticks, more concerned about getting back at her ex than she is about schools or any family drama. But the trip opens her eyes about possibilities she’d never imagined for herself. Maybe she is more than the boy-crazy girl everyone seems to think she is.

On a journey from Baltimore all the way to San Francisco, Lulu and Milagro will become begrudging partners as they unpack weighty family expectations, uncover Clara’s secrets, and maybe even discover the true meaning of sisterhood.

Music runs in Sofi’s blood.

Her father is a Musik, one of only five musicians in the country licensed to compose and perform original songs. In the kingdom of Aell, where winter is endless and magic is accessible to all, there are strict anti-magic laws ensuring music remains the last untouched art.

Sofi has spent her entire life training to inherit her father’s title. But on the day of the auditions, she is presented with unexpected competition in the form of Lara, a girl who has never before played the lute. Yet somehow, to Sofi’s horror, Lara puts on a performance that thoroughly enchants the judges.

Almost like magic.

The same day Lara wins the title of Musik, Sofi’s father dies, and a grieving Sofi sets out to prove Lara is using illegal magic in her performances. But the more time she spends with Lara, the more Sofi begins to doubt everything she knows about her family, her music, and the girl she thought was her enemy.

As Sofi works to reclaim her rightful place as a Musik, she is forced to face the dark secrets of her past and the magic she was trained to avoid—all while trying not to fall for the girl who stole her future.

Genie used to fouetté across the stage. Now the only thing she’s turning are the wheels to her wheelchair. Genie was the star pupil at her exclusive New York dance school, with a bright future and endless possibilities before her. Now that the future she’s spent years building toward has been snatched away, she can’t stand to be reminded of it—even if it means isolating herself from her best friends and her mother. The only wish this Genie has is to be left alone.

But then she meets Kyle, who also has a “used to be.” Kyle used to tumble and flip on a gymnastics mat, but a traumatic brain injury has sent him to the same physical therapist that Genie sees. With Kyle’s support, along with her best friend’s insistence that Genie’s time at the barre isn’t over yet, Genie starts to see a new path—one where she doesn’t have to be alone and she finally has the strength to heal from the past.

But healing also means confronting. Confronting the booze her mother, a recovering alcoholic, has been hiding under the kitchen sink; the ex-boyfriend who was there the night of the fall and won’t leave her alone; and Genie’s biggest, most terrifying secret: the fact that the accident may not have been so accidental after all.

Beth Kramer is a “townie” who returns to her sophomore year after having endured a year of tension with her roommate, Sarah.

But Sarah Brunson knows there’s more to that story.

Amanda Priya “Spence” Spencer is the privileged daughter of NYC elites, who is reeling from the realization that her family name shielded her from the same fate as Sarah.

Ramin Golafshar arrives at Chandler as a transfer student to escape the dangers of being gay in Iran, only to suffer brutal hazing under the guise of tradition in the boys’ dorms.

And Freddy Bello is the senior who’s no longer sure of his future but knows he has to stand up to his friends after what happened to Ramin.

At Chandler, the elite boarding school, these five teens are brought together in the Circle, a coveted writing group where life-changing friendships are born—and secrets are revealed. Their professor tells them to write their truths. But is the truth enough to change the long-standing culture of abuse at Chandler? And can their friendship survive the fallout?

Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

They said goodbye to their friends and family for the weekend. They weren’t counting on forever.

Jagged Island: a private amusement park for the very rich—or the very influential. Liam, James, Will, Ava, Harper, and Paisley—social media influencers with millions of followers—have been invited for an exclusive weekend before the park opens. They’ll make posts and videos for their channels and report every second of their VIP treatment. 

When the teens arrive, they’re stunned: the resort is even better than they’d imagined. Their hotel rooms are unreal, the park’s themed rides are incredible, and the island is hauntingly beautiful. They’re given a jam-packed itinerary for the weekend.  

But soon they’ll discover that something’s missing from their schedule: getting off the island alive.

What is friendship without a few secrets?

It wasn’t Tillie’s choice to leave Philadelphia. But after everything that happened junior year, her mom insisted the quiet suburb of Willow Creek was the perfect place to get a fresh start, to put the trauma and rumors behind them.

Madison Frank is the perfect distraction. Beautiful, fun, and from the wealthy side of town, Madison is the kind of girl who has a pull stronger than gravity. She commands attention, even inspires obsession. And by the end of summer, Tillie’s forgotten everything―everyone―she left in Philadelphia. Almost.

Then Madison goes missing. A photo of her bloody body is texted to the whole student body…from an account with Tillie’s name on it. Tillie’s caught in a tangled web of secrets that will destroy her if they surface…and will destroy everyone she loves if they don’t.

It’s been three months since The Night on the Bathroom Floor–when Lily found her older sister Alice hurting herself. Ever since then, Lily has been desperately trying to keep things together, for herself and for her family. But now Alice is coming home from her treatment program and it is becoming harder for Lily to ignore all of the feelings she’s been trying to outrun.

Enter Micah, a new student at school with a past of his own. He was in treatment with Alice and seems determined to get Lily to process not only Alice’s experience, but her own. Because Lily has secrets, too. Compulsions she can’t seem to let go of and thoughts she can’t drown out.

When Lily and Micah embark on an art project for school involving finding poetry in unexpected places, she realizes that it’s the words she’s been swallowing that desperately want to break through.

Tic-tac-toe, three girls in a row. Nine years old and inseparable. Friends for life, or so they think . . .

Best friends Syd, Rain, and Brie grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in the stifling California desert, desperately wishing for a way out.

When a deadly fire is set two weeks before the end of high school, nothing will ever be the same. In the end, each of them will escape―but not in the way any of them expects. One will do it by dying, another by lying, a third by taking the fall.

With gorgeous, taut prose and twists to the very last page, All the Best Liars alternates between the present and the past to unravel the truth behind the fire and the cost of the secrets at the heart of their friendship.

It was just a game…until it wasn’t. Will Cate discover the assassin before it’s too late? Perfect for fans of teen mystery books!

TAG. You’re It…

At Cate’s isolated boarding school Killer is more than a game―it’s an elite secret society. Members must avoid being “killed” during a series of thrilling pranks―and only the Game Master knows who the “killer” is. When Cate’s finally invited to join The Guild of Assassins, she thinks it’s her ticket to finally feeling like she belongs.

But when the game becomes all too real, the school threatens to shut it down. Cate will do anything to keep playing and save The Guild. But can she find the real assassin―before she’s the next target?

(This is a paperbaack reissue).

A Zainichi Korean teen comes of age in Japan in this groundbreaking debut novel about prejudice and diaspora.

Seventeen-year-old Ginny Park is about to get expelled from high school—again. Stephanie, the picture book author who took Ginny into her Oregon home after she was kicked out of school in Hawaii, isn’t upset; she only wants to know why. But Ginny has always been in-between. She can’t bring herself to open up to anyone about her past, or about what prompted her to flee her native Japan. Then, Ginny finds a mysterious scrawl among Stephanie’s scraps of paper and storybook drawings that changes everything: The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?

Ginny sets off on the road in search of an answer, with only her journal as a confidante. In witty and brutally honest vignettes, and interspersed with old letters from her expatriated family in North Korea, Ginny recounts her adolescence growing up Zainichi, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, and the incident that forced her to leave years prior. Inspired by her own childhood, author Chesil creates a portrait of a girl who has been fighting alone against barriers of prejudice, nationality, and injustice all her life—all while searching for a place to belong.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Leela Bose plays to win.

A life-long speech competitor, Leela loves nothing more than crushing the competition, all while wearing a smile. But when she meets the incorrigible Firoze Darcy, a debater from an elitist private school, Leela can’t stand him. Unfortunately, he’ll be competing in the state league, so their paths are set to collide.

But why attempt to tolerate Firoze when Leela can one-up him? The situation is more complicated than Leela anticipated, though, and her participation in the tournament reveals that she might have tragically misjudged the debaters — including Firoze Darcy — and more than just her own winning streak is at stake…her heart is, too.

Debating Darcy is bestselling author Sayantani DasGupta’s reinterpretation of beloved classic Pride and Prejudice — imaginative, hilarious, thought-provoking, and truly reflective of the complex, diverse world of American high school culture.

Indir is a Dreamer, descended from a long line of seers; able to see beyond reality, she carries the rare gift of Dreaming truth. But when the beloved king dies, his son has no respect for this time-honored tradition. King Alcan wants an opportunity to bring the Dreamers to a permanent end―an opportunity Indir will give him if he discovers the two secrets she is struggling to keep. As violent change shakes Indir’s world to its core, she is forced to make an impossible choice: fight for her home or fight to survive.

Saya is a seer, but not a Dreamer―she has never been formally trained. Her mother exploits her daughter’s gift, passing it off as her own as they travel from village to village, never staying in one place too long. Almost as if they’re running from something. Almost as if they’re being hunted. When Saya loses the necklace she’s worn since birth, she discovers that seeing isn’t her only gift―and begins to suspect that everything she knows about her life has been a carefully-constructed lie. As she comes to distrust the only family she’s ever known, Saya will do what she’s never done before, go where she’s never been, and risk it all in the search of answers.

With a detailed, supernaturally-charged setting and topical themes of patriarchal power and female strength, Lizz Huerta’s The Lost Dreamer brings an ancient world to life, mirroring the challenges of our modern one.

On her eighteenth birthday, Hilde leaves her orphanage in 1930s Berlin, and heads out into the world to discover her place in it. But finding a job is hard, at least until she stumbles into Café Lila, a vibrant cabaret full of expressive customers. Rosa, one of the club’s waitresses and performers, immediately takes Hilde under her wing. As the café denizens slowly embrace Hilde, and she embraces them in turn, she discovers her voice and her own blossoming feelings for Rosa. 

But Berlin is in turmoil. Between the elections, protests in the streets, worsening antisemitism and anti-homosexual sentiment, and the beginning seeds of unrest in Café Lila itself, Hilde will have to decide what’s best for her future . . . and what it means to love a place on the cusp of war. 

One for All is a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love.

Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl.” But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father―a former Musketeer and her greatest champion. Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for new Musketeers: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a sword fight.

With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels that she has a purpose, that she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming―and might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.

Lillie Lainoff’s debut novel is a fierce, whirlwind adventure about the depth of found family, the strength that goes beyond the body, and the determination it takes to fight for what you love. Includes an author’s note about her personal experience with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.

In a world where female sailors are executed, sixteen-year-old Lane’s dream of being a ship’s captain seems impossible. Sea life is all she knows, and she wouldn’t give it up for anything, even if it means she has to hide as a captain’s boy to avoid being killed. But Lane’s carefully constructed world begins to crumble when an old pirate enemy comes after her father. And she begins hearing rumors that her father was once a pirate as well.

Lane doesn’t want to believe her father could have a dark past, but she can’t help questioning everything she’s known. After all, Lane’s life at sea is built on lies—why couldn’t her father’s be, too?

Then a mysterious prince shows up, and Lane finds her very survival tied to a boy who could destroy everything. With pirates, betrayal, and death threatening Lane and those she loves, she must now decide between the future she always expected and a prince with an unknown agenda who she finds herself falling for. Lane must either protect herself and find a way to live her dream, or risk everything for a world where her very existence is a death sentence.

Maybe there’s a third option. After all, she’s never played by the rules before. Why start now?

A ragtag band of misfits gets swept up in Holy Land politics in Travelers Along the Way by Aminah Mae Safi, a thrilling YA remix of the classic legend of Robin Hood.

Jerusalem, 1192. The Third Crusade rages on. Rahma al-Hud loyally followed her elder sister Zeena into the war over the Holy Land, but now that the Faranji invaders have gotten reinforcements from Richard the Lionheart, all she wants to do is get herself and her sister home alive.

But Zeena, a soldier of honor at heart, refuses to give up the fight while Jerusalem remains in danger of falling back into the hands of the false Queen Isabella. And so, Rahma has no choice but to take on one final mission with her sister.

On their journey to Jerusalem, Rahma and Zeena come across a motley collection of fellow travelers―including a kind-hearted Mongolian warrior, an eccentric Andalusian scientist, a frustratingly handsome spy with a connection to Rahma’s childhood, and an unfortunate English chaplain abandoned behind enemy lines. The teens all find solace, purpose and camaraderie―as well as a healthy bit of mischief―in each other’s company.

But their travels soon bring them into the orbit of Queen Isabella herself, whose plans to re-seize power in Jerusalem would only guarantee further war and strife in the Holy Land for years to come. And so it falls to the merry band of misfits to use every scrap of cunning and wit (and not a small amount of thievery) to foil the usurper queen and perhaps finally restore peace to the land.

In the fall of 1942, the United States is still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor. While the US starts sending troops to the front, the March family of Concord, Massachusetts, grieves their own enormous loss: the death of daughter Beth.

Under the strain of their grief, Beth’s remaining sisters fracture, each going their own way, with Jo nursing her wounds and building planes in Connecticut, Meg holding down the home front with Marmee, and Amy living a secret life as a Red Cross volunteer in London—the same city where one Mr. Theodore Laurence is stationed as an army pilot.

Each March sister’s point of view is written by a separate author, three in prose and Beth’s in verse, still holding the family together from beyond the grave. Woven together, these threads tell a story of finding one’s way in a world undergoing catastrophic change.

Kate Marchant, author of Float, presents a story about a young journalist who fights for the truth to come to light―even if it means she might lose everything . . .

Laurel Cates, a junior at Garland University, has no desire for the spotlight. She’s determined to complete her degree with as little fuss as possible. As a writer for Garland’s school paper, the Daily, Laurel sticks to well-written fluff pieces. But when she uncovers a scandal involving the school’s beloved football coach, Laurel knows she has to expose the truth.

Even if her classmates don’t believe her.

Even if her boss threatens to fire her from her desperately-needed job.

And even if the superhot quarterback with a heart-of-gold, Bodie St. James, is hell-bent on stopping her from publishing.

In the aftermath of the article, Laurel’s crush turns into her enemy as Bodie tries to protect the man who has been like a father to him. But as the interactions between the pair deepen, so too do their feelings for each other and an unlikely romance blossoms. Laurel soon realizes her uncompromising values will bring her closer to her desires, and closer to the truth–and closer to finding her voice.

Quinn Cutler is sixteen, the daughter of a candidate for congress in Brooklyn, and a student at a private school in Park Slope. She’s also pregnant, a situation made infinitely more shocking by the fact that she has no memory of actually having sex. Scared and confused, Quinn struggles to piece together what might have happened: An unlikely accident while she and her boyfriend were fooling around? A rape that she’s repressing from trauma? Before she’s had any revelations, the situation becomes public, putting her most intimate life up for scrutiny and ridicule, and jeopardizing her father’s political career. Religious fanatics begin gathering at the Cutlers’ house, believing she’s pregnant with the next Messiah. As things spiral out of control through a frenzy of brutal online gossip and rumor, the clues that Quinn uncovers reveal more about her childhood and her family than about the pregnancy itself. She starts to realize that much of her life is built on secrets and lies—strange, possibly supernatural ones that her father is desperate to keep concealed. And uncovering the mysterious secrets is the only way she’ll learn the truth about her pregnancy, and the only way she’ll discover why, despite all evidence and logic, a deep down part of her believes the truth isn’t an ugly one. Might she, in fact, be a virgin?

Teenage sisters Samira and Rima aren’t exactly living the dream. Instead, they live with their maddeningly unreliable mother in a rundown trailer in Michigan. Dad’s dead, money’s tight, and Mom disappears to gamble for days at a time. So when Sam’s grandfather wills her the family valuables—a cache of Lebanese antiquities—she’s desperate enough to try pawning them before Mom can. 

But she shouldn’t. Because one is cursed, forbidden, the burial coin of a forgotten god. Disturbing it condemns her and Rima to the Phoenician underworld, a place of wicked cities, burning forests, poisoned feasts of milk and lemons, and an endless, windless ocean.

Nothing is what it seems. No one is who they say. And down here, the night never ends.

To get home—and to keep her sister safe—Sam will have to outwit beautiful shapeshifters, pose as a royal bride, sail the darkest sea… and maybe kill the god of death himself.

A lush and intensely imaginative novel in which fierce women protect each other from rapacious gods and hungering demons, and in which two tenacious sisters come into their power, Vial of Tears introduces readers to the rich and brilliant mythology of ancient Lebanon.

Wren owes everything she has to her hometown, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old, picture-perfect slice of America. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family’s farm. At least, they did. Until five months ago.

That’s when the Quicksilver blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops, thick silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals. Infected livestock and wild creatures staggered off into the woods by day—only to return at night, their eyes foggy white, leering from the trees.

Then the blight came for the neighbors.

Wren is among the last locals standing, and the blight has finally come for her, too. Now the only one she can turn to is her ex, Derek, the last person she wants to call. They haven’t spoken in months, but Wren and Derek still have one thing in common: Hollow’s End means everything to them. Only, there’s much they don’t know about their hometown and its celebrated miracle crops. And they’re about to discover that miracles aren’t free.

Their ancestors have an awful lot to pay for, and Wren and Derek are the only ones left to settle old debts.

For as long as Miri can remember it’s been her and her dad, Poe, in Paradise—what Poe calls their home—hidden away from prying eyes in rural Kentucky. It’s not like Miri doesn’t know what her dad does or why people call him “the Wizard.” It’s not like she doesn’t know why Clay, her one friend and Poe’s right-hand man, patrols the grounds with a machine gun. It’s nothing new, but lately Paradise has started to feel more like a prison.

Enter Fen. The new kid in town could prove to be exactly the distraction Miri needs…but nothing is ever simple. Poe doesn’t take kindly to strangers. Fen’s DEA agent father is a little too interested in Miri’s family. And Clay isn’t satisfied with being just friends with Miri anymore. But what’s past is prologue—it’s what will follow that will wreck everything.

Shining a klieg light on the opioid crisis coursing through this country, Wrecked will have readers on the edge of their seat right up until the explosive ending.

For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings . . . until she learns that the love of her life will marry another.

Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic, but wicked, Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing.

But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game — and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after, or the most exquisite tragedy.

Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl…

Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love―and she’s on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele’s dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja’s otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back… by stealing Gisele’s life for herself.

The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.

Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele’s sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja’s tail, she’ll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.

In “Little Thieves”, Margaret Owen, author of The Merciful Crow series, crafts a delightfully irreverent retelling of “The Goose Girl” about stolen lives, thorny truths, and the wicked girls at the heart of both.

CATALYST

13 points

noun: a substance that speeds up a reaction without itself changing

When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It seems that even though Najwa is trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet.

But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion. All’s fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina’s formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina’s death wasn’t as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it.

As secrets are revealed and the true colors of her friends are shown, it’s up to Najwa to find out who’s behind these mysterious posts—not just to save Trina’s memory, but to save herself.

Last summer, Margot fell for a cute American boy named Zach under the lights of Paris. This summer, she’s finally headed to New York to work the restaurant scene and attend her father’s wedding, and she can’t wait to reunite with Zach. But a lot has changed in a year, and Margot finds herself torn between the memory of a perfect Paris night and new possibility in New York.

Khadija loves adventure stories of magic and romance, but her own life is much more restricted. When she gets word that her marriage has been arranged, she makes the impulsive decision to float away on a hot air balloon, which puts her in the path of a poor glassmaker’s apprentice and a brewing war.

Mica is bored of her life in small town Vermont, but when she meets Sam, she suddenly finds that things are looking up. Sam is exciting and interesting but the more time she spends with him, the weirder things seem to get. And when she discovers some of his secrets, Mica knows she needs to break up with him…but what if the consequences are far worse than she could imagine?

Ex–best friends Bradley and Celine are academic rivals who haven’t spoken in years. These days, Bradley is a football star and jock while Celine has found social media fame exploring conspiracy theories. When they both sign up for the same wilderness survival course, they find that must work together. Ugh. But the more time they spend together, the more they remember why they used to be friends…and discover that maybe there’s a new kind of future in store for them.

From the award-winning author of Me (Moth), here is a brand new novel in verse about Whimsy, a girl in the hospital for treatment for clinical depression when she meets Faerry, a boy whom she feels an instant connection with in more ways than one. As they get to know each other, Whimsy and Faerry realize their lives and their stories are twined in more ways than one.

This is a novella sequel to Sorcery of Thorns, which is a fun fantasy adventure about a Librarian’s apprentice who discovers there’s more to sorcery than she’s always been taught. In this sequel, Elisabeth and Nathaniel are ensconced in his manor after their adventures in Sorcery of Thorns, only to find that the wards meant to protect the estate are trapping them there.

Aziza is the only hedge witch in her town, which means she’s usually very busy cleaning up magical misdeeds and mischief. But all that pales in comparison to the darkness that swallows up the forest outside of town, and Aziza needs help. Enter Leo: A year ago, he was cursed to forget his true love and he’s been searching for a way to ease the ache of the loss. He agrees to help Aziza in exchange for help breaking his curse, but a newcomer and the evil they’re battling will make their simple bargain much more difficult than they anticipated.

Kermit is grief-stricken after the loss of his sister and is barely getting through his days when he receives an invitation to join the Minus-One Club, a group of teens at his school who’ve all lost someone close to them. As Kermit grows closer to this unexpected group, he finds himself drawn to Matt, his crush, whose positivity helps Kermit find his way forward. But when Matt’s own inability to fully face his loss puts him jeopardy, Kermit must step forward to bring the group together.

Penny and Tate definitely do not like each other, but they’re forced to work through it thanks to their moms. Penny’s mom becomes Tate’s mom’s living kidney donor, and Penny and Tate must take care of them while they recuperate. Which makes the fact that they keep almost kissing all the more confusing…and intriguing.

J.B., Ramón, and Trey are students at Urban Promise Prep School, a school that promises to reform and prepare teen boys for futures that involve college and success through strict discipline. But when their principal is found murdered, the police immediately suspect the trio are responsible, and they’ll have to work together to track down the real killer and clear their names.

Baylee has had a huge crush on her friend Freddie for years, even though she knows she’s so not his type. She desperately wishes that he’d give her a chance, but finds herself meeting and flirting with a cute girl named Alex — and Baylee is just her type. But when COVID hits just as Freddie makes a move on Baylee and the entire world is shutting down, she has to figure out a way to navigate her maelstrom of feelings and two very different love interests.

Delilah is a go with the flow type of person, even if it means she ends up in situations where she’s not together comfortable, and Reggie seems like an outgoing nerd on the outside, but he’s secretly hiding a lot of thoughts and feelings. When they randomly meet on New Year’s Eve, and then keep running into each other at minor and major holidays, they can’t help but feel a pull toward each other…but are they truly being honest about who they are and what they want?

Miguela Angeles is tired. Tired of her abuela keeping secrets, especially about her heritage. Tired of her small Vermont town and hanging out at the same places with the same friends she’s known forever. So when another boring Sunday trip to church turns into a run-in with Sam, a mysterious hottie in town on vacation, Mica seizes the opportunity to get closer to him.

It’s not long before she is under Sam’s spell and doing things she’s never done before, like winning all her martial arts sparring matches — and lying to her favorite people. The more time Mica spends with Sam, the more weird things start to happen, too. Like terrifying-visions-of-the-world-ending weird.

Mica’s gut instincts keep telling her something is off, yet Sam is the most exciting guy she’s ever met. But when Mica discovers his family’s roots, she realizes that instead of being in the typical high school relationship, she’s living in a horror novel.

She has to leave Sam, but will ending their relationship also bring an end to everything she knows and everyone she loves?

Clever, hilarious, and steeped in supernatural suspense, Breakup from Hell will keep you hooked until the last page.

Zahra Khan is basically Bangladeshi royalty, but being a princess doesn’t pay the bills in Paterson, New Jersey. While Zahra’s plans for financial security this summer involve working long hours at Chai Ho and saving up for college writing courses, Amma is convinced that all Zahra needs is a “good match,” Jane Austen style.

Enter Harun Emon, who’s wealthy, devastatingly handsome, and…aloof. As soon as Zahra meets him, she knows it’s a bad match. It’s nothing like the connection she has with Nayim Aktar, the new dishwasher at the tea shop, who just gets Zahra in a way no one has before. So, when Zahra finds out that Harun is just as uninterested in this match as she is, they decide to slowly sabotage their parents’ plans. And for once in Zahra’s life, she can have her rossomalai and eat it too: “dating” Harun and keeping Amma happy while catching real feelings for Nayim.

But life — and boys — can be more complicated than Zahra realizes. With her feelings all mixed up, Zahra discovers that sometimes being a good Bengali kid can be a royal pain.

Khadija loves the ancient tales of jinn and renegade princesses…but real life is closing in and her destiny as a ghadæan girl is marriage and boredom. When her father arranges a match, Khadija leaps at the chance of escape — a rogue hot air balloon fighting its ropes for the sky. Soon, Khadija is flying over the desert sands, away from everything she knows. Khadija finds an unlikely ally in a poor young glassmaker’s apprentice, Jacob.

But soon, a deadly revolution threatens their friendship and their world. The oppressed, pale-skinned hāri are restless — their infamous terrorist group, the Hāreef, have a new, fearsome leader. And the ruling ghadæans are brutal in their repression. As the Hāreef exploit forbidden magic — summoning jinn to aid their fight — Jacob and Khadija must choose what kind of a world they want to live in and how to make it a reality.

Finn lives in a family of theater lovers. His older brothers are both actors, and one of his moms is an actor and the other one is a director. They even live in an enormous historic mansion owned by the Beauregard, Minnesota’s largest regional theater. Finn is desperate to be an actor, too, despite the fact that he can never seem to remember his lines. When a new artistic director threatens to sell the Jorgensen house and kick his family out of the only home he’s ever known, his family puts on a show — an immersive 1890s experience unlike anything else out there. But will it be too much for his mom Lula, who is recovering from cancer? Will Finn connect with his crush and deal with his long-time rival, Jade? Will saving the house save Finn’s acting career? Funny, warm, and full of Victorian hijinks, this is a novel for anyone looking for a place to belong.

Fate does not choose the weak. Fate chooses the ready.

Illustros is a cursed realm ruled by the ruthless Gods of Fate, and no one understands the Fates’ wrath more than Calliope Rosewood. Blessed with unspeakable powers that terrify even the most dangerous witches and fae, Calla hides her forbidden magic in shame and fear that one wrong touch could send her to her death. With only her two best friends in tow, Calla deserted her coven and has been on the run ever since.

Worse, Calla is concealing an even darker secret: fate has chosen her as the final prophesied Blood Warrior, the being destined to start the Fates’ War, which will decimate her people and eradicate their magic.

After a betrayal from her infuriating ex Ezra leads her one step closer to fulfilling that age-old prophecy, Calla is desperate to do whatever it takes to reset her fate. So when a mysterious and charming witch offers to help Calla do just that, she immediately agrees to his plan. Only catch? That plan includes journeying into the deadly Neverending Forest with Ezra and said witch, who just so happens to be Ezra’s tempting older brother. Torn between her past desires and alluring new possibilities, Calla brings along her best friends to fight what lies ahead.

As the group ventures into the enchanted woods together, they’ll all soon learn that choosing your destiny comes with dire consequences…and the Fates are not to be tested. Calla believes the Fates have it out for her, while others believe they have chosen her for a reason. But in the end, Calla will have to fight to forge her own destiny and decide if the risk of choosing herself is worth the possibility of damning everyone else.

Once, Lan had a different name. Now she goes by the one the Elantian colonizers gave her when they invaded her kingdom, killed her mother, and outlawed her people’s magic. She spends her nights as a songgirl in Haak’gong, a city transformed by the conquerors, and her days scavenging for what she can find of the past. Anything to understand the strange mark burned into her arm by her mother in her last act before she died.

The mark is mysterious — an untranslatable Hin character — and no one but Lan can see it. Until the night a boy appears at her teahouse and saves her life.

Zen is a practitioner — one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom. Their magic was rumored to have been drawn from the demons they communed with. Magic believed to be long lost. Now it must be hidden from the Elantians at all costs.

When Zen comes across Lan, he recognizes what she is: a practitioner with a powerful ability hidden in the mark on her arm. He’s never seen anything like it — but he knows that if there are answers, they lie deep in the pine forests and misty mountains of the Last Kingdom, with an order of practitioning masters planning to overthrow the Elantian regime.

Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep within — secrets they must hide from others, and secrets that they themselves have yet to discover. Fate has connected them, but their destiny remains unwritten. Both hold the power to liberate their land. And both hold the power to destroy the world.

Now the battle for the Last Kingdom begins.

A runaway queen. A reluctant prince. And a quest that may destroy them both.

Eight years have passed since the Battle of the Serpent. But in the icy north, Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth has reclaimed the Ice Needle Citadel. There, she is using an ancient relic to create monsters of stick and snow who will do her bidding and exact her revenge.

Suren, child queen of the Court of Teeth, and the one person with power over her mother, fled to the human world. There, she lives feral in the woods. Lonely, and still haunted by the merciless torments she endured in the Court of Teeth, she bides her time by releasing mortals from foolish bargains. She believes herself forgotten until the storm hag, Bogdana chases her through the night streets. Suren is saved by none other than Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame, to whom she was once promised in marriage and who she has resented for years.

Now 17, Oak is charming, beautiful, and manipulative. He’s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren’s help. But if she agrees, it will mean guarding her heart against the boy she once knew and a prince she cannot trust, as well as confronting all the horrors she thought she left behind.

Welcome to the Arcadia.

Once a luxurious cruise ship, it became a refugee camp after being driven from Europe by an apocalyptic war. Now it floats near the coastline of the Federated States ― a leftover piece of a fractured USA.

For 40 years, residents of the Arcadia have been prohibited from making landfall. It is a world of extreme haves and have nots, gangs and make-shift shelters.

Esther is a loyal citizen, working flat-out to have the rare chance to live a normal life as a medic on dry land. Nik is a rebel, planning something big to liberate the Arcadia once and for all.

When events throw them both together, their lives, and the lives of everyone on the ship, will change forever…

Seventeen-year-old gaymer Noah Mitchell only has one friend left: the wonderful, funny, strictly online-only MagePants69. After years playing RPGs together, they know everything about each other, except anything that would give away their real life identities. And Noah is certain that if they could just meet in person, they would be soulmates. Noah would do anything to make this happen — including finally leaving his gaming chair to join a community theater show that he’s only mostly sure MagePants69 is performing in. Noah has never done anything like theater — he can’t sing, he can’t dance, and he’s never willingly watched a musical — but he’ll have to go all in to have a chance at love.

With Noah’s mum performing in the lead role, and former friends waiting in the wings to sabotage his reputation, his plan to make MagePants69 fall in love with him might be a little more difficult than originally anticipated.

And the longer Noah waits to come clean, the more tangled his web of lies becomes. By opening night, he will have to decide if telling the truth is worth closing the curtain on his one shot at true love.

Today

During arguably the worst week of Esso’s life, an accident knocks him into an incredible world — a place beyond space or time, where he can see glimpses of the past and future. But if what he sees there is true, he might not have much longer to live, unless he can use his new gift to change the course of history.

Tomorrow

Rhia’s past is filled with questions, none of which she expects a new physics tutor to answer. But Dr. Esso’s not here to help Rhia. He’s here because he needs her help — to unravel a tragedy that happened 15 years ago. One that holds the key not only to Rhia’s past, but to a future worth fighting for.

Cameron Carson has a secret. A secret with the power to break apart his friend group.

Cameron Carson, member of the Geeks and Nerds United (GANU) club, has been secretly hooking up with student council president, cheerleader, theater enthusiast, and all-around queen bee Karla Ortega since the summer. The one problem — what was meant to be a summer fling between coffee shop coworkers has now evolved into a clandestine senior-year entanglement, where Karla isn’t intending on blending their friend groups anytime soon, or at all.

Enter Mackenzie Briggs, who isn’t afraid to be herself or wear her heart on her sleeve. When Cameron finds himself unexpectedly bonding with Mackenzie and repeatedly snubbed in public by Karla, he starts to wonder who he can truly consider a friend and who might have the potential to become more…

Ever since her sister became a man-eating spider and slaughtered her way through town, 19-year-old Ness has been terrified — terrified of some other Nightmare murdering her, and terrified of ending up like her sister. Because in Newham, the city that never sleeps, dreaming means waking up as your worst fear.

Whether that means becoming a Nightmare that’s monstrous only in appearance, to transforming into a twisted, unrecognizable creature that terrorizes the city, no one is safe. Ness will do anything to avoid becoming another victim, even if that means lying low among the Friends of the Restful Soul, a questionable organization that may or may not be a cult.

But being a member of maybe-cult has a price. In order to prove herself, Ness cons her way into what’s supposed to be a simple job for the organization — only for it to blow up in her face. Literally. Tangled up in the aftermath of an explosive assassination, now Ness and the only other survivor — a Nightmare boy who Ness suspects is planning to eat her — must find their way back to Newham and uncover the sinister truth behind the attack, even as the horrors of her past loom ominously near. 

With poems found within the text of George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo, Crystal Simone Smith embarks on an uncompromising exploration of collective mourning and crafts a masterwork that resonates far beyond the page. These poems are visually stark, a gathering of gripping verses that unmasks a dialogue of tragic truths ― the stories of lives taken unjustly and too soon.

Bold and deeply affecting, Dark Testament is a remarkable reckoning with our present moment, a call to action, and a plea for a more just future.

Along with the poems, Dark Testament includes a stirring introduction by the author that speaks to the content of the poetry, a Q&A with George Saunders, and a full-color photo-insert that commemorates victims of unlawful killings with photographs of memorials that have been created in their honor.

Devastated by the loss of her beloved older brother to cancer, Bugz returns to the place where she can always find solace and strength: the Floraverse. Over the past year, she has gained back all that she had lost in that virtual world, and while the remaining ClanLess members still plot against her, she is easily able to overcome their attacks. Even better, she’s been secretly working on a bot that will be both an incredible weapon and a source of comfort: Waawaate.

With the Waawaate bot looking exactly like the brother she misses so much — even acting so much like him — Bugz feels ready to show him off to Feng, who has become a constant companion in the Verse, and she cannot wait to team up with both friend and bot to secure her dominance once and for all. But Feng has his own issues to deal with, especially when news that his parents are alive and want to contact him threatens to send his new life on the Rez into upheaval.

As they work through their complicated feelings of grief and loss, Feng and Bugz find themselves becoming ever closer. But disturbances in the Floraverse cannot be ignored, especially when Bugz realizes that her Waawaate bot is growing in powers beyond her control…

Mahalia Harris wants.

She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend, Naomi.

She wants the super-cute new girl Siobhan to like her back.

She wants a break from worrying — about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church ladies…all of it.

Then inspiration strikes: It’s too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if she had a coming-out party? A singing, dancing, rainbow-cake-eating celebration of queerness on her own terms.

The idea lights a fire beneath her, and soon Mahalia is scrimping and saving, taking on extra hours at her afterschool job, trying on dresses, and awkwardly flirting with Siobhan, all in preparation for the coming out of her dreams. But it’s not long before she’s buried in a mountain of bills, unfinished schoolwork, and enough drama to make her English lit teacher blush. With all the responsibility on her shoulders, will Mahalia’s party be over before it’s even begun?

A novel about finding yourself, falling in love, and celebrating what makes you you.

Mars Darksvane wants out. Out from under the thumb of Una, the crime boss who pulled him off the streets as a child and trained him as an assassin; out from the island country of Riven, where magic, in the form of a dangerous material called Ice, allows the rich to live in luxury and keeps the poor in thrall.

Mars is a secret adept — a person born with the ability to channel the magic that flows beneath Riven — and while his power gives him abilities useful to an assassin, it also makes him a target. And when his last mission ends in tragedy, Mars finally decides it’s time to escape to the mainland. No magic, no history, a new life on his own.

But Una has other ideas. If Mars wants his freedom, he’s going to have to perform a final job: protecting Fura Torvald — the heiress of the rich and powerful Torvald kith, and the daughter of the last man Mars was sent to kill — and stealing from her a mysterious object known only as the Primer.

Mars has no interest in Fura or whatever the Primer is, nor in Riven’s corrupt and oppressive politics; he just wants to do his job and get out. But as Mars comes to know more about Fura, the Primer, and the true nature of the power in Riven, he realizes that he will soon have to take a side in a fight he has avoided his entire life.

Which side, however, he does not yet know.

Edward Dinnissen leads a charmed life. He’s the Crown Prince of Canada, gets the royal treatment at his exclusive private school, and resides in a ritzy mansion. He thrives off being the perfect prince as he prepares for the Investiture Ceremony on his 18th birthday, the final step in his role as heir — and Canada’s future king. But this closeted Crown Prince has just one tiny problem: he’s unsure how to tell his parents, his beloved country, and his adoring fans that he’s gay.

Billy Boone should be happy with the simple life. His family’s ranch is his favorite place in the world, he loves his small town, and his boyfriend is the cutest guy at Little Timber High. So why does it feel like something’s still missing? Maybe it has to do with the fact that this out-and-proud cowboy feels destined for something more…

When Edward and Billy meet by chance in New York City, they discover that they are long-lost twins, and their lives are forever changed. Together, will these twin princes — “twinces” — be able to take on high school, coming out, and coronations? Or will this royal reunion quickly become a royal train wreck?

In a world where anyone can create a life-destroying curse, only one person has the power to unravel them.

Kellen does not fully understand his talent, but helps those transformed maliciously — including Nettle. Recovered from entrapment in bird form, she is now his constant companion and closest ally.

But Kellen has also been cursed, and unless he and Nettle can remove his curse, Kellen is in danger of unravelling everything — and everyone — around him…

Iselia “Seelie” Graygrove looks just like her twin, Isolde…but as an autistic changeling left in the human world by the fae as an infant, she has always known she is different. Seelie’s unpredictable magic makes it hard for her to fit in — and draws her and Isolde into the hunt for a fabled treasure. In a heist gone wrong, the sisters make some unexpected allies and find themselves unraveling a mystery that has its roots in the history of humans and fae alike.

Both sisters soon discover that the secrets of the faeries may be more valuable than any pile of gold and jewels. But can Seelie harness her magic in time to protect her sister and herself?

Naira Khoum has only known life in Lagusa, a quiet village at the desert’s end. But to the rest of the world, Lagusa is a myth, its location shrouded in secrecy. While war rages to the north led by power-hungry Sothpike and his army of undead monsters called Dambi, Naira’s people live in peace.

Until the impossible happens — Lagusa is attacked by a Mistress sent to do Sothpike’s bidding with a hoard of Dambi under her control. The Mistress is looking for something, and she’s willing to let her Dambi destroy Lagusa to get it.

Desperate to protect her home, Naira convinces her twin brother Nez and handsome refugee Kal to join the newly formed resistance with her. Together, they’ll have to figure out what the Mistress wants — before there’s nothing left of Lagusa to save.

Whimsy is back in the hospital for treatment of clinical depression. When she meets a boy named Faerry, she recognizes they both have magic in the marrow of their bones. And when Faerry and his family move to the same street, the two start to realize that their lifelines may have twined and untwined many times before.

They are both terrified of the forest at the end of Marsh Creek Lane.

The Forest whispers to Whimsy. The Forest might hold the answers to the part of Faerry he feels is missing. They discover the Forest holds monsters, fairy tales, and pain that they have both been running from for 11 years.

Drizella and Anastasia only know one thing for certain: they will never end up like their mother, Lady Tremaine. When their father left them as young girls, he took what was left of their family’s fortune and their mother’s dignity with him. A few years and one deceased stepfather later, the only version of Lady Tremaine that Drizella and Anastasia know is a bitter and cruel head of house. Anastasia and Drizella have promised themselves — and each other — that they’ll be different. They’ll find love, see the world, and never let their hearts go cold.

But both sisters are all too aware of what it can mean when cast into disfavor with their mother, and fueled by Lady Tremaine’s tendencies to pit the daughters against one another, Drizella and Anastasia are locked into a complicated waltz of tenuous sisterhood. On the cusp of the royal debut party — their one chance to impress the Prince and live up to their mother’s expectations — the sisters at last get a glimpse of what life could be like outside of Lady Tremaine’s intentions: Drizella discovering a love of science and Anastasia sparking a secret romance. But never underestimate the power a mother whose greatest talents lie in manipulation, and the sisters may learn that even the cruelest of hearts can spill blood.

This first book in the new Disney Villains Dark Ascension series by National Book Award-winning author Robin Benway explores the complex sibling rivalry between the two wicked stepsisters from Cinderella that turned them into the characters we know today.

The daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, Gerta Pohorylle doesn’t quite fit in. While she’s away at boarding school, however, she becomes a master at reinventing herself. When she returns from school, she gets more involved with left-wing groups as Germany splits into political extremes and after she’s arrested for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda, Gerta and her family decide she must leave Germany.

In Paris, Gerda meets André Friedman, a Hungarian photographer eager for fame and fortune, who fosters Gerda’s interest in photography and how it can be as much of a tool for broadcasting her beliefs as protesting and demonstrations. Together the pair invents Robert Capa, a rich American photographer, and soon they’re selling “Capa’s” work for high prices and to great acclaim. Soon after, Gerda begins selling her own work under the last name Taro and the pair take on more assignments, jetting off to Spain to cover the growing conflict that quickly becomes the Spanish Civil War.

As Gerda pushes closer and closer to the front line, eager to capture the lives and vibrant hopes of those fighting against fascism, she begins to lose track of, and regard for, her own safety.

Ro Devereux can predict your future. Or, at least, the app she built for her senior project can.

Working with her neighbor, a retired behavioral scientist, Ro created an app called MASH, designed around the classic game Mansion Apartment Shack House, that can predict a person’s future with 93% accuracy. The app will even match users with their soulmates. Though it was only supposed to be a class project, MASH quickly takes off and gains the attention of tech investors.

Ro’s dream is to work in Silicon Valley, and she’ll do anything to prove to her new backing company — and the world — that the app works. So it’s a huge shock when the app says her soulmate is Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-destroying fight three years ago.

Now thrust into a fake dating scenario, Ro and Miller must address the years of pain between them if either of them will have any chance of achieving their dreams. And as the app takes on a life of its own, Ro sees that it’s affecting people in ways she never expected — and if she can’t regain control, it might take her and everything she believes in down with it.

After a mission gone awry two years ago, Remy Castell has been desperately searching across worlds to find the friend she failed to save — the friend who changed her life by helping her overcome the brainwashing she was subjected to as a genetically engineered corporate agent.

Since then, she’s been chasing the only lead she has: fellow genopath Kiran Lore, the same secretive ex-squadmate who left her for dead when she compromised that mission. She nearly caught up to him on Tundar before joining the infamous sled race alongside outcast Sena and her wolf companion Iska. Now, all three of them have tracked Kiran back to Maraas, the jungle planet where Remy lost everything. But nothing on Maraas is how it was two years ago. Syndicates and scavvers alike are now trying to overthrow a megalomaniac corpo director, which Remy wants nothing to do with; fighting against corpos is as useless as trying to stay dry in the middle of the giant hellstorm that encircles the planet. But the storm — and the rebellion — are growing stronger by the minute.

When Remy finds Kiran, he doesn’t run away like she expects. Instead, he offers her a deal: help with the revolution and he’ll reunite her with her friend. But can she really trust the boy who betrayed her once before? With the entire planet on the edge of all-out war, Remy will have to decide just how far she’s willing to go to save one girl before the impending storm drowns them all.

At 16, Perla is the youngest graduating senior of the hypercompetitive Monte Verde High. Praised — and not-so-quietly bashed — as “Perfect Perlie Perez,” Perla knows all the late nights, social isolation, and crushing stress will be worth it when she gets into the college of her (and her parents’) dreams: Delmont University.

Then Perla doesn’t get in, and her meticulously planned future shatters. In a panic, she forges her own acceptance letter, and next thing she knows, she’s heading to Delmont for real, acceptance or not. Soon, Perla is breaking into dorm rooms, crashing classes, and dodging questions from new friends about her lack of a student ID. Her plan? Gather on-the-ground intel to beef up her application and reapply spring semester before she’s caught.

But as her guilty conscience grows and campus security looms large, Perla starts to wonder if her plan will really succeed — and if this dream she’s worked for her entire life is something she even wants.

As the only hedgewitch in Blackthorn, Massachusetts — an uncommonly magical place — Aziza El-Amin has bargained with wood nymphs, rescued palm-sized fairies from house cats, banished flesh-eating shadows from the local park. But when a dark entity awakens in the forest outside of town, eroding the invisible boundary between the human world and fairyland, run-of-the-mill fae mischief turns into outright aggression, and the danger — to herself and others — becomes too great for her to handle alone.

Leo Merritt is no stranger to magical catastrophes. On his 16th birthday, a dormant curse kicked in and ripped away all his memories of his true love. A miserable year has passed since then. He’s road-tripped up and down the East Coast looking for a way to get his memories back and hit one dead end after another. He doesn’t even know his true love’s name, but he feels the absence in his life, and it’s haunting.

Desperate for answers, he makes a pact with Aziza: he’ll provide much-needed backup on her nightly patrols, and in exchange, she’ll help him break the curse.

When the creature in the woods sets its sights on them, their survival depends on the aid of a mysterious young necromancer they’re not certain they can trust. But they’ll have to work together to eradicate the new threat and take back their hometown… even if it forces them to uncover deeply buried secrets and make devastating sacrifices.

In the early 1920s, a Red Scare gripped America. Many of those targeted were Italians, Eastern Europeans, and other immigrants.

When an armed robbery resulting in the death of two people broke headlines in Massachusetts, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti — both Italian immigrants — were quick to be accused.

A heated trial ensued, but through it all, the two men maintained their innocence. The controversial case quickly rippled past borders as it became increasingly clear that Sacco and Vanzetti were fated for a death sentence. Protests sprang up around the world to fight for their lives.

Learn the tragic history we dare not repeat in Doomed: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the End of the American Dream, an action-packed, fast-paced nonfiction book filled with issues that still resonate today.

Sometimes the prettiest Instagram feeds mask the darkest, and bloodiest, secrets.

Social media influencer Summer Cartwright leads a very charmed life: millions of followers, the hottest designer and vintage clothes at her fingertips, a newly minted book deal, the coolest friends, and, until recently, the hottest boyfriend at her über-elite prep school. Every moment of her life has been carefully planned and cultivated to complement her “imperfectly perfect” social media persona. She is truly #LivingHerBestLife.

But when Summer goes missing during her annual Halloween party and then an unscheduled post appears on her feed stating that she’ll be dead within the next five minutes, those closest to Summer know something isn’t quite right — or on-brand. Grace, Summer’s camera-shy best friend; Adam, Summer’s gamer ex-boyfriend; Laney, Summer’s moody camp roommate; and Cora, an influencer wannabe, all decide to investigate. And when they come upon Summer’s lifeless body, they soon realize that no filter is strong enough to mask the lies we tell ourselves.

Fifteen-year-old Kermit Sanders knows grief and its all-encompassing shadows. After losing his beloved older sister in a tragic car accident, nothing quite punctures through the feelings of loss. Everywhere Kermit goes, he is reminded of her.

But then Kermit finds a mysterious invitation in his locker, signed anonymously with “-1.” He has no idea what he’s in for, but he shows up to find out. Dubbed the “Minus-One Club,” a group of his schoolmates has banded together as a form of moral support. The members have just one thing in common — they have all suffered the tragic loss of someone they loved.

The usual dividing lines between high school classes and cliques don’t apply inside the Minus-One Club, and Kermit’s secret crush, the handsome and happy-go-lucky Matt (and only out gay student at school), is also a part of the group. Slowly, Matt’s positive headstrong approach to life helps relieve Kermit of his constant despair.

But as Kermit grows closer to Matt, the light of his new life begins to show the cracks beneath the surface. When Matt puts himself in danger by avoiding his feelings, Kermit must find the strength to not only lift himself back up but to help the rest of the group from falling apart.

It was never meant to happen this way.

Things were never supposed to get this out of hand.

After a cyberbullying incident at her school goes viral, Luna Iglesias finds herself at the heart of a brewing controversy. When the social media company Limbo — who are also implicated in the scandal — sweeps in with an offer that sounds like an opportunity to turn over a new leaf and receive a scholarship to the college of her dreams, she’s happy to jump on the new trend. It’s called the Retro Challenge, where contestants live without modern technology, wear vintage clothes, party as if the future weren’t already written, and fall in love as if they were living in a movie.

At first, the challenge is fun. But then things get dangerous. Kids start disappearing, including Luna’s friends. There are voices in the woods. Bloodred markings on the trees. And Luna increasingly begins to wonder if all these strange happenings are connected with the Retro Challenge.

Secrets. Lies. Betrayal. The weight of her family on her shoulders. There’s so much on the line for Luna, not to mention she’s falling in love with the last guy she expected. Unless she can figure out the truth behind who’s sabotaging the challenge, the next person to disappear may be Luna herself.

After years of bickering, Penny and Tate have called a truce: they’ll play nice. They have to. Their mothers (life-long best friends) need them to be perfect, drama-free daughters when Penny’s mother becomes a living liver donor to Tate’s mom. Forced to live together as the Moms recover, the girls’ truce is essential in keeping everything — their jobs, the house, the finances, the Moms’ healing — running smoothly. They’ve got to let this thing between them go.  

There’s one little hitch: Penny and Tate keep almost kissing.

It’s just this confusing thing that keeps happening. You know, from time to time. For basically their entire teenaged existence.

They’ve never talked about it. They’ve always ignored it in the aftermath. But now they’re living across the hall from each other.

And some things — like their kisses — can’t be almosts forever. 

Told through two girls’ present and six moments from their past, this dynamic love story shows that sometimes the person you need the most has been there for you all along.

In the hidden desert city of Qalia, there is secret spice magic that awakens the affinities of those who drink the misra tea. Sixteen-year-old Imani has the affinity for iron and is able to wield a dagger like no other warrior. She has garnered the reputation as being the next great Shield for battling djinn, ghouls, and other monsters spreading across the sands.

Her reputation has been overshadowed, however, by her brother, who tarnished the family name after it was revealed that he was stealing his nation’s coveted spice — a telltale sign of magical obsession. Soon after that, he disappeared, believed to have died beyond the Forbidden Wastes. Despite her brother’s betrayal, there isn’t a day that goes by when Imani doesn’t grieve him.

But when Imani discovers signs that her brother may be alive and spreading the nation’s magic to outsiders, she makes a deal with the Council that she will find him and bring him back to Qalia, where he will face punishment. Accompanied by other Shields, including Taha, a powerful beastseer who can control the minds of falcons, she sets out on her mission.

Imani will soon find that many secrets lie beyond the Forbidden Wastes — and in her own heart — but will she find her brother?

B’onca always knew how to get by. And then her daughter is born. She wouldn’t trade Mia for anything, but there is never enough cash to go around. When their gentrifying Memphis neighborhood results in higher prices and then an eviction notice, B’onca’s already fragile world spirals. Desperate to make things right, B’onca forges a risky plan to help pay the bills. But one wrong move could cost B’onca — and her family — everything.

From the celebrated author of Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman comes a compelling story about a teen mom navigating income disparity and racial inequality, and defying challenges to protect those she loves.

Ocean Sun has always felt an enormous pressure to succeed. After struggling with depression during her senior year of high school, Ocean moves to New York City, where she has been accepted at a prestigious university. But Ocean feels so emotionally raw and unmoored (and uncertain about what is real and what is not) that she decides to defer and live off her savings until she can get herself together. She also decides not to tell her mother (whom she loves very much but doesn’t want to disappoint) that she is deferring — at least until she absolutely must.

In New York, Ocean moves into an apartment with Georgie and Tashya, two strangers who soon become friends, and gets a job tutoring. She also meets a boy — Constantine Brave (a name that makes her laugh) — late one night on the subway. Constant is a fellow student and a graffiti artist, and Constant and Ocean soon start corresponding via Google Docs — they discuss physics, philosophy, art, literature, and love. But everything falls apart when Ocean goes home for Thanksgiving, Constant reveals his true character, Georgie and Tashya break up, and the police get involved.

Ocean, Constant, Georgie, and Tashya are all cartographers — mapping out their futures, their dreams, and their paths toward adulthood in this stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding the strength to control your own destiny. For fans of Nina LaCour’sWe Are Okay and Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad Is Untrue.

Eva Sylvan didn’t ask for any of this. Not the cross-country move with her sister to a town in the middle of nowhere, not the family estate, inherited from a late great-aunt, that’s falling apart at the hinges, and definitely not the sudden death of her beloved father. So when the locals react with hostility to the very mention of her last name, Eva’s pretty sure things can’t get any worse.

Until she has a dream about a gas station employee and the next day, he’s in a coma.

And then it happens again.

Something sinister is lurking in the corners of Eva’s dreams, something that’s having devastating effects on the waking world. People are dropping left and right, and Eva finds herself squarely in the town’s crosshairs. In order to defeat the shadows of her unconscious, Eva must not only unearth the magic tied to her family history, but she must confront the guilt that has been haunting her since her father’s death. Only she can save the town from the dark power in her dreams — if the threat is truly even her dreams at all.

In the game of life, sometimes other people hold all the controls. Or so it seems to VZ. Four months have passed since his best friend Ed was killed by a white man in a Brooklyn parking lot.

When Singer, the man who killed Ed, is found dead in the same spot where Ed was murdered, all signs point to Jack, VZ’s other best friend, as the prime suspect.

VZ’s determined to complete the video game Ed never finished and figure out who actually killed Singer. With help from Diamond, the girl he’s crushing on at work, VZ falls into Ed’s quirky gameiverse. As the police close in on Jack, the game starts to uncover details that could lead to the truth about the murder.

Can VZ honor Ed and help Jack before it’s too late?

The Urban Promise Prep School vows to turn boys into men. As students, J.B., Ramón, and Trey are forced to follow the prestigious “program’s” strict rules. Extreme discipline, they’ve been told, is what it takes to be college bound, to avoid the fates of many men in their neighborhoods. This, the Principal Moore Method, supposedly saves lives.

But when Moore ends up murdered and the cops come sniffing around, the trio emerges as the case’s prime suspects. With all three maintaining their innocence, they must band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested. But is the true culprit hiding among them?

Delilah always keeps her messy, gooey insides hidden behind a wall of shrugs and yeah, whatevers. She goes with the flow — which is how she ends up singing in her friends’ punk band as a favor, even though she’d prefer to hide at the merch table.

Reggie is a D&D Dungeon Master and self-declared Blerd. He spends his free time leading quests and writing essays critiquing the game under a pseudonym, keeping it all under wraps from his disapproving family.

These two, who have practically nothing in common, meet for the first time on New Year’s Eve. And then again on Valentine’s Day. And then again on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s almost like the universe is pushing them together for a reason.

Delilah wishes she were more like Reggie — open about what she likes and who she is, even if it’s not cool. Except…it’s all a front. Reggie is just role-playing someone confident. The kind of guy who could be with a girl like Delilah.

As their holiday meetings continue, the two begin to fall for each other. But what happens once they realize they’ve each fallen for a version of the other that doesn’t really exist?

Baylee has never been kissed but she wants to do way more than that. She’s had a huge crush on her gorgeous best friend and neighbor Freddie for years, but since she doesn’t look like his usual type, the judgmental voice in her head tells her he’ll never see her as more than a friend. It feels like she’ll spend the rest of high school fantasizing on the sidelines while everyone else dates and hooks up.

Then Baylee meets Alex online and she starts to fall for this sweet, funny barista who likes her just as she is. It’s new, electric, and all-consuming to be around Alex. But when Freddie makes a move on Baylee and a virus shuts the world down, Baylee finds herself torn.

Everything is happening at once, and she is left navigating the messy waters of love and desire. It helps that she’s observed her friends’ relationship drama, so she knows exactly what mistakes not to make…right?

This sophomore novel from M-E Girard centers a fat, confident girl going after what she wants and learning to love herself along the way.

An elite female fighter must reenter the competition to protect her found family of younger sisters in this scintillating young adult fantasy inspired by West African culture, perfect for fans of The Gilded Ones and Creed.

Eat. Dance. Fight.

This is the life of the girls who compete in the Isle’s elite, all-female fighting sport of Bowing. But it isn’t really Dirt’s life anymore. At 16, she is old and has retired from competition. Instead, she spends her days coaching the younger sisters of the Mud Fam and dreading her fast-approaching birthday, when she’ll have to leave her sisters to fulfill whatever destiny the Gods choose for her.

Dirt’s young sisters are coming along nicely, and the Mud Fam is sure to win the upcoming South God Bow tournament, which is crucial: the tiny Fam needs the new recruits that come with victory. Then an attack from a powerful rival leaves the Mud without their top Bower, and Dirt is the only one who can compete in the tournament. But Dirt is old, out of shape, and afraid. She has never wanted to be a leader. Victory seems impossible — yet defeat would mean the end of her beloved Fam. And no way is Dirt going to let that happen.

Two track and field athletes find an unexpected but powerful love in this unapologetically blunt and unforgettably real YA debut.

Sebastian Villeda is over it. Over his rep. Over his bros. Over being “Bash the Flash,” fastest sprinter in South Jersey. His dad is gone, his mom is dead, and his stepfather is clueless. Bash has no idea what he wants out of life. Until he meets Sandro.

Sandro Miceli is too nice for his own good. The middle child in an always-growing, always-screaming Italian family, Sandro walks around on a broken foot to not bother his busy parents. All he wants is to get out and never look back.

When fate — in the form of a party that gets busted — brings these two very different boys together, neither of them could’ve predicted finding a love that they’d risk everything for…

Ramona Lambert is a typical shy, artistic 16-year-old. She has a best friend whom she’s known since they were in diapers; parents who love her; a love for cosplay; and a crush on the cute boy in her class.

The only problem? Her best friend moved away; her parents don’t quite understand her love of cosplay; and she is pretty sure her crush has no idea she exists.

To escape her troubles, Ramona turns to cosplay and her original character, Rel, who gives her the confidence and freedom that she lacks in real life. Embracing this confidence, she decides to strike up an email conversation with her crush, Caleb Wolfe, from her cosplay account in the hopes getting to know him…and maybe win his heart. Then as Caleb and Ramona are swept up in their emails back and forth to each other, and Ramona falls even harder as he opens up about his hopes, insecurities, and his own geeky loves. However, as Caleb starts to grow closer and closer to Rel, he also strikes up a friendship with Ramona, who knows she can’t keep the truth about Rel from Caleb but isn’t sure she is ready to risk losing him. With an important cosplay convention coming up and the anxiety of her double-life weighing on her, Ramona has to decide if she’ll hide behind her cosplay character forever or take the chance and let Caleb see the real her — because he might actually like her for who she is.

If you asked 17-year-old Cass Williams to describe herself, she’d happily tell you she’s fat, a lesbian, and obsessed with the Tide Wars books. What she won’t tell you — or anyone in her life — is that she’s part of an online Tide Wars roleplay community. Sure, it’s nerdy as hell, but when she’s behind the screen writing scenes as Captain Aresha, she doesn’t have to think about her mother who walked out or how unexpectedly stressful it is dating resident cool girl Taylor Cooper.

But secretly retreating to her online life is starting to catch up with Cass. For one, no one in her real life knows her secret roleplay addiction is the reason her grades have taken a big hit. Also? Cass has started catching feelings for Rowan Davies, her internet bestie…and Taylor might be catching on.

As Cass’s lies continue to build, so does her anxiety. Roleplaying used to be the one place she could escape to, but this double life and offline-online love triangle have only made things worse. Cass must decide what to do — be honest and risk losing her safe space or keep it a secret and put everything else on the line.

In the city of Ombrazia, saints and their disciples rule with terrifying and unjust power, playing favorites while the unfavored struggle to survive.

After her father’s murder at the hands of the Ombrazian military, Rossana Lacertosa is willing to do whatever it takes to dismantle the corrupt system — tapping into her powers as a disciple of Patience, joining the rebellion, and facing the boy who broke her heart. As the youngest captain in the history of Palazzo security, Damian Venturi is expected to be ruthless and strong, and to serve the saints with unquestioning devotion. But three years spent fighting in a never-ending war have left him with deeper scars than he wants to admit…and a fear of confronting the girl he left behind.

Now a murderer stalks Ombrazia’s citizens. As the body count climbs, the Palazzo is all too happy to look the other way — that is, until a disciple becomes the newest victim. With every lead turning into a dead end, Damian and Roz must team up to find the killer, even if it means digging up buried emotions. As they dive into the underbelly of Ombrazia, the pair will discover something more sinister — and far less holy. With darkness closing in and time running out, will they be able to save the city from an evil so powerful that it threatens to destroy everything in its path?

When 17-year-old Eliza Lin’s essay about meeting the love of her life unexpectedly goes viral, her entire life changes overnight. Now she has the approval of her classmates at her new international school in Beijing, a career-launching internship opportunity at her favorite magazine…and a massive secret to keep.

Eliza made her essay up. She’s never been in a relationship before, let alone in love. All good writing is lying, right?

Desperate to hide the truth, Eliza strikes a deal with the famous actor in her class, the charming but aloof Caz Song. She’ll help him write his college applications if he poses as her boyfriend. Caz is a dream boyfriend — he passes handwritten notes to her in class, makes her little sister laugh, and takes her out on motorcycle rides to the best snack stalls around the city.

But when her relationship with Caz starts feeling a little too convincing, all of Eliza’s carefully laid plans are threatened. Can she still follow her dreams if it means breaking her own heart?

Eighteen-year-old Victoria is a Wildblood. Since she was kidnapped at the age of six and manipulated by the Exotic Lands Touring Company, she’s worked as a tour guide ever since with a team of fellow Wildbloods who take turns using their magic to protect travelers in a Jamaican jungle teeming with ghostly monsters.

When the boss denies Victoria an earned promotion to team leader in favor of Dean, her backstabbing ex, she’s determined to prove herself. Her magic may be the most powerful on the team, but she’s not the image the boss wants to send their new client, Thorn, a renowned goldminer determined to reach an untouched gold supply deep in the jungle.

Thorn is everything Victoria isn’t — confident, impossibly kind, and so handsome he leaves her speechless. And when he entrusts the mission to her, kindness turns to mutual respect, turns to affection, turns to love. But the jungle is treacherous, and between hypnotic river spirits, soul-devouring women that shed their skin like snakes, and her ex out for revenge, Victoria has to decide — is promotion at a corrupt company really what she wants?

A fierce, lush fantasy by New York Times best-selling author Lauren Blackwood, Wildblood tells the story of a girl who must find the strength to defeat the demons of the jungle as well as her own to find where she truly belongs.

Fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry loves two things: basketball and his mother’s potato and ground beef stuffed parathas. Both are round and both help him forget about things like his father, who died two years ago, his mother’s desire to arrange a marriage to his first cousin, Nusrat, back home in Pakistan, and the tiny apartment in Regent Park he shares with his mom and sister. Not to mention his estranged best friend Yousuf, who’s coping with the shooting death of his older brother.

But Fawad has plans: like, asking out Ashley, even though she lives on the other, wealthier side of the tracks, and saving his friend Arif from being beaten into a pulp for being the school flirt, and making the school basketball team and dreaming of being the world’s first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA. All he has to do now is convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team. And let him date girls from his school. Not to mention somehow get Omar, the neighborhood bully, to leave him alone…

Aaliyah’s home life has never been great, but she thought she’d survive her last years of high school with at least her friendships and cross-country stardom intact. That is, until junior year struck: she got outed by a church elder and everything came undone — including Aaliyah.

Now, senior year is about to start and she is determined to come back faster and wiser. No more letting other people define her. No more losing herself to their expectations.

Except…well, with new friends, old flames, nosy school counselors, and teammates who don’t trust her yet, the route already feels rough. And what’s with the new girl, Tessa, who gives Aaliyah butterflies every time she looks at her? Regardless, everything is fine. She’ll be fine. Because this is the year to prove to everyone — and most of all, herself — that she’s more than her mistakes. After all, even Aaliyah can’t outrun everything.

At the most elite private school in Washington, D.C., whenever anyone has a problem that they need to go away, they hire Hana Yang Lerner.

Hana is a fixer. She knows who to call, what to say, and how to make sure secrets stay where they belong — buried. She can fix anything. Except her own life, which was destroyed when her father, senator Skip Lerner, was arrested for an accident that left one woman nearly dead.

Now Hana’s reputation is ruined and her friends are gone. So when she gets a job from an anonymous client called “Three” to follow her former best friend, Luce Herrera, Hana realizes this might be her way of getting back her old life.

But the dangerous thing about digging is that you never know what you’ll unearth. As Hana uncovers a dark truth about her supposedly flawless classmates, she’s forced to face a secret of her own.

Felicity Becker loves watching an event come together. Whether it’s prom, graduation, or just the annual Arbor Day school dance, there’s something magical about crafting an experience that people will remember. So when her mom gets engaged, Felicity sees the wedding as the perfect opportunity to show off her skills.

After Felicity’s long-distance friend Nancy offers up her family’s apple orchard as a venue, wedding planning gets even better. But the more time Felicity and Nancy spend together dress shopping and hunting for just-right mismatched china, the more it starts to seem like there might be something besides friendship between them. Felicity isn’t sure how she feels. As someone on the asexual spectrum, what would dating even look like for her? And would Nancy be open to dating when Felicity doesn’t even know what she wants from a relationship?

Suddenly the summer is a lot more complicated. Especially when Felicity finds out that one of the wedding guests is an event planner with a prestigious internship available. Can Felicity wrangle her irresponsible mom, juggle her judgmental grandmother, figure out her feelings for Nancy, and plan the perfect wedding? Or will all of her plans come crashing down around her?

Scream meets Clown in a Cornfield in this young adult horror novel by national best-selling author Cale Dietrich featuring a masked killer who targets frat boys.

Freshman Sam believes that joining a fraternity is the best way to form a friend group as he begins his college journey — and his best chance of moving on from his past. He is the survivor of a horrific, and world-famous, murder spree known as the Lake Priest Massacre — where a masked killer hunted down Sam and his friends.

Sam had to do the unthinkable to survive that night, and it completely derailed his life. He sees college, and his new identity as a frat boy, as his best shot at living a life not defined by the killings. He starts to flirt with one of the brothers, cute journalism student Oren Fisher, who Sam finds is surprisingly accepting of Sam’s past, and begins to think a fresh start truly is possible.

But then…one of his new frat brothers is found dead. A masked-murderer, one clearly inspired by the original, emerges, and starts stalking, and slaying, the frat boys of Munroe University. Now Sam will have to race against the clock to figure out who the new killer is — and why they are killing — before Sam loses his second chance or the lives of any more of his friends.

Elements of horror, mystery, and a gay romance make this a story readers won’t want to miss.

On the island of Charmant, magic flows like bootlegged champagne, and fantasies can be bought for the price of a gemstone.

Luxe Revelle, star of her family’s fantastical show, knows the splendor is just an illusion. With Prohibition threatening their livelihood, her family struggles to make a living, watering down champagne and patching holes in their sequined costumes. So when the son of Charmant’s wealthiest family makes her an offer — everything the Revelles need to stay in business, in exchange for posing as his girl and helping him become mayor — she can’t refuse.

The moment Jamison Port sets foot in Charmant, he can’t shake the feeling of familiarity. An orphan with as few memories as gemstones, he’s desperate to learn what happened to his parents. But as he delves into the island’s secrets, he risks angering the wrong person and discovering a truth that just might break his heart.

When Luxe and Jamison accidentally meet, the sparks that fly are more than her magical enchantments. But keeping secrets from powerful people is a dangerous game…one that could destroy them both.

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two things: recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women — missing women. So when three more women disappear one stormy night, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is closed and their daughters are left in their dusty shared house with the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial.

With secrets come the lies each of the girls is forced to confront. After caring for the other girls, Delilah would like to move on with her boyfriend, Bennett, but she can’t bear his touch. Whitney has already lost both her mother and her girlfriend, Eleanor, and now her only solace is an old weathervane that seems to whisper to her. Jude, Whitney’s twin sister, would rather ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret too: the summer fling she had with Delilah’s boyfriend. And more than anything, Bo wants answers and she wants them now. Something happened to their mothers and the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it.

Bishop has always been a strange town. But what the girls don’t know is that Bishop was founded on blood — and now it craves theirs.

Daisy sees dead people — something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…

A decade later, Brittney is desperate to get out from under the thumb of her abusive mother, a bestselling author who claims her stay at “Miracle Mansion” allowed her to see the error of her ways. But Brittney knows that’s nothing but a sham. She decides the new season of her popular Haunted web series will uncover what happened to a young Black girl in the mansion 10 years prior and finally expose her mother’s lies. But as she gets more wrapped up in the investigation, she’ll have to decide: if she can only bring one story to light, which one matters most — Daisy’s or her own?

As Brittney investigates the mansion in the present, Daisy’s story runs parallel in the past, both timelines propelling the girls to face the most dangerous monsters of all: those that hide in plain sight.

Friday night. The party of the summer. Four teens ride home together. Only one never makes it.

When high school sophomore Chris Moore is tragically killed in a car crash, Armstrong Prep is full of questions. Who was at the wheel? And more importantly, who was at fault?

Eighteen-year-old Spencer Sandoval wishes she knew. As rumors swirl that her ex, Ethan, was the reckless driver, she can’t bring herself to defend him. And their messy breakup has nothing to do with it — she can’t remember anything from that night, not even what put her in that car with Ethan, Chris, and Tabby Hill, the new loner in school.

The hunt for answers intensifies when a local true crime podcast takes an interest in the case, pushing Spencer further into the depths of this sinister mystery. Was it all just a night out that went very wrong? And is it a coincidence that all but Chris is on Armstrong’s esteemed honor roll, the Headmaster’s List? In a place ruled by pedigree and privilege, the truth can only come at a deadly price.

Set against the glitz and glamour of an elite LA private school, Melissa de la Cruz’s first YA thriller is an addictive mystery perfect for fans of Gossip Girl and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.

Seventeen-year-old Gael is used to keeping to himself. Though his best friend convinces him to attend a meeting of Plus, a support group for LGBTQIA+ teens, Gael doesn’t plan on sharing much. Where would he even start?

Between supporting his mother through her bouts of depression, dealing with his estranged father, and navigating senior year as a transgender boy at a conservative Tennessean high school, his life is a lot to unload on strangers.

But after meeting easygoing Declan, Gael is welcomed into a new circle of friends who make him want to open up. As Gael’s friendship with Declan develops into something more, he finds himself caught between his mother’s worsening mental health and his father’s attempts to reconnect.

After tragedy strikes, Gael must decide if he can risk letting the walls around his heart down and fully opening up to those who care for him.

In the summer of 1934, Joe Garbe arrives in Chicago with one goal: Earn enough money to get out of debt and save the family farm. Joe’s cousin sets him up with a hotel job, then proposes a sketchy scheme to make a lot more money fast. While running his con, Joe finds himself splitting time between Eddie, a handsome flirt on a delivery truck, and Raymond, a carefree rich kid who shows Joe the eye-opening queer life around every corner of the big city.

Joe’s exposure to the surface of criminal Chicago pulls him into something darker than he could have imagined. When danger closes in — from gangsters, the police, and people he thought were friends — Joe needs to pack up and get lost. But before he can figure out where to go, he has to decide who he wants to be.

I’ll Take Everything You Have is a vivid portrayal of queer coming of age in Depression-era Chicago, and a timeless story of trying to make your future bright when the rest of the world is dead set on keeping it hidden in the dark.

Move over, Elizabeth Bennet. The most infamous Bennet sister is here to tell her story.

Join Lola Barnes, AKA a modern Lydia Bennet, at the beginning of a summer gone truly wrong: where a boat party-turned-fiery-fiasco ends with the ship, Lola’s summer plans, and her reputation truly sunk.

(The boat was barely on fire, for the record — and all the partygoers were just fine.)

Luckily, this disaster of a summer has another thing in store for her: a path of self-discovery she never saw coming.

Given an ultimatum — jail time, or spending the summer with the nonprofit Hike Like a Girl — she laces up her hiking boots and takes to the wilderness. Along the way, she’ll encounter unexpected friends, a sweet romance, strength she didn’t know she had — and herself, Lola, at last.

Seventeen-year-old Jules grew up in her mother’s spotlight. A “parenting influencer,” Britt shares details of her daughter’s life-pictures, intimate stories, insecurities, all-to a point that becomes unbearable to Jules.

And suddenly she’s gone.

Natalie has only barely begun to grieve her best friend Jules’s death when Britt announces her plans to publish a memoir that will dissect Jules’s life and death. But Nat knows the truth behind Britt’s “perfect” Instagram feed-Jules hated the pressure, the inauthenticity, the persona. There’s so much more to Jules than Britt and her followers could ever know. As Nat connects with Jules’s boyfriend, Carter, and their shared grief and guilt bonds them, she becomes determined to expose Britt, to understand what really happened, and who is to blame.

In a world that feels distorted by celebrity and the manipulations of social media and public opinion, Natalie and Carter need something real to hold onto. Remind Me to Hate You Later is a moving account of grief, depression, complex relationships, love, and the search for truth.

A House with a terrifying appetite haunts a broken family in this atmospheric horror, perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic.

When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.

But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves cryptic warnings: Don’t eat.

Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house — the home they have always wanted — will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.

On Mar León de la Rosa’s 16 birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn’t enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father, and now el Diablo has come to collect his payment: the soul of Mar’s father and the entire crew of their ship.

When Mar is miraculously rescued by the sole remaining pirate crew in the Caribbean, el Diablo returns to give them a choice: give up their soul to save their father by the harvest moon, or never see him again. The task is impossible — Mar refuses to make a bargain, and there’s no way their magic is a match for el Diablo. Then Mar finds the most unlikely allies: Bas, an infuriatingly arrogant and handsome pirate — and the captain’s son; and Dami, a gender-fluid demonio whose motives are never quite clear. For the first time in their life, Mar may have the courage to use their magic. It could be their only redemption — or it could mean certain death.

Beaked. Feathered. Monstrous. Avita was born to be a star. Her tent sells out nightly, and every performance incites bloodcurdling screams. She’s the most lucrative circus act from Texas to Tacoma, the crown jewel of the Family Fortuna, and Avita feeds on the shrieks, the gasps, the fear. But when a handsome young artist arrives to create posters of the performers, she’s appalled by his rendering of Bird Girl. Is that all he sees? A hideous monster — all sharp beak and razor teeth, obsidian eyes and ruffled feathers? Determined to be more, Avita devises a plan to snatch freedom out from under the greased mustache of her charismatic father, the domineering proprietor and ringmaster. But will their fragile circus family survive the showdown she has in mind? By turns delightful and disturbing, bawdy and breathtaking, horrific and heartfelt, this electric and exquisitely crafted story about a family like no other challenges our every notion of what it means to be different — subject to an earful of screams — and to step out of the shadows and shine anyway.

All’s fair in love and death…or is it?

Flint Larsen has 41 days, 9 hours, and 42 minutes to live. He’s known exactly when he’s going to die since he was eight years old and half-lifed, a small twinge that tells a person when they’ve lived half their life. From that moment, Flint’s done everything he can to make his death more bearable. Cutting off all his friends, refusing to eat his favorite foods, reading only the most depressing literature by long-dead writers. He plans to spend his final days back in his hometown with his parents, quietly waiting to die.

But then he meets September Harrington, an utter explosion of brilliance and fun, and all his plans fly out the window. September has dedicated herself to curing the half-life, landing a coveted internship at the world-renowned Half-Life Institute. She has her own past that she’s refusing to deal with, choosing instead to spend her nights living it up with her friends and her days deep in the lab, where she’s working to find a cure.

When their worlds collide, it feels like the start of an epic, once-in-a-lifetime love. Only Flint can’t bring himself to tell September he’s dying, and September’s keeping secrets too. The closer they get, the less time they have together and the more their secrets threaten to destroy everything. Can September and Flint save each other, or are their days numbered from the start?

Influence is power. Power creates change. And change is exactly what Team Jericho needs.

Jax, Yas, Spider, and Han are the four cornerstones of Team Jericho, the best scavenger hunting team in all of Seattle. Each has their own specialty: Jax, the puzzler; Yas, the parkourist; Spider, the hacker; and Han, the cartographer. But now with an oil refinery being built right in their backyard, each also has their own problems. Their families are at risk of losing their jobs, their communities, and their homes.

So when The Order, a mysterious vigilante organization, hijacks the scavenger hunting forum and concocts a puzzle of its own, promising a reward of influence, Team Jericho sees it as the chance of a lifetime. If they win this game, they could change their families’ fates and save the city they love so much. But with an opposing team hot on their heels, it’s going to take more than street smarts to outwit their rivals.

Each spring, Ithaca condemns 12 maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.

But when that fate comes for Leto, death is not what she thought it would be. Instead, she wakes on a mysterious island and meets a girl with green eyes and the power to command the sea. A girl named Melantho, who says one more death can stop a thousand.

The prince of Ithaca must die — or the tides of fate will drown them all.

Sarah Underwood weaves an epic tapestry of lies, love, and tragedy, perfect for fans of Madeline Miller, Alexandra Bracken, and Renée Ahdieh.

In August of 1999, dazzlingly popular cheerleader Clarissa Campbell disappears from a party in the woods outside the rural town of Oreville, Washington and is never seen again. The police question her friends, teachers, and the adults who knew her — who all have something to hide. And thanks to Clarissa’s beauty, the mystery captures the attention of the nation. But with no leads and no body, the case soon grows cold. Despite the efforts of internet sleuths and true-crime aficionados, Clarissa is never found — dead or alive.

Over twenty years later, Oreville high-school juniors and best friends Blair and Cameron start a true crime podcast, determined to unravel the story of what — or who — happened to this rural urban legend. In the process they uncover a nest of dirty small-town secrets, the sordid truth of Clarissa’s relationship with her charismatic boyfriend, and a high school art teacher turned small-town figurehead who had a very good reason for wanting Clarissa dead. Such a good reason, in fact, that they might have to make him the highlight of their next episode…

But does an ugly history with a missing girl make him guilty of murder? Or are two teenage girls about to destroy the life of an innocent man — and help the true killer walk free?

London, 1885. Gabriel Utterson, a 17-year-old law clerk, has returned to London for the first time since his life — and that of his dearest friend, Henry Jekyll — was derailed by a scandal that led to his and Henry’s expulsion from the London Medical School. Whispers about the true nature of Gabriel and Henry’s relationship have followed the boys for two years, and now Gabriel has a chance to start again.

But Gabriel doesn’t want to move on, not without Henry. His friend has become distant and cold since the disastrous events of the prior spring, and now his letters have stopped altogether. Desperate to discover what’s become of him, Gabriel takes to watching the Jekyll house.

In doing so, Gabriel meets Hyde, a a strangely familiar young man with white hair and a magnetic charisma. He claims to be friends with Henry, and Gabriel can’t help but begin to grow jealous at their apparent closeness, especially as Henry continues to act like Gabriel means nothing to him.

But the secret behind Henry’s apathy is only the first part of a deeper mystery that has begun to coalesce. Monsters of all kinds prowl within the London fog — and not all of them are out for blood…

Eila Das is used to following her head, rather than her heart. When she meets Rahul at Rosewood, a summer camp where campers are being scouted for the hit Bridgerton-like TV show, she experiences…feelings. Between the drama of the show and the drama of the camp, Eila will have to keep her wits about her to make it through the summer. But when she has to choose between her head and her heart, what will she do?

As the King of England’s illegitimate daughter, 17-year-old Evan Bright knows a thing or two about keeping secrets. 

But when she’s forced to spend the summer in London with her father and the royal family, who aren’t exactly thrilled she exists, her identity is mysteriously revealed, and suddenly the world is dying to know every juicy lie the press prints about her. 

After a fun night turns deadly and Evan becomes the primary suspect in a murder investigation, the escalating rumors and fallout threaten to tear her life apart. As she fights to uncover the truth about what happened, she discovers royal secrets that are even more scandalous than she imagined — secrets that could change the monarchy forever.

And her own may be next.

An energetic, interactive YA novel about five solo pop artists navigating drama, finding their sound, and discovering what it truly takes to chase their dreams of music stardom after being forced into a pop group together.

Everly Brooks knows she has what it takes to be the next big singer-songwriter. At least, that’s if she could get her onstage presence to stop feeling so wooden and blossom like her rich, moving lyrics. The reality signing competition, SO YOU WANNA BE A POP STAR? is her chance at proving to the world — and herself — that her talent and artistry can mean something more than just live streams and online videos.

Vinny Vecchi thought he was heading toward a life full of makeup, wigs, and werking it on the drag stages of NYC. But a powerful diva voice is a precious thing to waste and, in need of money to make his drag dreams come true, SO YOU WANNA BE A POP STAR? is the next best thing. However, surrounded by competitors with clear brands and sharpened musical identities, he wonders if he can break through while still discovering himself.

When a group performance on the show goes viral overnight, Everly and Vinny find their careers unexpectedly tied together. Along with their competitors — influencer Dea Seo, pop-punk CeCe Winnifred, and heartthrob Stern Green — these five artists are forced to become the newest pop super group: Jeweltones.

You, the reader, get to make choices that will make or break Everly, Vinny, and the group’s meteoric rise in this interactive novel. Will you mend the cracks to help Jeweltones shine bright, or will they burn out under pressure? The choices are yours to make!

College…the best time, the worst time, and something in between.

What do you do when orientation isn’t going according to your (sister’s) detailed plans? Where do you go when you’re searching for community in faith? How do you figure out what it means that you’re suddenly attracted to your RA? What happens when your partner for your last film project is also your crush and graduation is quickly approaching?

Told over the course of one academic year, this collection of stories set on the same fictional campus features students from different cultures, genders, and interests learning more about who they are and who they want to be. From new careers to community to (almost) missed connections ― and more ― these interconnected tales explore the ways university life can be stressful and confusing and exciting and fulfilling.

Gen Z contributors include Jake Maia Arlow, Arushi Avachat, Boon Carmen, Ananya Devarajan, Camryn Garrett, Christina Li, Racquel Marie, Oyin, Laila Sabreen, Michael Waters, and Joelle Wellington.

The gang is fake, but the fear is real.

Rhea’s neighborhood is fading away — the mom-and-pop shops of her childhood forced out to make space for an artisanal kombucha brewery here, a hot yoga studio there. And everywhere, the feeling that this place is no longer meant for her. Because while their little corner of South L.A. isn’t perfect, to Rhea and her two best friends, it’s something even more important — it’s home. And it’s worth protecting.

But as more white people flock to their latest edgy, urban paradise for its cheap rent and sparkling new Whole Foods, more of Rhea’s friends and family are pushed out. Until Rhea decides it’s time to push back. Armed with their cellphones and a bag of firecrackers, the friends manipulate social media to create the illusion of gang violence in their neighborhood. All Rhea wanted to do was protect her community. Her friends. Herself. No one was supposed to get hurt. No one was supposed to die.

But is anyone ever really safe when you’re fighting power with fear?

Sixteen-year-old Alicia Rivers has a reputation that precedes her. But there’s more to her story than the whispers that follow her throughout the hallways at school — whispers that splinter into a million different insults that really mean: a girl who has had sex. But what her classmates don’t know is that Alicia was sexually abused by a popular teacher, and that trauma has rewritten every cell in her body into someone she doesn’t recognize. To the world around her, she’s been cast, like the mythical Medusa, as not the victim but the monster of her own story: the slut who asked for it. 

Alicia was abandoned by her best friend, quit the track team, and now spends her days in detention feeling isolated and invisible. When mysterious letters left in her locker hint at another victim, Alicia struggles to keep up the walls she’s built around her trauma. At the same time, her growing attraction to a new girl in school makes her question what those walls are really keeping out. 

Anthony “Ant” Stevenson isn’t sure when he stopped being a virgin. Or even if he has. The rules aren’t always very clear when it comes to boys who like boys. In fact, relationships of all kinds feel complicated, even with Ant’s oldest friends. There’s Charlie, who’s both virulently homophobic and in a secret physical relationship with Ant. Then there’s drama kid Jack, who may be gay and has become the target of Charlie’s rage. And, of course, there’s big, beautiful Freddie, who wants Ant to ditch soccer, Charlie’s sport, and try out for the rugby team instead. Ant’s story of loneliness and intimacy, of unexpected support and heart-ripping betrayal, is told forthrightly with tongue-in-cheek black-bar redactions over the language that teenagers would actually use if, you know, they weren’t in a story. Award-winning author Patrick Ness explores teen sexuality, friendship, and romance with a deft hand in this structurally daring, illustrated short novel.

Clara’s magic has always been wild. But it’s never been dangerous. Then a simple touch causes poisonous flowers to bloom in her father’s chest.

The only way to heal him is to cast an extremely difficult spell that requires perfect control. And the only person willing to help is her former best friend, Xavier, who’s grown from a sweet, shy child into someone distant and mysterious. 

Xavier asks a terrible price in return, knowing Clara will give anything to save her father. As she struggles to reconcile the new Xavier with the boy she once loved, she discovers how many secrets he’s hiding. And as she hunts for the truth, she instead finds the root of a terrible darkness that’s taken hold in the queendom — a darkness only Clara’s magic is powerful enough to stop.

Welcome to Meadowlark, Long Island — expensive homes and good schools, ambition and loneliness. Meet Chase Ohara and Lia Vestiano: the driven overachiever and the impulsive wanderer, the future CEO and the free spirit. Best friends for years — weekend trips to Montauk, sleepovers on a yacht — and then, first love. True love.

But when Lia disappears, Chase’s life turns into a series of grim snapshots. Anger. Grief. Running. Pink pills in an Altoids tin. A cheating ring at school. Heartbreak and lies. A catastrophic secret.

And the shocking truth that will change everything about the way Chase sees Lia — and herself.

Seventeen-year-old Anaïs just wants tonight to end. As an outsider at the kingdom’s glittering anniversary ball, she has no desire to rub shoulders with the nation’s most eligible (and pompous) bachelors — especially not the notoriously roguish Prince Leo. But at the stroke of midnight, an explosion rips through the palace, killing everyone in its path. Including her.

The last thing Anaïs sees is fire, smoke, chaos…and then she wakes up in her bedroom, hours before the ball. No one else remembers the deadly attack or believes her warnings of disaster.

Not even when it happens again. And again. And again.

If she’s going to escape this nightmarish time loop, Anaïs must take control of her own fate and stop the attack before it happens. But the court’s gilded surface belies a rotten core, full of restless nobles grabbing at power, discontented commoners itching for revolution, and even royals who secretly dream of taking the throne. It’s up to Anaïs to untangle these knots of deadly deceptions…if she can survive past midnight.

Khadija Shami is a Syrian American high school senior raised on boxing and football. Saddled with a monstrous ego and a fierce mother to test it, she dreams of escaping her sheltered life to travel the world with her best friend.

Leene Tahir is a Syrian refugee, doing her best to adjust to the wildly unfamiliar society of a suburban Detroit high school while battling panic attacks and family pressures.

When their worlds collide the result is catastrophic. To Khadija, Leene embodies the tame, dutiful Syrian ideal she’s long rebelled against. And to Leene, Khadija is the strong-willed, closed-off American who makes her doubt her place in the world.

But as Khadija digs up Leene’s past, a startling and life-changing discovery forces the two of them closer together. As the girls secretly race to unravel the truth, a friendship slowly and hesitantly begins blooming. Doubts are cast aside as they realize they have more in common than they each expected. What they find takes them on a journey all the way to Jordan, challenging what each knows about the other and herself. 

Fans of Samira Ahmed’s Love, Hate, and Other Filters and Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse Of Sea will love Khadija and Leene’s sharp-witted voices in this dual POV narrative. The Next New Syrian Girl is a poignant and timely blend of guilt, nostalgia, devotion, and bad-ass hijabees.

Neve has spent lifetimes defending the mortal world against the legions of hell with her two sisters.

Unfortunately for Neve, in this lifetime, she is the only one of the Morrigan — a triad of Irish war gods — still stuck in high school and still without her full power. She’s been counting down the days until her 18th birthday, when she finally gets to shed the pretenses of humanity and grow into her divine power.

But then she meets Alexandria. And Alexandria is as determined to force Neve into some semblance of teenage normalcy as she is haunted by her own demons — both figurative and literal.

As they grow closer, Neve decides that humanity — and, perhaps, love — isn’t so detestable after all. Which makes it all the more dangerous when she realizes that something in Hell wants Alexandria, and it’ll be up to Neve and her sisters to save her before Alexandria’s past catches up to all of them.

Since her mother’s death, Madeline “Gwen” Hathaway has been determined that nothing in her life will change ever again. That’s why she keeps extensive lists in journals, has had only one friend since childhood, and looks forward to the monotony of working the ren faire circuit with her father. Until she arrives at her mother’s favorite end-of-tour stop to find the faire is under new management and completely changed.

Meeting Arthur, the son of the new owners and an actual lute-playing bard, messes up Maddie’s plans even more. For some reason, he wants to be her friend — and ropes her into becoming Princess of the Faire. Now Maddie is overseeing a faire dramatically changed from what her mother loved and going on road trips vastly different from the routine she used to rely on. Worst of all, she’s kind of having fun.

Ashley Schumacher’s The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway is filled with a wise old magician who sells potion bottles, gallant knights who are afraid of horses and ride camels instead, kings with a fondness for theatrics, a lazy river castle moat with inflatable crocodile floaties, and a plus-sized heroine with a wide open heart…if only she just admits it.

When Stella North is chosen to represent Britain in Europe’s first air race for young people, she knows all too well how high the stakes are. As the only participating female pilot, it’ll be a constant challenge to prove she’s a worthy competitor. But promoting peace in Europe feels empty to Stella when civil war is raging in Spain and the Nazis are gaining power — and when, right from the start, someone resorts to cutthroat sabotage to get ahead of the competition.

The world is looking for inspiration in what’s meant to be a friendly sporting event. But each of the racers is hiding a turbulent and violent past, and any one of them might be capable of murder…including Stella herself.  

A scorned god.

A mysterious acolyte.

A forgetting drug.

A dangerous forest.

One girl caught between the freedom she always wanted and a sister she can’t bear to leave behind.

Under the cover of the Night Forest, will Lucha be able to step into her own power…or will she be consumed by it?

This gorgeous and fast-paced fantasy novel from acclaimed author Tehlor Kay Mejia is brimming with adventure, peril, romance, and family bonds — and asks what it means for a teen girl to become fully herself.

There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity that inhabits the ancient hot spring.

This time trouble comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger, requiring a desperate rescue attempt from his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, and art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage.

The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery and guarded by monstrous living statues. But this is only the beginning. To unravel the secrets of a murderous Ancient Sovereign, the booksellers must investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths. If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her target is not an ordinary mortal.

Being an actress, Kate is no stranger to drama. And when her chance at a leading role gets cancelled, she is willing to do whatever it takes to get her acting career back on track even if that means getting a boring office job at her best friend’s father’s law firm so she can prove to her parents she can to support herself rather than go back to high school. Now, rather than living life on the big screen, she is stuck filing mundane contracts and watching the people in the office across from hers live their equally boring lives.

But when Kate sees things heat up between a woman and her assistant, her new source of entertainment take a turn for the worse when she witnesses a double murder. Now, she must get anyone to believe her and find out who this mystery woman is to get answers. But as she learns more and more about the circumstances leading to the gruesome act, she begins to realize there is a bigger mystery under the surface…

It’s a classic story: girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, boy finally notices girl when he sees her in a homemade costume. At least, that’s what Sonia Patil is hoping for when she plans to meet her crush at the local comic-con in cosplay.

But instead of winning her crush over, Sonia rescues him after he faints into a canal and, suddenly, everything changes. Since she was in disguise, no one knows who the masked do-gooder was…but everyone is trying to find out. Sonia can’t let that happen — her sister is undocumented, and the girls have been flying under the radar since their mother was deported back to Mumbai.

Sonia finds herself hiding from social media detectives and trying to connect with her crush and his family. But juggling crushes and a secret identity might just take superpowers. Can Sonia hide in plain sight forever?

Francesca Flores’s The Witch and the Vampire is a queer Rapunzel retelling where a witch and a vampire who trust no one but themselves must journey together through a cursed forest with danger at every turn.

Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye’s mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she’s a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother’s plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes.

Kaye, now at the end of her training as a Flame witch, is ready to fulfill her duty of killing any vampires that threaten the town, including Ava. On the night that Ava escapes, Kaye follows her and convinces her to travel together into the forest, while secretly planning to turn her in. Ava agrees, hoping to rekindle their old friendship, and the romantic feelings she’d started to have for Kaye before that terrible night.

But with monstrous trees that devour humans whole, vampires who attack from above, and Ava’s stepfather tracking her, the woods are full of danger. As they travel deeper into the forest, Kaye questions everything she thought she knew. The two are each other’s greatest threat — and also their only hope, if they want to make it through the forest unscathed.

Seventeen years ago, Layla Trello was murdered and her killer was never found. Enter true-crime fan Piper Gray, who is determined to reopen Layla’s case and get some answers. With the help of Jonas — who has a secret of his own — Piper starts a podcast investigating Layla’s murder. But as she digs deeper into the mysteries of the past, Piper begins receiving anonymous threats telling her to back off the investigation, or else. The killer is still out there, and Piper must uncover their identity before they silence her forever.

Two roads lead into a dark forest. They meet at Greymist Fair, the village hidden in the trees, a place kept alive by the families that never leave. The people of Greymist Fair know the woods are a dangerous and magical place, and to set foot off the road is to invite trouble.

When Heike, the village’s young tailor, discovers a body on the road, she goes looking for who is responsible. But her quest only leads to more strange happenings around Greymist Fair.

Inspired by the original, bloody, lesser-known fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, acclaimed author Francesca Zappia crafts an enthralling murder-mystery that will keep readers turning the pages. Told from multiple points of view, with each narrative building on the crime discovered by Heike, Greymist Fair examines the themes of childhood fears, growing into adult responsibilities, and finding a place to call home amid the trials of life and death.

Features chapter decorations by the author throughout, as well as a map.

Theo and her brother, Marco, threw the biggest party of the year. And got caught. Their punishment? Leave Arizona to spend the summer with their grandmother in the rainy beachside town of Nightfall, Oregon — population 846 souls.

The small town is cute, when it’s not raining, but their grandmother is superstitious and strangely antisocial. Upon their arrival she lays out the one house rule: always be home before dark. But Theo and Marco are determined to make the most of their summer, and on their first day they meet the enigmatic Minnow and her friends. Beautiful and charismatic, the girls have a magnetic pull that Theo and her brother can’t resist.

But Minnow and her friends are far from what they appear. And that one rule? Theo quickly realizes she should have listened to her grandmother. Because after dark, something emerges in Nightfall. And it doesn’t plan to let her leave.

KEEP YOUR SECRETS CLOSE TO HOME

It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving — and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking a chance on a traveling situation with the Varela family, whose attractive but surly son, Carlos, seems to promise a new future.

Eli abides by the rules of his family, living in a secluded community that raised him to believe his obedience will be rewarded. But an unsettling question slowly eats away at Eli’s once unwavering faith in Reconciliation: Why can’t he remember his past?

But the reported discovery of an unidentified body in the hills of Idyllwild, California, will draw both of these young men into facing their biggest fears and confronting their own identity — and who they are allowed to be.

Seventeen-year-old goth Sevim Burgos would love to spend all day watching music videos, but to help support the family she has to scavenge and sell elf corpses to a sketchy university professor.

On one of her hunts, Sevim captures the elf prince, Aro, wounded in a Burger King. But it turns out that the elves have been watching Sevim too, and this chance encounter sets their revenge in motion.

The Prince manages to escape her and leaves behind a ring with a message: “The Prince of Eterna is in danger. This ring will save him. Return it, and your mother lives.”

With her mom missing, Sevim must enter the magical home of the elves, and find a prince whose fate might be more tied to hers than she ever suspected.

This eye-opening YA narrative nonfiction follows three first-generation college students as they navigate their first year — and ultimately a global pandemic.

Making it through the first year of college is tough. What makes it even tougher is being the first in your family to do so. Who can you turn to when you need advice?

Rising Class follows three first-generation freshmen, Briani, Conner, and Jacklynn, as they not only experience their first semester of college, but the COVID-19 pandemic that turned their Spring semester upside down. From life in the ivy league to classes at a community college, this nonfiction book follows these students’ challenges, successes, and dreams as they tackle their first year of college and juggle responsibilities to their families back home.

Eye-opening and poignant, Jennifer Miller writes a narrative nonfiction story that speaks to new beginnings, coming of age, and perseverance.

Max and Jay have always depended on one another for their survival. Growing up with a physically abusive father, the two Bribri American brothers have learned that the only way to protect themselves and their mother is to stick to a schedule and keep their heads down.

But when they hear a classmate in trouble in the woods, instinct takes over and they intervene, breaking up a fight and beating their high school’s star soccer player to a pulp. This act of violence threatens the brothers’ dreams for the future and their beliefs about who they are. As the true details of that fateful afternoon unfold over the course of the novel, Max and Jay grapple with the weight of their actions, their shifting relationship as brothers, and the realization that they may be more like their father than they thought. They’ll have to reach back to their Bribri roots to find their way forward.

Told in alternating points of view using vignettes and poems, debut author Ari Tison crafts an emotional, slow-burning drama about brotherhood, abuse, recovery, and doing the right thing.

Sixteen-year-old Arachne is ostracized by all but her family and closest friend, Celandine. Turning to her loom for solace, Arachne learns to weave, finding her voice and her strength through the craft. After the tragic loss of her family, Arachne and Celandine flee to the city of Colophon, where Arachne’s skills are put to the test. Word of her talent spreads quickly, leading to a confrontation with the goddess Athena, who demands that Arachne repent.

But Arachne will not be silenced. She challenges Athena, and a fateful weaving contest ensues, resulting in an exposé of divine misdeeds, a shocking transformation, and unexpected redemption.

Meet Winter Young — rookie backup dancer turned global pop phenomenon. His star power has smashed records, selling out stadiums from L.A. to London. Now he’s bringing his swoon worthy assets to a whole new arena…

Infamous criminal tycoon Eli Morrison has just one weakness — his daughter, Penelope. And Penelope has just one wish for her 19th birthday — a private concert with Winter Young. When covert ops organization The Panacea Group approaches Winter with this once-in-a-lifetime chance to infiltrate Morrison’s inner circle, Winter must use his fame, cunning, and charisma to pull it off — only he won’t be on his own.

Posing as Winter’s bodyguard is the fiery Sydney Cossette, Panacea’s youngest spy. Sydney may be the only person alive impervious to Winter’s charms, but as the mission brings them closer, she’s forced to admit there’s more to this A-lister than slick dance moves and a handsome face. Panacea’s unlikeliest partners just might become its biggest heroes — and maybe even more — if they can survive each other first.

A Normie’s guide to staying alive in Sunnylake City:

1. Keep your head down.

2. Don’t make enemies.

3. Strictly no heroics.

The world is run by those with the Super gene, and Riley Jones doesn’t have it. She’s just a Normie, ducking her way around the hero vs. villain battles that constantly demolish Sunnylake City, working at a crappy diner to save up money for therapy, and trying to figure out how to tell her family that she’s queer. But when Riley retaliates against a handsy superhero at work, she finds herself in desperate need of employment, and the only place that will hire her is HENCH.

Yes, HENCH, as in henchmen: masked cronies who take villains’ coffee orders, vacuum their secret lairs, and posture in the background while they fight. Riley’s plan is to mind her own business and get paid…but that quickly devolves when she witnesses a horrible murder on the job. Caught in the thick of a gentrification plot, a unionization effort, and a developing crush on her prickly fellow henchwoman, Riley must face the possibility that even a powerless Normie can take a stand against injustice.

A teenage girl begins secretly forging paintings, plunging her into a dark and dangerous imaginary world

Indigo and her mother, once-famous artist Zoe Serra, have barely been scraping by since her mom’s breakdown. When a gallery offers Zoe a revival show for her unfinished blockbuster series, Wolfwood, Indigo knows it’s a crucial chance to finally regain stability. Zoe, however, mysteriously refuses. Desperate not to lose the opportunity, Indigo secretly takes up the brush herself.

It turns out, there might be a very good reason her mother wants nothing to do with Wolfwood.

Painting submerges Indigo into Wolfwood itself — a dangerous jungle where an army of grotesque, monstrous flora are in a violent battle with a band of girls. As Indigo enters Wolfwood again and again, the line between fantasy and reality blurs. It’s a tenuous balancing act: keeping her forgery secret and her mind lucid, all while fighting her attraction to Kai, the son of the gallery owner.

And by the time Indigo realizes the true nature of the monsters she’s up against, it might be too late — and the monsters might just win.

When Juniper Nash Abreheart kissed Graham Isham for the first time, she had no idea it would nearly be the end of their friendship.

More specifically, she had no idea that the terrible, unforgivable thing she did to keep their summer fling a secret wouldn’t just ruin their friendship, but also Graham’s entire life. Now, months since the fallout, Junie and Graham spend most of their time sidestepping conversational landmines on the journey back to normalcy.

Junie is sure the strangeness between her and Graham is her biggest problem — until her mom hires Tallulah, her boyfriend’s surly teenage daughter, to work at their family café, and then announces they’ll all be moving in together at the end of the summer. The only bright spot ahead is Junie’s dad’s upcoming visit, just in time for her community theater production. And then poor turnout soon threatens that.

But when Junie starts to realize the feelings she swore to take care of last summer have lingered, saving her production and managing her hostile relationship with Tallulah might be the least of her problems. Graham isn’t just off limits — their friendship has been mended to barely withstand a breeze, and the gale force of Junie’s feelings could be just what breaks them.

Series: The Nsibidi Scripts Series

Sunny doesn’t fit in. She’s Nigerian, but born in America. She’s a great athlete, but because she has albinism, she can’t play sports in the sun. But it turns out she also has latent talents that allow her to reshape the world.

Series: The Legacy of Orisha

Adeyemi’s West Africa–based debut novel is an absolute stunner. Magic has disappeared under the rule of the king, when before, the soil hummed with the power of the Orïsha. Zélie has a chance to right that wrong, but it will take everything she has.

Check out more of Bahni Turpin’s amazing audio performances here.

Series: The Legendborn Cycle

Bree Matthews has been accepted to a residential high school program at UNC-Chapel Hill, which seems like an excellent escape from the recent death of her mother. But that all changes when Bree witnesses a magical attack on campus. As the cause of Bree’s mother’s death starts to come clear, there are questions inside questions about legacies, family, and the history of Chapel Hill itself.

Series: The Pandava Series

Aru Shah is a fibber, and three of her classmates have arrived at her house to prove it. Aru decides to light the Lamp of Bharata to prove that she’s telling the truth – which she was not. But lighting the Lamp awakens the Sleeper, and now the four of them must save the world.

If you love her performance of Aru Shah, discover more of Soneela Nankani’s work here.

Series: The Parasol Protectorate Series

Alexia Tarabotti is a spinster with no soul. She’s been attacked by an extremely rude vampire, who she then killed by accident, and now a werewolf has been sent by the Queen to investigate. It’s up to Alexia to figure out what’s going on before she’s blamed for the whole situation.

Series: The Graceling Realm

Gracelings are blessed with a grace. Graces can be anything: creating beautiful clothes, cooking, leadership…or, in Katsa’s case, killing. It makes her a dangerous weapon, especially in the hands of a king whose grace is that people believe anything he says.

Series: The Sandsea Trilogy

Based firmly in the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, Abdullah weaves together stories of a thief, a prince and a quest to find an ancient lamp that will revive a dying land — at the cost of the lives of all the djinn.

Series: The Scholomance

The Scholomance is a school where a huge percentage of the students end up dead on a regular basis, so when El Higgins decides that Orion Lake needs to die as well, it shouldn’t cause too much ruckus. Except it’s a decision that will cause ripples far beyond the walls — walls? — of the school.

Series: This Poison Heart

Briseis’s power is to grow plants from seed to maturity with a single touch. She hopes to finally learn to control it at her late aunt’s dilapidated New York estate, willed to Bri’s family. But when she gets there, the mansion is full of unexpected plants, not to mention neighbors and strangers who being showing up for tinctures and elixirs.

After his sister Caroline dies suddenly and violently, genderfluid teen Mars is expected to take her place at the annual Aspen Conservancy Academy retreat. Convinced that there is more to Caroline’s death than everyone else claims, Mars investigates the Honeys — a malicious and secretive group of girls that Caroline was close to before she died.

During her senior year, biracial teen Avery and her mother move to Bardell, Georgia to care for her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. Here Avery meets Simone, a next door neighbor who she soon falls for, and Jade — whose mother was murdered and the crime never solved.

As Avery is confronted with Bardell’s cruelty and racist history, she is determined to understand more about her mother and Mama Letty’s past while uncovering what happened to Jade’s mother.

Najwa is a professional Scrabble player at her first tournament following the death of her best friend and fellow competitor Trina. One year exactly since Trina’s death, Najwa hopes to claim the “Queen of the Tiles” title in her honor.

But when Trina’s Instagram reactivates — and the posts allude to her death not being accidental — Najwa is determined to find out what happened to Trina last year.

Raised in a cult responsible for the end of the world, trans boy Benji runs away to find somewhere in what’s left of the world where they can’t hurt him anymore.

Enter the ALC, or Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, a group of teens who accept Benji as their own. They believe that Benji can use the biochemical powers the cult inflicted on him to protect the ALC. But even in this safehold, secrets lurk with the potential to destroy everything.

After Zharie lost her mother, she began seeing zombies. Nobody understands why except Bo, a new neighbor who helps her figure out the meaning behind what she sees. As she spends more time around Bo, Zharie finds ways to process the grief behind her visions.

To save Ning’s sister from the same poisonous tea that killed her mother (a tea that Ning accidentally brewed), she enters a competition open to the kingdom’s shennong-shi — those who practice the art of tea-making.

The winner’s prize? A favor from the princess, which Ning believes will save her sister. That is, if she can survive long enough to compete.

As one of the few students of color at her new Catholic school, 16-year-old Yamilet Flores would prefer to be closeted. Especially since at her last school, the choice was taken away from her when her former best friend outed her.

But as Yamilet grows closer with Bo, a classmate who is openly queer, she struggles to decide whether a chance at love is worth risking rejection — not just from Bo but from her family and her school.

When 16-year-old Joan starts a new job at the Holland House, she finds herself drawn to her co-worker Nick while enjoying life with her mother’s eccentric family.

But there’s more to both than Joan initially sees. Nick is a monster slayer and, as Joan soon discovers, her family are monsters. If Joan wants to save her family, she’ll have to embrace that she, too, is a monster.

Goth girl Jessica is stunned when a woman claiming to be her biological mother contacts her through her Instagram. Jessica, who has been in the foster care system since she was 7 years old, is eager to reunite with her mom.

And joining an upcoming cosplay competition in New York City with a group from her school seems to offer the opportunity to do so. But as she prepares for the competition, she finds family and belonging in her newfound friends.

Best friends Linus and Harrison are inseparable and, with junior year just months away, the two need each other. But when Linus tells Harrison that his family is moving in a week, neither can’t process what life will look like without the other there.

Inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Harrison plans one memorable day together to say goodbye. But letting go of your best friend isn’t easy, even if you make memories along the way.

When 17-year-old Marnie Barnes realizes she’s more of a “forgettable middle child” Mary Bennet than a bold and witty Elizabeth, she’s determined to cultivate more of a main character personality. But she soon discovers that everyone is the hero of their own story and that there’s more to fulfillment in life than chasing after perfection that only a fictional character could embody.

Autistic nonbinary teen Sam and his dad move to Astoria, a small town in Oregon. Here, Sam meets new friends — including Shep, who they fall for — at their school’s LGBTQ+ student club.

As Sam finds themselves increasingly drawn to a decades-old murder, they are determined to catch the killer — who they believe still lives in Astoria. Even if it means facing the ghosts of the town’s past.

After his boyfriend Farouk leaves him to travel the world, 17-year-old Sy wishes he had said yes to Farouk’s offer to join him. He’d give anything for a second chance.

Wish granted! But not in the way Sy expects. When a stranger grants him three wishes — and soon after proves she can offer what she claims — Sy embarks on an around-the-world mission to reunite with Farouk.

After fulfilling his destiny as the kingdom’s Chosen One, Arek unexpectedly becomes the new ruler. And this kingship comes with a catch: he must find a spouse by his 18th birthday or die.

To escape this curse, Arek and his mage best friend Matt begin a search for a spouse. But what is Arek to do when the only person he could see himself spending his life with is Matt?

After discovering she has a knack for engineering, Bel joins her school’s robotics club. Although she and team captain Teo disagree on the specifics, they know the club has the potential to win big at Nationals. As they prepare their robot for the competition, Bel and Teo find themselves understanding themselves and each other more — and falling in love along the way.

Theater nerd Mille Price was raised by a loving single dad, with little knowledge of who her mother was or why she left while Millie was a baby. But when Millie discovers her dad’s old LiveJournal account, she discovers something shocking. In college, her dad was involved with three different people who could be Millie’s mom. And all of them still live nearby!

As Millie competes for her dream internship with her frenemy Oliver, who she may be falling for, she searches for her mother in this Mamma Mia–inspired romantic comedy.

Jin Wang is pretty average. At least, he was your “average” high schooler in an immigrant family, until he crossed paths with a new student on the first day of the new school year — a student who is also an immigrant — and suddenly, the two of them are battling Chinese mythological gods.

This series stars Michelle Yeoh, Ben Wang as Jin, and Ke Huy Quan.

Know that this film has already debuted on screens at the Toronto International Film Fest, but it has yet to be distributed and released to a wider audience. That will most likely happen in 2023. No details are available as of writing.

Set in El Paso, Texas, in 1987, this award-winning novel follows two lonely Mexican American boys through friendship, self-discovery, and, ultimately, love. The film stars Kevin Alejandro, Veronica Falcón, and Eva Longoria, and it has wrapped up production. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who voiced the audiobook, is one of the co-producers on the film.

Starring Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, and more, this film is sure to get the blockbuster treatment when it releases in November. This is the prequel to The Hunger Games series and follows what happens in the 10th annual Hunger Games when Coriolanus Snow begins to mentor…and fall for…the female tribute from District 12.

Currently in post-production — it began filming in December 2021 — the story follows 18-year-old Ever Wong. She’s been sent to Taiwan from Ohio in order to up her skills in all things Mandarin, but turns out this is far from the intense schooling anyone thought it would be.

Ashley Liao plays Ever in the adaptation.

Being developed for Prime, Emily Bader plays Lady Jane Grey. Though she is unhappy her mother is selling her to marriage to Guilford Dudley, Jane discovers he has a secret that has the potential to get them both killed. It also doesn’t help that her cousin King Edward is under threat of murder as well. Using her wit, her tongue, and her heart, she may be the lady who saves herself first and foremost.

This historical series is packed with heart and humor.

Novak’s book was originally written on Wattpad and is now being made into a film. It follows Jackie, a Type A who hates surprises, when she learns that her family has been killed in an accident. To make matters worse, her entire life is being uprooted as she’s sent to Colorado to live with her new guardians, the Walters, who happen to have 11 sons.

The first season of Han’s debut YA series won fans over last summer, and the second season was immediately a go. There are few details as of yet, but keep an eye out for a potential summer release.

Season 2 of the popular show that marries both of Bardugo’s YA blockbuster series was announced in June 2021. It’s coming back for season 2 early in 2023, so you won’t have to wait too long.

Currently in postproduction, it’s possible that 2023 will bring a new adaptation of a John Green YA book to the screen. Turtles follows Aza Holmes, who struggles with intense anxiety. When she reconnects with her childhood crush, the two team up to solve a mystery related to a fugitive billionaire and Aza wrestles with what it is to have mental illness and how she can — or can’t — find “normal.” Isabela Merced plays Aza and Felix Mallard plays Davis.

Westerfeld’s book, the first in a series, had many production updates throughout 2022, and it seemed like it might hit screens. But it didn’t, so fingers crossed 2023 is the year it happens.

Set in a world where a standard operation removes physical differences in order to make everyone pretty, the series has kept readers hooked long enough to not only stay in print but also to bring about a spinoff series, The Impostors. It’ll be fascinating to see how this one plays out on screen to contemporary audiences.

I loved this feminist fairytale immediately. A sheltered princess, confined to a castle, and forgotten by nearly everyone, meets a dark and handsome soldier with his own secrets. There’s a demon in the dungeon with information the princess wants. And, by the way, the princess is poison to the touch. The story is dark and twisty and delightfully queer, and I think you should read it right now.

Obviously, I really like dark fairytales. In this gem inspired by the Asian diaspora, a morally gray witch named Violet is faced with a tough decision. As a peddler of not-always-true prophecies, which she uses to manipulate her way into favor at court, she shouldn’t balk at the king’s request that she falsely prophesy a love story for the prince. Since the prince hates and plans to fire her, this could be Violet’s chance to keep her lucrative position. However, the consequences could unleash a deadly curse that would endanger the entire kingdom.

What if I told you that after the Civil War, the dead rose again and united the U.S. against a common enemy? That’s right. This story is about a historic zombie apocalypse. Of course, the oppressive post–Civil War society is built on the back of Black and indigenous people, who are forced to train and become protectors for white folks. Luckily, our heroine is a smart-mouthed, recklessly brave, Black, bisexual badass. This book and its sequel are among my favorites of all time.

Did I mention I love fairytale retellings? Well, I LOVE queer fairytale retellings featuring people of color even more. Cinderella is Dead is just such a story, with lovable characters and surprising twists that will keep you turning the pages until the very end.

Yep, another fairytale retelling. This one is part of a series called The Lunar Chronicles and takes place in a futuristic society with lots of robots and space travel. Don’t worry, fantasy fans, there’s also plenty of magic, along with a litany of heroines to root for. If you like these, you will probably also like her twisty and heartwrenching Lewis Carroll retelling, Heartless.

Have you ever sobbed on an airplane while reading a book? Well I have done so several times, most recently at Adam Silvera’s talented hands. The title tells you what you’re in for, but there’s still no way not to fall in love with the two main characters. A mysterious system called Deathcast notifies people at midnight on the day of their death. Mateo and Rufus meet on their death day and spend it together, trying to live it to its fullest. You will cry.

Yes, this is what you think it is. If you, like me, grew up on Anne of Green Gables, you are in for a treat. This reimagining has all of the quirky, silly accidents and calamities that we’re used to from the original story. However, this book is updated for today’s times. Anne is a queer, Japanese American, artsy romantic who moves to a small town. There she meets her best friend Berry and the girl of her dreams, Gilly. This is a feel-good nostalgic delight.

This YA book for people who don’t like YA works partly because the young characters are dealing with universal struggles like grief and belonging. It’s told in beautiful verse and ends in a twist so heart-wrenching you will never see it coming. If you happen to be on an airplane and don’t want to cry, finish it at home.

Nicola Yoon is so talented it makes me want to puke. Similar to They Both Die at the End, this love story takes place mostly over the course of a single day that the audience already knows will likely end badly. Nonetheless, readers can’t help but root for the protagonists despite the odds.

This book. THIS BOOK. I cannot even pinpoint exactly why I loved it so much, but I could not stop gushing over it after I read it. I tried not to include many books on this list with extensive high school settings, because I figured people who dislike YA would be turned off by it, but I had to make a few exceptions. This achingly sweet coming out story follows a queer brown boy who, because of a dare, secretly dates the most popular guy in school for a week. Friends, the least believable thing about this book is that any high school kid could be as thoughtful, kind, and swoon-worthy as Bryson Keller.

This is one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. Jackson has a knack for writing upsettingly real and haunting YA. After reading this book, I told the friend that recommended it that she had ruined my life. Then I read another book by Tiffany D. Jackson. And then another.

This is the true story of an attack on a transgender youth by a Black boy. Slater masterfully explores the nuances on both sides, addressing how the media, courts, and law enforcement treated and mistreated both parties. The story doesn’t feel good, but it is real and it is well written.

I couldn’t decide whether to include this or Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, since they deal with similar issues and they both do it so well. In the end, I figured this one was slightly less popular and more folks should read it. In it, the two authors wrote as two characters on opposing sides of a case of police brutality. It’s honest and nuanced, much like The 57 Bus.

I was and am still disturbed by this book. The story follows Riley, a nonbinary teenager, dealing with both being outed and coming out on their own terms. What disturbed me is that at the end, I wasn’t finished. I don’t know if Riley is going to be okay, and I desperately want Riley to be okay.

While I’m not big on historical fiction, this one got me. When her British spy plane crashes into Nazi-occupied France, Verity is taken into custody. The adventure that follows is so full of twists, turns, and unexpected character developments that I simply could not put it down.

Honestly, you can’t go wrong with Elizabeth Acevedo. I fought hard not to put several of her books on this list. In the end, I settled for my favorite of her works. There’s just something about a spunky underdog protagonist that I can’t resist. Despite poverty, teenage pregnancy, a useless baby daddy, and an absent father, Emoni perseveres toward her big dreams in this poignant tale of family, self-love, and overcoming.

This is hands-down one of my favorite books of all time. We follow a Black queer girl who needs the scholarship that comes with being prom queen if she is going to pay for her dream college. For adults who don’t like YA, this book includes a sprinkling of ’90s nostalgia along with a stellar story.

While there’s some intense pain and sadness in this story, it is ultimately beautiful and hopeful. Felix, a trans boy, is viciously harassed and humiliated by an anonymous schoolmate. Despite the abuse, Felix finds his voice, his place in his family and community, and even finds love. I love a happy ever after.

I’m using realistic loosely here, but who am I to say what really happens in Vegas? This YA book for people who don’t like YA avoids some of the features that typically turn off older readers. Instead of a high school setting, protagonist Jack thrives in the underbelly of Las Vegas with his casino mogul mother. There’s organized crime, betrayal, and family secrets galore. When a rival casino owner and jilted lover seeks revenge, Jack’s mom gets arrested. Ultimately, Jack and his friends have to infiltrate a high-stakes gambling club to clear Jack’s mom’s name.

LOL, okay, this isn’t very realistic, but I didn’t have a category for it. This fabulously twisty mystery has been touted as Pretty Little Liars meets The Breakfast Club, which sounds like a great combination for people who grew up on either. A group of kids become murder suspects when, left alone in detention, one of them dies. Lies and secrets abound, and it is ridiculously fun. The sequel One of Us is Next is just as entertaining.

Lily is an actor on a hugely popular TV show, playing a girl whose on-screen romance with another girl has earned her a cult-like following. Lily understands that queer girl representation in TV isn’t always the best, so when rumors leak that Lily’s character’s love interest is about to be killed off, Lily decides take matters in their own hands. But as their fake-dating schemes and publicity stunts gain traction among fans, Lily is also questioning their own gender identity and what it means for them, and their career.

In this sequel to Down World, Marina is living a happy enough life after her discovery of the doors leading to other worlds, and she’s trying to focus on the mundane aspects of life: grades, college, and high school life. But when her new history teacher confronts her with the truth about her secret ability, Marina finds herself drawn back to the doors…

Following the ending of These Feathered Flames, Izaveta has awoken in a tower, trapped and unable to get a message to her sister. Asya, meanwhile, is desperate to find out where Izaveta disappeared to even as her political opponents are closing in. These sisters will have to race against the clock in order to find a way to reunite and save their kingdom.

Talia is shocked to discover that her boyfriend Nathanial isn’t a mortal like she, but in fact part of a very powerful mystic family that most outsiders would kill to be a part of. And with a very important magical wedding coming up, Talia is granted rare access to their community as Nathaniel’s date…but she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Unfortunately for her, she agrees to go, for Nathaniel’s sake, and soon finds herself the scapegoat of a magical attack that puts dozens in a magical coma. Now Talia has to find a way to clear her name before she’s trapped forever.

When seven teens board a plane, they have no idea that they won’t be making their destination. Instead, the plane crashes and the teens wash up on a deserted island, scared and desperate. As they struggle to meet their immediate needs, survival is first and foremost on their minds…until a series of accidents indicate that the plane crash was just the beginning. Someone among the survivors orchestrated this crash, and will do anything to keep a terrible secret. Can they survive the elements — and each other — before rescue?

In this newest book in The Last Magician series, Esta and Harte are on the hunt for the last artifact they need in order to bind the all-powerful Book…and now their search brings them back to New York. But with their friends scattered far and wide and time running out, they aren’t sure if they’ll be able to find the final artifact in time to stop what they’ve started.

Set aboard the Titanic, this audacious heist story stars Josefa, who is looking to pull off the biggest con of all: Stealing the Rubiyat from its locked vault aboard the ship. She assembles a crack team to help her, but it’s not long before all four girls discover that they’ll be lucky to escape the Titanic with their lives, let alone with their score.

It’s senior year for Stevie Bell and it’s not exactly going great. Her friends are obsessed with college apps, her boyfriend is studying abroad in London, and worst of all? She doesn’t have a case. But when she’s invited to London, she gets hooked on a nearly 30-year-old cold case of nine friends from Cambridge University whose fun weekend ended in murder…and she suspects that the survivors are lying about what really happened.