There’s nothing quite like the feeling of discovering a new-to-you writer, and then discovering that they’ve penned several other titles you haven’t yet read! Imagine this. You make your way to your favorite local library or bookstore, and you’re surprised to find out that some of the author’s earlier works aren’t in the adult section. Instead, the new-to-you writer is also the author of young adult stories, middle-grade novels, or children’s picture books.
Before you turn up your nose, adult reader, recall that you were, too, a child. If you’re an adult reader now, you may well have been a child reader once upon a time. And there’s a good chance that if you liked something as an adult, maybe—just maybe!—the kid still inside you will be excited that your new favorite writer also made stories for them.
Several adult novels have come out or are forthcoming in 2025 from writers who also write for children. Van Hoang’s Silver and Smoke, a gorgeous Roaring Twenties era Hollywood tale of fame and ghosts, is her fourth novel and second book for adults. In the story, Issa Bui and Olivia Nong, best friends who grew up together, are determined to do whatever it takes to become Hollywood stars. When Issa’s grandmother dies and demands to speak to her from beyond the grave, Issa comes to learn that “whatever it takes” might mean making deals with spirits or using her magic to tweak things here and there, just to pave their path. But magic has costs, and Issa must determine how she and Olivia should (and will) go to achieve their dreams.
Hoang’s first two novels were a middle grade duology, Girl Giant and the Monkey King and Girl Giant and the Jade Emperor. (Her adult debut, The Monstrous Misses Mai, was covered by Paste here.) “Writing for children and writing for adults are both liberating in their own ways,” Hoang told Paste. “When I write for kids, I feel like I can let my inner silliness and adventurous whimsy run rampant. But with adults, I also feel like I can explore anything, and adults are ready for it. I don’t have to be as careful with what topics might be too difficult for them at such a young age.”
In Silver and Smoke, Hoang tackles difficult topics: starlet Issa’s mother forbade her from contacting her grandmother, who was the head of a Los Angeles crime family. But for Issa’s mother, the cost was too great—she embraced poverty, and expected her daughter to do the same, rather than live surrounded by violence. But for Issa, being cut off from her grandmother is also being denied a part of her heritage. She’s never taught how to properly speak to ghosts, an ability she inherited, and now, when she needs that sort of magic to find success, she ends up embroiled in family matters all over again, while hiding it from her disapproving (but ultimately loving) mother. The elements of adventure (and even elements of not quite understanding an older generation!) are also present in her middle grade novels, but in a very different way.
J.C. Cervantes’s The Anatomy of Magic is a magical romance, the second in an adult series about the Estrada family, women who have unique powers that draw on the magic of the flower gardens of their family home. (The first book, The Enchanted Hacienda, introduced both the magic system and the family, but it’s easy to pick up from context immediately as this novel begins.) While the plot of the story follows a category romance structure with a second-chance relationship, Cervantes takes time to delve into the inner life of Lily, a rising Ob-GYN at an important city hospital who has been sideswiped by tragedy, giving the character a rich (and wounded) inner life of her own. The magic itself is organic rather than grandiose, which quietly sets the worldbuilding apart from more dramatic fantasies.
In many ways, it’s a far more subtle book than Cervantes’s award-winning, action-packed Storm Runner series for middle graders. “When I write for adults, I have the luxury of unfolding that story at a different pace, one that allows me to understand the world in a more nuanced way and really take a deep dive into multiple and often complicated issues,” Cervantes explained to Paste. “When I write for kids, I fall in love with their humor, their sense of adventure, their willingness to do the hard things, but mostly I love the way young people look at the world with a sense of awe that we often lose the older we get. Getting to play with that is such a privilege.”
Laura Resau’s The Alchemy of Flowers (out in July) also features a subtle flower magic and a woman suffering from grief and loss—Eloise, tired of trying to hold onto a life that has failed her, accepts a job in France and leaves everything behind. There, she’s responsible for turning merde into flowers. While she begins to discover her own healing, she also uncovers some eerie secrets hiding within the otherwise beautiful gardens. Ghosts and goddesses seem to wander the estate, and strange rules bind the people who work there. Eloise has to determine how much of the mystery she can just accept if it means keeping paradise.
“When I’m writing for an adult audience, I tend to explore the ideas of second chances and how to create meaningful new paths for ourselves when life doesn’t go as planned,” Resau told Paste. “The Alchemy of Flowers features a protagonist in her thirties who starts anew after life has thrown her curveballs—infertility, miscarriages, and a divorce. These are themes that resonate with me personally as an adult, and that I felt compelled to explore through fiction. When life hands us crap, do we sink into bitter defeat or find a way to transform it into something unexpectedly beautiful?”
Resau’s novels for children and young adults feature some similar elements. Settings in her books are hugely important, and they impact the shape of the narrative. The Alchemy of Flowers “offers immersion in a different cultural setting (Provence!), with a sprinkling of another language (French!) and plenty of delicious food,” she noted. “Overall, my goal with branching into The Alchemy of Flowers and future adult work is to keep the magical, immersive settings, the sense of whimsy, the diverse casts of characters, and the engaging storytelling of my work for younger readers—while exploring adult themes. I really enjoy incorporating the kinds of whimsical elements you’d find in kids’ books into my adult books. In many ways, The Alchemy of Flowers is a modern, magical, adult version of the classic children’s book The Secret Garden, drawing on that almost nostalgic feeling of discovering a hidden, mysterious refuge where healing can happen.”
Eden Royce leans into settings as well, whether it’s the Lowcountry of her middle-grade debut, Root Magic, or the mansions of New Charleston’s elite in her adult fiction debut, Psychopomp and Circumstance (out in October). The historical fantasy leans into a Southern Gothic atmosphere, as Phee, a woman who wants nothing more than to live her own life by aging out of the marriage market, takes on the role of pomp for her outcast aunt’s funeral. That means traveling to her aunt’s home and discovering the secrets that linger between life and death. “I often write about mystery and magic interacting in a real-world setting without exact and definitive explanation as to why it’s occurring,” she told Paste. “That may come from my love of folklore, fairy tales, and my people’s storytelling traditions, and doesn’t change from adult to kids.”
Though her adult work uses more literary devices, Royce is also very conscious of never dumbing down her work for middle graders. “Kids are pretty savvy about a lot of topics that adults don’t always give them credit for,” she says.
She went to bat for young readers with Root Magic after being told that the publisher didn’t use dialect in middle-grade novels. “I said that the book didn’t work without the Gullah and Geechee language and speech patterns,” Royce explained. “Thankfully, my editor took it upon himself to read up on the history of creolized languages and told me that he would trust me on this aspect of the book, and I’m glad he did. The reception for Root Magic broke down a lot of barriers to creolized language use in books for younger readers, and I’m delighted to see that.”
Both Kritika H. Rao’s picture book Shivi’s Big Leap and her latest adult novel The Legend of Menaka draw on Hindu mythology. But where one imagines Hanuman’s strength and boldness to inspire a young wall climber, the other recasts the story of an apsara and a sage, who fall in love—by refocusing that tale on the apsara and her journey of faith, rather than the sage. While The Legend of Menaka is certainly a romance, embracing all the sensuality that goes along with it, it’s also a story of faith; Menaka’s journey is as much about finding her own place in the universe as it is about her role as seductress. Rather than flitting between the will of Indra, her god and lord, and Kaushika—the sage who is at first her mark and later her love—Menaka searches for a middle ground, and the way in which she discovers it feels deeply spiritual in a way that’s rare within the genre.
“I find that a lot of the themes remain the same no matter who I’m writing for–almost always some exploration of identity, the possibility of what we as humans can be, how we interact with our world and the choices that are available to us,” Rao explained. “In writing for younger audiences, I tend to couch complex ideas in more parables, metaphors, and create a vehicle for any underlying philosophy. I provide more answers than questions–but with older audiences, I reverse this. More questions, especially open-ended ones that have no definitive answer. Ideas that linger. Prose that hits the heart, and is open to interpretation.”
Akwaeke Emezi has two novels releasing this year, both a YA and an adult title. Somadinaarrives in April and is set in a magical West Africa, where twins discover their magical powers together. But while Jayaike has powers that are seen as beautiful, Somadina’s cause fear, making her even more of an outsider than she was before. Things only get worse when Jayaike disappears, and to get him back, she has to travel through the Sacred Forest—and to places beyond, where even spirits don’t dare to go. In November, Emezi’s steamy paranormal romance, Son of the Morning, blends magic and fallen angels in the Black South. Galilee has always felt that there’s something different about her, but it’s not until she meets Lucifer Helel, supposedly a security officer but very definitely not a human, that she realizes just how different she might be.
Both of these novels are quite different from Emezi’s more adult literary works like The Death of Vivek Oji or Dear Senthuran, but as they pointed out to Paste, “anyone who’s familiar with my work across genres knows not to expect me to sound the same from one book to another. It’s still all me.” And, they continued, “Everyone’s still queer!”
Emezi also noted that there are real reasons adults might be drawn to their YA works. “I think there’s more hope in my YA work, more possibility. I also think a lot of adult readers today are struggling with the same issues as the younger readers—what to do in a world on fire, how to build a better future, how to survive a family that might not see or accept who you are. The YA books are for all of us.”
Hoang also felt there were a lot of reasons adults should be reading outside of just the adult section. “MG and YA books are a great way to learn more about what kids are going through while discovering things about your own childhood, what you might have missed or forgot about your inner child, and to maybe find joy again,” she told Paste. “Really, adults should read books written for kids simply because these stories are incredibly fun! We shouldn’t stop having adventures just because we’ve passed some arbitrary age number. We should allow more magic into our lives, and there’s no better way to do that than reading.”
So if you’ve found your new-to-you favorite author—perhaps even one of the writers on this list—don’t be turned away by finding their books in a different section of the library. Trust the writers. That change of pace might be exactly what you need.
Alana Joli Abbott is a reviewer and game writer, whose multiple-choice novels, including Choice of the Pirate and Blackstone Academy for Magical Beginners, are published by Choice of Games. She is the author of three novels, several short stories, and many roleplaying game supplements. She also co-edits fantasy anthologies for Outland Entertainment, including Rising Tides (which is currently live on Kickstarter) and edits novels, like the debut paranormal mystery A Promise of Sirens by V.L. Barycz, due out in July. You can find her online at VirgilandBeatrice.com.
