The year of our Lord 2023 was a pretty great one for fans of YA fiction. As genres go, YA truly does have something for everyone. But it’s rarely felt more wide open an expansive than in the past twelve months. with titles ranging from contemporary romances to sprawling fantasies and everything in between hitting shelves. As 2024 dawns, the looming selection looks—if it’s possible—even more tempting, with buzzy debuts, big finales, and new releases from beloved authors all slated to arrive in the next few months.
Here are twenty-five of the biggest YA titles hitting shelves in 2024.
A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft
Release Date: January 2 from Wednesday Books
Why We’re Excited: A charming romantasy from the author of Down Comes the Night, A Fragile Enchantment follows the story of a magical dressmaker in a Regency-inspired fantasy world who designs the wardrobe for a royal wedding and finds herself more than a bit attracted to the prickly prince.
Publisher’s Description: Niamh Ó Conchobhair has never let herself long for more. The magic in her blood that lets her stitch emotions and memories into fabric is the same magic that will eventually kill her. Determined to spend the little time she has left guaranteeing a better life for her family, Niamh jumps at the chance to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding in the neighboring kingdom of Avaland.
But Avaland is far from the fairytale that she imagined. While young nobles attend candlelit balls and elegant garden parties, unrest brews amid the working class. The groom himself, Kit Carmine, is prickly, abrasive, and begrudgingly being dragged to the altar as a political pawn. But when Niamh and Kit grow closer, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more—until an anonymous columnist starts buzzing about their chemistry, promising to leave them alone only if Niamh helps to uncover the royal family’s secrets. The rot at the heart of Avaland runs deep, but exposing it could risk a future she never let herself dream of, and a love she never thought possible.
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole
Release Date: January 16 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: An intriguing story about what happens after a Chosen One saves the day, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy is a powerful story of sisterhood—-and one of the buzziest debuts of 2024.
Publisher’s Description: Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.
When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.
As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.
Wander in the Dark by Jumata Emill
Release Date: January 30 from Delacorte Press
Why We’re Excited: The sophomore novel from the author of The Black Queen, Wander in the Dark follows the story of a pair of estranged brothers who must put aside their differences to solve a murder when one of them is caught fleeing the scene of the crime. A page turner in its own right, Jumata Emill still manages to use the story to explore larger issues of racism and prejudice.
Publisher’s Description: Amir Trudeau only goes to his half brother Marcel’s birthday party because of Chloe Danvers. Chloe is rich, and hot, and fits right into the perfect life Marcel inherited when their father left Amir’s mother to start a new family with Marcel’s mom. But Chloe is hot enough for Amir to forget that for one night.
Does she want to hook up? Or is she trying to meddle in the estranged brothers’ messy family drama? Amir can’t tell. He doesn’t know what Chloe wants from him when, in the final hours of Mardi Gras, she asks him to take her home and stay—her parents are away and she doesn’t want to be alone.
Amir never gets an answer to his question, because when he wakes up, Chloe is dead—stabbed while he was passed out on the couch downstairs—and Amir becomes the only suspect. A Black teenager caught fleeing the scene of the murder of a rich white girl? All of New Orleans agrees, the case is open and shut.
Amir is innocent. He has a lawyer, but unless someone can figure out who really killed Chloe, it doesn’t look good for him. His number one ally? Marcel. Their relationship is messy, but his half brother knows that Amir isn’t a murderer—and maybe proving Amir’s innocence will repair the rift that’s always existed between them.
To find Chloe’s killer, Amir and Marcel need to dig into her secrets. And what they find is darker than either could have guessed. Parents will go to any lengths to protect their children, and in a city as old as New Orleans, the right family connections can bury even the ugliest truths.
The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland
Release Date: January 30 from Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books
Why We’re Excited: A witchy thriller with serious The Craft vibes from the author of House of Hollow, this story of three young women who team up to track down a serial killer is dark and delightful.
Publisher’s Description: Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to bear—that her sister was murdered by a serial killer and there is precisely nothing she can do to change it. If there’s anything Zara cannot stand it’s feeling powerless, so she decides she will do whatever it takes—even if that means partaking in the occult—to bring her sister back from the dead.
Jude Wolf might be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul is now slowly turning necrotic. Flowers and insects die in her wake and monstrous things come to taunt her at night. If Jude can’t find the right someone to fix her mistake, she fears she’ll die very soon.
Enter Emer Bryne: the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s predicaments. The daughter of a witch, Emer sells spells to women in desperate situations willing to sacrifice a part of their soul in exchange for a bit of power, a bit of magic to change their lives. But Emer has a dark past all her own—and as her former clients are murdered one-by-one, she knows it’s followed her all the way to London.
As Zara and Jude enter Emer’s orbit, they’ll have to team up to stop the killer—before they each end up next on his list.
Red by Annie Cardi
Release Date: January 30 from Union Square & Co.
Why We’re Excited: A surprisingly timely and moving story about a teen who finds a place for herself in the church community of her new Texax town, only to be ostracized and shunned for her decision to have an abortion. As Tess navigates her way through trauma, author Annie Cardi crafts a deft explanation of faith, friendship, and the many ways we can show grace to one another.
Publisher’s Description: Moving to Hawthorne was something Tess and her mom never anticipated, but after Tess’s mom loses her job, it’s their only option. Tess’s grandparents welcome them into their home, but with the condition that Tess and her mom attend church, something Mom isn’t too pleased about. But Tess enjoys the church community, finding a place in youth group and the church choir. Faith fills a void Tess didn’t know she had.
After a very personal decision goes public, Tess faces daily harassment and rejection by her former friends, and singing in the church choir is no longer an option. When she meets some kids in the music room, her only place of solace in the school, who don’t judge her for what’s happened, she learns to find her voice again. Against the backdrop of the Spirit Light Festival, Tess will need to find the strength to speak out if she has any chance of ending a silent cycle of abuse in Hawthorne.
Even If It Breaks Your Heart by Erin Hahn
Release Date: February 6 from Wednesday Books
Why We’re Excited: The latest from Erin Hahn, author of faves like Never Saw You Coming and More Than Maybe, this contemporary Western-themed romance features the same carefully crafted love story and delicate emotion she’s famous for, along with a quiet meditation on the long-tail impact of grief.
Publisher’s Description: The only thing keeping nineteen-year-old Case Michaels together after the death of his best friend, Walker, is a list Walker left behind of things he wants Case to accomplish in his absence. So far, though, Case hasn’t even been able to continue riding bulls in the rodeo circuit, something he’s done his entire life, balking at the thought of competing without Walker by his side. But the list? Case is determined to follow it to the letter– and he follows it all the way to Winnie Sutton.
Eighteen-year-old Winnie Sutton just wants to keep her family together. She graduated high school early to work long shifts at the Michaels family ranch so she can support her younger siblings and a father who’s more than happy to let Winnie fill the responsible parent role. If she sometimes sneaks out to ride the horses herself and forget about life for a while– well, that’s no one else’s business– until the day she crashes headfirst into Case Michaels. Case sees her riding skills and immediately ropes her into competing for the ranch and becoming his friend.
Winnie and Case couldn’t be more different, but Case can’t help but be inspired by Winnie’s badly-hidden passion for riding and competition. And there’s something about Case that makes Winnie want to try grasping onto a dream for herself, whether that’s a shot at a rodeo trophy, the annoyingly handsome rancher’s son who won’t leave her alone, or maybe both.
The Eternal Ones by Namina Forna
Release Date: February 13 from Delacorte Press
Why We’re Excited: If you’ve read any of Namina Forna’s Gilded Ones trilogy, then you already know why we’re chomping at the bit to read this final installment.
Publisher’s Description: Mere weeks after confronting the Gilded Ones—the false beings she once believed to be her family—Deka is on the hunt. In order to kill the gods, whose ravenous competition for power is bleeding Otera dry, she must uncover the source of her divinity. But with her mortal body on the verge of ruin, Deka is running out of time—to save herself and an empire that’s tearing itself apart at its seams.
When Deka’s search leads her and her friends to the edge of the world as they know it, they discover an astonishing new realm, one which holds the key to Deka’s past. Yet it also illuminates a devastating decision she must soon make…
Choose to be reborn as a god, losing everyone she loves in the process. Or bring about the end of the world.
The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert
Release Date: February 20 from Flatiron Books
Why We’re Excited: This creepy, atmospheric ode to toxic friendship follows the story of a girl who must follow the cryptic clues left behind by a friend who vanished and is laced with delicate, supernatural swirls of horror.
Publisher’s Description: Goddess, goddess, count to five In the morning, who’s alive?
In the course of a single winter’s night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town.
Nora’s estranged best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. As Nora tries to untangle the truth of Becca’s disappearance, she discovers a darkness in her town’s past, as well as a string of coded messages Becca left for her to unravel. These clues lead Nora to a piece of local folklore: a legendary goddess of forgotten origins who played a role in Nora and Becca’s own childhood games…
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
Release Date: February 20 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Why We’re Excited: It feels like we’ve been waiting for Hafsah Faizal’s follow-up to her We Hunt the Flame for forever, but it sounds like A Tempest of Tea—a story featuring an orphan girl and a Six of Crows-style heist with vampires—sounds like it’ll be more than worth the wait.
Publisher’s Description: On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it—and she can’t do the job alone.
Calling upon a band of misfits, Arthie formulates a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not every member of her crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it. Dark, action-packed, and swoonworthy, this is Hafsah Faizal better than ever.
Conditions of a Heart by Bethany Mangle
Release Date: February 20 from Margaret K. McElderry Books
Why We’re Excited: This heartfelt story of a teen girl struggling to navigate the complexities of life and relationships while managing an unseen disability is exactly the sort of necessary representation the YA genre exists to provide.
Publisher’s Description: Brynn Kwan is desperate for her high school persona to be real. That Brynn is head of the yearbook committee, the favorite for prom queen, and definitely not crumbling from a secret disability that’s rapidly wearing her down. If no one knows the truth about her condition, Brynn doesn’t have to worry about the pitying looks or accusations of being a faker that already destroyed her childhood friendships. She’s even willing to let go of her four-year relationship with her first love, Oliver, rather than reveal that a necessary surgery was the reason she ignored his existence for the entire summer.
But after Brynn tries to break up a fight at a pep rally and winds up barred from all her clubs and senior prom, she has nothing left to prop up her illusion of being just like everyone else. During a week-long suspension from school, she realizes that she doesn’t quite recognize the face in the mirror—and it’s not because of her black eye from the fight. With a healthy sister who simply doesn’t understand and a confused ex-boyfriend who won’t just take a hint and go away like a normal human being , Brynn begins to wonder if it’s possible to reinvent her world by being the person she thought no one herself.
Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
Release Date: February 20 from Wednesday Books
Why We’re Excited: An addictive romantic fantasy about the cat-and-mouse game between a witch and a witch hunter that develops into something more, Heartless Hunter seems destined to be one of the buzziest releases of winter. (The chemistry! Whew!)
Publisher’s Description: On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.
Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe – a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution – who she can’t help but find herself falling for.
Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?
Snowglobe by Soyoung Park, translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort
Release Date: February 27 from Delacorte Press
Why We’re Excited: Originally published in Korean, this deliciously entertaining dystopian YA thriller is set in a world where eternal winter has blanketed the Earth and only the climate-controlled city of Snowglobe is anything like the world any of us will remember. A mix between The Hunger Games and The Truman Show, the story follows a young girl who becomes part of one of the many reality shows filmed in Snowglobe and beamed out to the masses, only to discover its seemingly perfect world has dark secrets of its own.
Publisher’s Description: Enclosed under a vast dome, Snowglobe is the last place on Earth that’s warm. Outside Snowglobe is a frozen wasteland, and every day, citizens face the icy world to get to their jobs at the power plant, where they produce the energy Snowglobe needs. Their only solace comes in the form of twenty-four-hour television programming streamed directly from the domed city.
The residents of Snowglobe have fame, fortune, and above all, safety from the desolation outside their walls. In exchange, their lives are broadcast to the less fortunate outside, who watch eagerly, hoping for the chance to one day become actors themselves.
Chobahm lives for the time she spends watching the shows produced inside Snowglobe. Her favorite? Goh Around, starring Goh Haeri, Snowglobe’s biggest star—and, it turns out, the key to getting Chobahm her dream life.
Because Haeri is dead, and Chobahm has been chosen to take her place. Only, life inside Snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television. Reality is a lie, and truth seems to be forever out of reach.
Cancelled by Farah Penn
Release Date: March 19 from Viking Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: An entertaining ensemble story about the pressures of young adulthood, social media, public shaming, and accountability, all told with humor and grace.
Publisher’s Description: Not to brag, but Brynn Whittaker is basically killing her senior year. She’s got the looks, the grades, and a thriving “flirt coach” business that will help pay for her ultimate dream Stanford University.
But when a highly incriminating video goes viral after the first rager of the year, Brynn finds herself at the center of a school-wide scandal of catastrophic proportions. She knows she’s not the girl in the video hooking up with her former best friend’s boyfriend (While wearing a banana costume, no less. Hey, points for style), but adding that to her reputation of being a serial dater, she quickly starts losing friends and customers. On top of that, the scorn she receives exposes the culture of misogyny that is rampant at her school . . . and Brynn and her three best friends are determined to take down all the haters.
But as she gets closer to identifying the person in the video that got her cancelled, Brynn must decide—is exposing the girl worth losing everything she’s worked so hard for?
Pretty Furious by E.K. Johnston
Release Date: April 16 from Dutton Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: Popular Star Wars author E.K. Johnston returns to the world of contemporary YA with this feminist story of a squad of besties who make a pact to dispense justice on the worst, most bigoted residents of their small Canadian town. Female friendship + community-wise revenge plot? Yes, please.
Publisher’s Description: In the small town of Eganston, Ontario, five good girls have had enough. They’ve experienced the best of what their community has to offer, but they’ve seen the darker side too. Together, they’ve decided that it’s time for a reckoning and that justice is their privilege to give.
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang
Release Date: April 16 from Del Ray
Why We’re Excited: Boasting what may well be the most gorgeous YA cover of 2024, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods’ intriguing premise involves a young woman cursed with the power to pull life from mortal beings who must decide whether saving the lives of her family is worth betraying her homeland and all it stands for.
Publisher’s Description: Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.
Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.
Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?
Merciless Saviors by H.E. Edgmon
Release Date: April 16 from Wednesday Books
Why We’re Excited: H.E. Edgmon’s Godly Heathens was one of the best YA books of 2023, a deliciously unhinged story of a pack of feral teens who also happen to be interdimensional gods that have been living repeating lives together through the centuries. Sequel Merciless Savior promises to pick up right where its predecessor left off, as the chaos from Gem Echolls’s decision to absorb the power of the God of Air has unforeseen and potentially dangerous consequences for them and all the other gods.
Publisher’s Description: That day at the First Church of Gracie changed everything for Gem Echols, and not just because Marian and Poppy betrayed them. Forced to use the Ouroboros knife on Zephyr, who had kidnapped their parents, Gem now has the power of the God of Air.
While for any other god things might work out okay, the Magician—whose role within the pantheon is to keep the balance—having the power of another god has thrown everything into chaos. The Goddess of Death can now reanimate corpses; the God of Art’s powers are now corrupted and twisted, giving life to his macabre creations; and, while the God of Land has always been able to communicate with creatures of the Earth, now everyone can hear their cries.
As Gem, Rory, and Enzo search for a way to restore the balance without sacrificing themselves, new horrors make them question how far they’re willing to go. In the end, Gem may be forced to fully embrace their merciless nature and kill off their own humanity—if it ever really existed in the first place.
Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams
Release Date: May 7 from Labyrinth Road
Why We’re Excited: A buzzy debut about the adventures of a runaway teen who finds himself at an HBCU for the young, Black, and magical, Blood at the Root is a story of community and legacy that’s clearly aiming to do something very different in this genre space. (And the early Legendborn comparisons don’t hurt, either.)
Publisher’s Description: Ten years ago, Malik’s life changed forever the night his mother mysteriously vanished and he discovered he had uncontrollable powers. Since then, he has kept his abilities hidden, looking out for himself and his younger foster brother, Taye. Now, at 17, Malik is finally ready to start a new life for both of them, far from the trauma of his past. However, a daring act to rescue Taye reveals an unexpected connection with his long-lost a legendary conjurer with ties to a hidden magical university that Malik’s mother attended.
At Caiman University, Malik’s eyes are opened to a future he never could have envisioned for himself— one that includes the reappearance of his first love, Alexis. His search for answers about his heritage, his powers, and what really happened to his mother exposes the cracks in their magical community as it faces a reawakened evil dating back to the Haitian Revolution. Together with Alexis, Malik discovers a lot beneath the surface at feuding covens and magical politics, forbidden knowledge and buried mysteries.
This Book Won’t Burn by Samira Ahmed
Release Date: May 7 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: The story at the heart of Samira Ahmed’s This Book Won’t Burn—about book banning, activism, finding your voice, and fighting for what you believe in—has never felt more timely or necessary.
Publisher’s Description: After her dad abruptly abandons her family and her mom moves them a million miles from their Chicago home, Noor Khan is forced to start the last quarter of her senior year at a new school, away from everything and everyone she knows and loves. Reeling from being uprooted and deserted, Noor is certain the key to survival is to keep her head down and make it to graduation. But things aren’t so simple.
At school, Noor discovers hundreds of books have been labeled “obscene” or “pornographic” and are being removed from the library in accordance with a new school board policy. Even worse, virtually all the banned books are by queer and BIPOC authors. Noor can’t sit back and do nothing, because that goes against everything she believes in, but challenging the status quo just might put a target on her back. Can she effect change by speaking up? Or will small-town politics—and small-town love—be her downfall?
Thirsty by Jas Hammonds
Release Date: May 14 from Roaring Brook Press
Why We’re Excited: This sophomore novel from We Are Monuments author Jas Hammonds is the rare contemporary YA story that deals with the complicated pressures of underage alcoholism and the pressures young people face to drink socially, Thirsty feels both heartwrenching and very necessary.
Publisher’s Description: It’s the summer before college and eighteen-year-old Blake Brenner and her girlfriend, Ella, have one join the mysterious and exclusive Serena Society. The sorority promises status and lifelong connections to a network of powerful, trailblazing women of color. Ella’s acceptance is a sure thing―she’s the daughter of a Serena alum. Blake, however, has a lot more to prove.
As a former loner from a working-class background, Blake lacks Ella’s pedigree and confidence. Luckily, she finds courage at the bottom of a liquor bottle. When she drinks, she’s bold, funny, and unstoppable―and the Serenas love it. But as pledging intensifies, so does Blake’s drinking, until it’s seeping into every corner of her life. Ella assures Blake that she’s fine ; partying hard is what it takes to make the cut . . .
But success has never felt so much like drowning. With her future hanging in the balance and her past dragging her down, Blake must decide how far she’s willing to go to achieve her glittering dreams of success―and how much of herself she’s willing to lose in the process.
Heiress Takes All by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
Release Date: June 4 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: From the powerhouse duo behind titles like Never Vacation with Your Ex, this deliciously fun YA adventure about a vengeful daughter determined to pull off the perfect heist during her father’s wedding feels like perfect summer fun.
Publisher’s Description: Seventeen-year-old Olivia Owens isn’t thrilled that her dad’s getting remarried…again. She’s especially not thrilled that he cheated on her mom, kicked them out of their Rhode Island home, and cut Olivia out of her rightful inheritance.
But this former heiress has a plan for revenge. While hundreds of guests gather on the grounds of the gorgeous estate where she grew up, everyone will be thinking romance—not robbery. She’ll play the part of dutiful daughter, but in reality she’ll be redistributing millions from her father’s online accounts. She only needs the handwritten pass code he keeps in the estate’s safe.
With the help of an eclectic crew of high school students and one former teacher, Olivia has plotted her mid-nuptial heist down to the second. But she didn’t plan for an obnoxiously nosy wedding guest, an interfering ex-boyfriend intent on winning her back, greedy European cousins with their own agenda, or a vengeful second wife. When everything seems like it’s going wrong, Olivia has to keep her eyes on what really matters: getting rich. And when she’s done, “something borrowed” will be the understatement of the year.
There Is a Door In This Darkness by Kristin Cashore
Release Date: June 11 from Dutton
Why We’re Excited: The fact that There Is a Door In This Darkness hails from the author of the Graceling series is enough to get most people (read: me) to give it a look, but its intriguing premise—a magic-tinged contemporary YA story about depression, grief, and hope that centers around a high school student who lost her senior year to the COVID pandemic—is a welcome bonus.
Publisher’s Description: Wilhelmina Hart is part of the infamous class of 2020. Her high chool years began with the election of Donald Trump and they ended with COVID. Now Wilhelmina, like so many of her peers, is in limbo, having deferred college because of the pandemic. Compounding the national trauma of 2016 to 2020, Wilhelmina has wrestled with the devastating loss of one of her three beloved aunts shortly after the 2016 election. This is a loss she felt so keenly that she’s spent the last years deep in her personal depression, only obscured by the seemingly endless waves of national trauma. Now on the cusp on the most consequential election in living memory, Wilhelmina may have found a door in her darkness and perhaps the courage to pass through it, if she can decipher the bizarre messages that keep appearing in her life.
Poison In Their Hearts By Laura Sebastian
Release Date: June 18 from Delacorte Press
Why We’re Excited: Laura Sebastian’s Castles In Their Bones trilogy is one of the more underrated series of late in the YA fantasy space—a story full of complicated characters, genuine stakes and surprising twists. The final installment arrives this June, and if the previous two books are anything to go by, please make a point to catch up before this series drops its final chapter.
Publisher’s Description: They were promised for marriage since birth, and raised to bring down kingdoms, but the true destiny of the triplet princesses of Bessemia has always been to die—and one of them already has. Since Sophronia’s murder, princesses Daphne and Beatriz have discovered the truth: they are pawns in their mother’s game, which will end with her as empress of not just Bessemia but the entire continent of Vesteria. Only the princesses have their own plans.
Beatriz and Daphne are still separated by a continent, and there are enemies everywhere, but now they have allies who stretch across the borders of Vesteria: Sophronia’s husband, the deposed King Leopold; Violie, a former spy for Empress Margaraux; and Beatriz’s missing husband, Pasquale, and his lover, Ambrose. Now, with their allies’ help and the magic of the stars, the princesses are ready to make their final stand.
But whispers of an ancient prophecy follow them—secrets from their past are yet to be revealed—and every move they make, the empress seems to be one step ahead them. If there’s to be any hope for the princesses, the girls will need to use every skill their mother taught them, trust in the magic in their veins, and defy fate itself. And if they can’t, all is lost for the people of Vesteria.
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Baron
Release Date: June 25 from Bloomsbury YA
Why We’re Excited: Another fairytale retelling from Kalynn Baron, author of the excellent Cinderella is Dead, and this one tackles Snow White? Sign me up.
Publisher’s Description: Only the truly desperate – and foolish – seek out the Knight, an ancient monster who twists wishes into curses. Eve knows this first-hand: one of her mothers was cursed by the Knight and trapped in the body of a songbird. With the unique abilities to communicate with animals and conjure weapons from nature, Eve has trained all her life to defeat him.
With more and more villagers harmed by the Knight’s corrupt deals, Eve believes she’s finally ready to face him. But when Queen Regina begins acting strangely – talking to seemingly no one, isolating herself, and lashing out at the slightest provocation – Eve must question if her powers are enough to save her family and her kingdom.
Such Charming Liars by Karen McManus
Release Date: July 4 from Penguin Books
Why We’re Excited: No one does YA thrillers like Karen McManus, so any new release from her is automatically going to be a must-read. But the premise of Such Charming Liars—about a mother-daughter team of grifters trying to pull off one last jewel heist—feels like something entirely new (and all the more exciting) from her.
Publisher’s Description: For all of Kat’s life, it’s just been her and her mother, Jamie—except for the forty-eight hours when Jamie was married and Kat had a stepbrother, Liam. That all ended in an epic divorce, and Kat and Liam haven’t spoken since.
Now Jamie is a jewel thief trying to go straight, but she has one last job—at billionaire Ross Sutherland’s birthday party. And Kat has figured out a way to tag along. What Kat doesn’t know, though, is that there are two surprise guests at the dazzling Sutherland compound that weekend. The last two people she wants to run into. Liam and his father—a serial scammer who has his sights set on Ross Sutherland’s youngest daughter.
Kat and Liam are on a collision course to disaster, and when a Sutherland dies, they realize they might actually be in the killer’s crosshairs themselves. Somehow Kat and Liam are the new targets, and they can’t trust anyone—except each other.
Or can they? Because if there’s one thing both Kat and Liam know, it’s how to lie. They learned from the best.
Wisteria by Adalyn Grace
Release Date: August 20 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Why We’re Excited: The highly anticipated conclusion to Adalyn Grace’s bestselling Belladonna trilogy, Wisteria will turn its focus to Signa Farrow’s cousin Blythe Hawthorne and her relationship with Fate, the immortal she bound herself to at the conclusion of Foxglove. Besides the peak enemies-to-lovers vibes, Blythe’s a fascinating character, whose POV chapters were a highlight of the previous novel. The prospect of her essentially getting her own story is extremely tantalizing.
Publisher’s Description: Blythe Hawthorn has never let anyone tell her what to do—not society, not her overprotective father, and certainly not the man she’s bound herself to, no matter how rude and insufferable he is. In fact, she’s determined to be a thorn in his side for the rest of her days, even as he ensures that her life in his palace is anything but a fairytale. But as Blythe discovers a new side of herself linked to his past, she’ll have to decide if she’s willing to let an unexpected spark ignite…and to discover the truth about who she really is.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB