Hey, YA Readers!
This will be the last newsletter from me this week, as I’m currently in Paducah, Kentucky, for the eclipse with my family. You’ll get to hear from one of my colleagues in the meantime, and I’ll be back in your inboxes next Thursday.
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Before that, though, let’s talk all things new YA books and look at some YA books that are getting brand new covers in their paperback editions. I wanted to do something thematic and cutesy with the eclipse, but there are very few YA books with the eclipse in their title—though you can always go to the OG Eclipse while belting out this banger (over a BILLION views!).
Bookish Goods
Mushroom Bookshop or Library Sticker by TalesandPagesShop
Have your choice—or, frankly, grab both—of these adorable mushroom-shaped bookshop or library stickers. $4 each, or grab the pair for $6.
New Releases
The massive roundup of new YA books for spring has dropped, and you can dive into all things hardcover releases between April and the end of June over here.
Check out two of the new books out this week right here.
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Hanalei of Tamarind comes from a well-respected and revered family. But a choice made by her father to steal a seadragon egg that was meant for a sick princess means that she and her family have been forced into exile. It’s not what she saw for her future. So a chance meeting with a female dragon who offers her a chance to return home to Tamarind is Hanalei’s opportunity to find happiness and undo the wrong that led to her family’s exile.
Samahtitamahenele, aka Sam, is in a tough spot. He’s the last prince of Tamarind, but he’ll never inherit the throne. Tamarind is a matriarchy. He’s in a tough spot because his grandma is about to end her reign, and his mother is very ill. Sam knows he can do only two things: get married or cure his mother’s illness. So when Hanalei, his childhood friend, returns, he turns to her for help. Together, they’re going to hunt down the dragonfruit that could cure Sam’s mom…but it won’t be easy, and they won’t be the only ones on this very mission.
Teenage Dirtbags by James Acker
If you’re looking for a queer revenge tale, here you go. Punk-boy Phil has a reputation as a troublemaker, so it’s a surprise to everyone when he and Cameron start dating. Cameron’s reputation is solid, and he gained a lot of fans when he made a coming-out video that went viral.
Jackson has been on the straight and narrow for years. He’s a good kid and he’s doing everything right in high school. But he feels lost despite his successes, especially when it comes to missing his former best friend Phil.
So when Cameron dumps Phil and sullies his reputation further, Phil wants revenge—mostly to expose some of the secrets and lies and phoniness that Cameron’s kept under wraps. Phil reconnects with Jackson, who he suspects can infiltrate Cameron’s friend group and get the dirt.
The problem is that coming together to get revenge on Cameron might not solve either Phil’s nor Jackson’s problems. Though coming together might kindle something more between the former besties.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Cover Makeovers
I’ve got a trio of YA book cover makeovers to check out this week. Like always, I’ve done what I can to dig up the designer and/or artists of the covers, but this is still an area that is way more difficult than necessary—if you’ve read any cover post I’ve written before, you know I put in every single one my plea for publishers to just put the cover designer and artist’s info right on the landing page for those books. I don’t get why that’s difficult!
Ahem.
Let’s take a look at some fresh faces for these YA books. Which looks speak to you as a reader more? Which do you think speaks more to the intended audience? The answer could be the same.
Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis (hardcover art by Mike Mahle and hardcover design by Theresa Evangelista)
The vibes of both covers are spot on for a heist thriller, though it is interesting that the people are gone from the paperback edition. I liked having the teens on the original cover because they were of different gender presentations—even though books do not have genders, enough people want to see more boys on covers and this was a nice way to do just that. But I think the paperback offers a look that’s more aligned with one of the title’s comps, Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s The Inheritance Games.
The paperback edition hits shelves this week and the sequel will have the same style.
When The Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb
Both of the covers for the highly decorated When The Angels Left The Old Country are so striking, and while they definitely speak to two different audiences—the hardcover has a literary feel and adult/mature sensibilities to it (that’s not a bad thing!) while the paperback has a city-set queer romance at its heart—both of the covers will connect to the appropriate reader. One happens to emphasize a specific romantic element of the book more than the other. The use of red in the paperback is interesting, both on the head of the one character and in the title and author fonts.
The paperback won’t hit shelves until October 1.
Spin by Rebecca Caprara (hardcover art and design by Deb JJ Lee and Sonia Chaghatzbanian)
I have had this Greek myth retelling on my TBR since I learned about it last year, and now I’ve got two excellent covers to choose from. The original hardcover definitely keeps the spirit of Greek retellings to it—it has a lot of the vibes you’d expect and connects to some of the biggest Greek retelling novels in recent memory, like Circe by Madeline Miller.
The paperback keeps some of the elements that give the book a genre/setting for readers, but it also looks much more contemporary. The purple is bold, the title cleverly spun inside the spider web, and it includes a tagline not present in the hardcover, “When the divine are unjust, seize the strings of fate.”
You can grab the new cover on June 4.
Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again on Thursday. Well, I won’t, but the collective we certainly will.
In the meantime, happy reading! I’m planning on spending some good time doing so myself this week.
–Kelly Jensen, currently reading Clever Creatures of the Night by Samantha Mabry