Author: Kelly Jensen

Out in paperback is this first in an urban fantasy series merging music, magic, and culture.

The island of San Madrigal sunk into the sea almost 16 years ago. Those who survived fled to New York, including Mateo Matisse. The survivors have been tight knit in their new home, especially those in Brooklyn, and they hold out hope to some day return home.

Mateo, though, doesn’t hold that same wish. The piano prodigy hopes to catch the attention of a local music legend who might help him build a career. Mateo gets that chance on the night of the Grand Fete, a celebration of the people who founded the island of San Madrigal.

Except the night where he anticipates a change in his fate, he experiences a wholly different change: he’s witnessed a murder tied to the evil behind the sinking of his former home island. Now, Mateo is pulled into a battle spanning generations but which might help him revive San Madrigal.

While Older’s book is part of the Rick Riordan imprint – Riordan of fame for his work revisiting and playing with Greek mythology – this new paperback release is related because it is itself a retelling of a Greek classic.

Beck and Vivian aren’t friends, not really, but they are friendly because of their mutual best friend Cassie. When Cassie’s murdered and the town moves on too quickly, Beck and Vivian seek vengeance…with the help of Cassie’s ghost AND a true crime podcast.

Greek myths are part of the story both in obvious ways — this is a twist on the Cassandra myth — but also in the ways Beck and Vivian bring attention to Cassie’s story via murals around town.

Fourteen-year-old Heera is about to be sold into the sex trade. Her father needed money and it’s been a common fate for girls in her community on the outskirts of the Red Light District in Bihar, India. At the final hour, though, her fate changes, thanks to a hostel owner who brings money to her family’s home. In exchange, Heera will begin learning the art of kung fu with other girls.

Heera will begin her next adventure and along the way learn how to use her body as a powerful tool for herself and hat she is not just a tool for others.

A mixed media YA book in verse? I am so here for this one and cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Raquel, who is 16, lives in a small Portugal town where she’s been kicked out of school. Why? She cussed out a school aid for being nosy about her father’s new marriage. Everyone knows everyone’s business, but it’s still not everyone’s business.

Then she meets Pardalita. Pardalita is an artist planning to move to Lisbon after graduation, but in the interim, she and Racquel get to know one another…and Racquel starts to catch some serious feelings.

This is told through prose, verse, and art, and it’s being described as This One Summer meets Very Far Away from Anywhere Else.

Sloane, who is 15, has the power to incinerate. She’s a scion, but despite her ability to take down enemies, she needs to keep it secret. The Lucis rule is not kind, and now, she’s been forced into the army.

But rather than take it sitting down, Sloane has another plan. She’s going to take down the empire from within.

This is a fiery, fierce adventure story featuring a younger teen protagonists.

A brilliant historical fantasy about twins Magnolia and Charlie, separated not long after their birth. Magnolia, light skinned, was raised white in Eureka, Georgia, and lives a life of class, wealth, and white privilege; Charlie was taken north to Harlem with her grandmother, her dark skin unmistakeable as anything other. When Nana, Charlie’s grandmother, is dying, she and Charlie return to Eureka for her death. It’s here when Charlie learns she has a twin sister, and Magnolia discovers that she can no longer see her shadow. Nana had warned about death leading to the thinning of the veil, but it’ll take the sisters finding one another and working together to lift the curse settled over both of them.

McWilliams knocks it out of the park with highlighting colorism, as well as the tensions and differences between Jim Crow racism in the south and racism as it played out in a place like New York City in 1953. Charlie and Magnolia are well-rounded with distinct voices, and their cultural upbringings really work to showcase what Black means both in the south at this time and in the north. Magnolia faces a choice in embracing her newly-learned Black heritage, as well as her newly-discovered twin sister, and it’s one that can’t — and doesn’t — come easily. While Charlie wrestles with not understanding why her sister can’t make the right decision, she herself struggles with what she’s seeing around her and why it is her feelings for Darius may be unable to be requited (thanks to the curse).

So there are actually two books focused on mental health hitting shelves this week for YA readers. The other one is Where To Start by Mental Health America and Gemma Correll and that work of nonfiction would pair so nicely with this anthology (and my own nonfiction anthology, (Don’t) Call Me Crazy!).

Carpenter and Callen have pulled together a wide array of YA writers, all of whom are sharing fictional stories of people living with mental health challenges. The stories cross genres and experiences, offering everything from a vampire with social anxiety to a teen girl coming to understand her challenges with PMDD. There’s hard stuff here, but there’s also plenty of hope for those who will relate to these experiences.

This book takes readers back into the world of Hearts Unbroken, though they can be read independently of one another.

Hughie is excited to be volunteering this Halloween season at Harvest House, a rural attraction for horror lovers. That is, he’s excited until he learns that an actor playing the role of a vengeful “Indian maiden” will be the star of the show. It’s a local legend to the Native community, and that, paired with a series of weird happenings around Harvest House, have Hughie wondering where or how he should speak up. Does he point out the problem of such a legend — one wrapped in problems — being used to sell an attraction? And how does he do that while also investigating the strange goings on?

This one is for readers who love horror and realism, with a cast of Native lead characters at its heart. I’m itching to read this one, as I loved Hearts Unbroken and bonus, for those who keep talking about a lack of YA with younger protagonists, here’s a reminder you’re sleeping on Cynthia Leitich Smith who does this masterfully.

Kids have been disappearing in the Bronx, and it seems like only the missing white kids are getting any attention. Raquel, who is 16, does, too. That is, until her crush disappears and her mom comes down with a mysterious illness.

Teaming up with Charlize, the cousin of her missing crush, Raquel soon learns that the missing are all tied to an urban legend called the Echo Game. The rules of the game are related to a dark part of New York City’s history and those who play find themselves trapped in the underground.

To save themselves and find those who have gone missing, Raquel and Charlize will need to try their hand at the Echo Game themselves.

If you like horror with social commentary, you’re going to love this one. It’s sapphic to boot!

Friendship breakups are the pits, and Spaldiing’s novel about the slow disintegration of the friendship between Jamie and Kat is one that will resonate with so many readers.

James’s narrative moves backwards from her leaving for college after the summer post-senior year, while Kat’s moves forward from the first month of senior year and as readers, we see all of the things that add up as they come, but we’re left moving forward in the story because we’re looking for that one thing. But there is no single thing. It’s a lot of things, on both sides.

Kat discovers she’s bisexual, while James’s parents are breaking up because her mom has found a new partner, and those are two big revelations in the story, connected because of how they define each of the girls to themselves and one another. Kat becomes close with her girlfriend, whiles James finds herself needing to spend more time better understanding herself and what it is she really wants in her life.

This book has humor, heart, and heartbreak, and it pairs so nicely with Ashley Woodfolk’s When You Were Everything.

Bribri American brothers Max and Jay have grown up in a house with an abusive father and they stick together to protect themselves and their mother. So when they discover a classmate in trouble, they react on instinct, enacting violence on the soccer star at their high school.

Now the boys are in trouble…and they know what they did does not truly represent who they are or their ambitions for the future. The way they’ll get to the truth of what happened and who they are is by revisiting that day and everything that led up to their decision to turn to violence.

This one is told in vignettes and verse and tells the story of Indigenous Costa Rican American brothers — voices we rarely get to hear in YA.

I’m bummed I did not get to this one yet but it’s on my spring break reading list. If you like Greek mythology, this is right in your wheelhouse.

Arachne has been outcast, except for her family and best friend Celandine. By learning how to weave, Arachne is able to find herself, her talents, and even her voice. When her family is tragically lost, and she and Celandine leave for the city of Colophon, wherein Arachne is challenged by Athena. Arachne refuses to give in to Athena, so the two of them will engage in a weaving contest that will alter both of their fates.

Bonus: it’s in verse.

Sisters Samira and Rima are living in a small town in Michigan with their mother. It’s a dilapidated trailer where they live and mother is in and out, struggling with a gambling problem. Dad has never been in the picture.

So it’s a surprise when Samira’s grandfather wills her a family fortune. She plans to take the Lebanese antiques to a pawn shop to help her and Rima before her mom can gamble away the money.

Unfortunately, one of the treasures is a coin cursed by a god. By disturbing the treasure, Sam and her sister are expelled to the Phoenician underworld. The sisters must learn how to outshine tricksters, outwit dangerous lands, and lean on one another in order to protect their lives and escape the dangerous terrain.

Although I have not watched The Last Of Us, I know enough about it to suspect this book will appeal to fans of that franchise.

Wren and her family live in a small town that’s always attracted tourists eager to indulge in quintessential Americana. Tourists love to see the wheat, the community, even Wren’s family’s farm. But that all ended five months ago when the blight of Quicksilver began.

Quicksilver consumes the crops. Then the livestock. Then…it comes for the neighbors. The poison is ready to come for Wren and she has to turn to someone she would rather not in order to save her town – and her life. Derek, her ex-boyfriend.

Together, they’ll have to answer for the lives and histories of their ancestors and the community of Hollow’s End in order to save everything they live from being completely taken by Quicksilver.

It’s the queer Repunzel retelling you didn’t know you needed, featuring a vampire and a witch.

Kaye and Ava were always best friends. But after vampires broke down the barriers protecting their community two years ago, Kaye lost her mother and Ava was turned into a vampire. The thing is, despite being stuck in her house, Ava still does have some of her witch powers and her mother needs to take them. Because her mother is also a vampire and taking her daughter’s remaining powers will keep this a secret. Ava does not want to give her powers up and she certainly does not want her mother to destroy their town, so she needs to escape.

Meanwhile, Kaye has been training to be a Flame witch and she’s just about ready to put her skills protecting her town to the test. She’ll be able to vanquish vampires, including her former best friend, to ensure peace. So when Ava escapes her confinement and Kaye finds her, they make an agreement: they’ll travel together through the forest for safety. Ava doesn’t know Kaye’s secret plan is to turn her in, though. And Kaye doesn’t know Ava hopes to reignite their friendship and the feelings that may have been more than friendship between them.

As they travel deeper into the dangerous forest, both of their motivations and desires are put to question…and to the test. Do they destroy each other because they have to? Do they put their differences aside for safety and protection…or more?

You might recognize the author from her work in the capital-R romance genre, and now she’s taking her skills to YA (with, of course, plenty of romance, too!).

Sonia Patil hopes she’ll be able to catch the attention of her crush at the local comic-con. But in a weird twist of fate, Sonia ends up saving her crush after he faints into a canal. No one knows it was her though, since she was dressed up, and now, everyone wants to know who the masked heroine was.

Problem? Sonia’s sister is undocumented and her mother was deported; they’ve been trying to stay under the radar. So as people work to uncover the do-gooder, Sonia worries that all of the positive attention might lend to some very negative consequences for her, for her family, and for her future with her crush.

Can I share that I don’t think I’ve ever read Little Women? I may have when I was really young but I don’t recall anything of it. That said, I DO know the general themes of it, and I know there is fierce debate over which March sister is best.

This book takes that story and gives it an update. Set in 1942, the four authors give voice to March sisters on the precipice of World War II as they work to unravel their grief over the death of sister Beth. The three living sisters are each going their separate ways — some to the war effort and some to the effort at home – as they begin to unpack the loss they’ve suffered.

Great Or Nothing is told in both verse and prose, weaving together the story of sisters sharing a loss and coming to understand what is about to be a very different world with the looming war.

Technically, this work of graphic nonfiction is a simultaneous release, so you can purchase either the hardcover or paperback today.

If you love science, you’re going to love this look at how things work. We get internet and electricity and water to our homes and offices…but how? How do these systems work? This comic will take you beneath and behind the scenes, showcasing how some of the most incredible systems we use every day work.

The art is compelling and includes plenty of diagrams…and this is a book with a lot of humor, too, so you’re not getting any boring science lecture. Nerd the heck out here, y’all.

Alicia is 16, and she’s subject to nonstop judgment from her classmates. It comes because she has sex, so she’s, of course, seen as easy. A slut. Every other name you can imagine for a girl like her.

Except: Alicia was sexually abused by a teacher. She’s a survivor. And of course, it’s a popular teacher who did that to her.

As Alicia begins to drop out of everything that brings her joy, she finds a series of letters from someone else at school. Someone who claims they’ve been a victim, too. Now, she wants to get to the truth of that story and her own.

This verse novel is one for readers who are itching for a compelling and powerful story of redemption, race, power, and maybe even love.

One part I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and one part Furia, Shukairy’s debut follows Khadija and Leene, two teens at a suburban Detroit high school. Khadija is determined, and she sets her sights on traveling the world to leave behind her sheltered life. So when she collides with Leene, a girl who is a Syrian refugee and struggling with anxiety and nonstop pressure from her family, things are rocky, fast. Both girls see each other as the opposite of who they should be as Syrians in America.

Khadija, though, finds a secret in Leene’s past and it brings the girls together in a way neither expect…but in a way that will ultimately help them understand themselves, each other, and their realities as Syrian immigrants.