Author: Kelly Jensen

Lena was cursed by a witch before she was born, leading her to a secret: she can kill with the touch of her skin. But when she and her father are forced from their lives of isolation, they end up in a village near the Silence, a forest that reportedly lures people in who are never again seen.

But when Miranda stumbles out of the Silence and meets Lena, she tells her about Gather, a city within the forest with magic. Miranda is on a search for someone who can wake the sleeping princess of Gather, who she believes holds the secret to liberating Gather from their tyrant leader. Miranda offers Lena a chance to break free from her own curse, so long as she helps find someone to wake the princess.

Lena’s on it…but the more she discovers about Gather and Miranda, the more she sees she’s been lied to about her own past. Dive into a fantastical bisexual retelling of The Sleeping Beauty.

Social activism + enemies-to-lovers + thriller + college campus setting, this one is checking all of the boxes for so many readers.

Anna is moving into the dorms across town to attend Brookings University; she’s still close to her parents’ home and their struggling bakery. She’s determined to not only do well in school but to investigate a crime that happened on campus and claimed the life of her former babysitter.

When Anna encounters middle school rival Chris, whose family opened a bakery near the one her parents run, she’s wary. But a vandal who hit his family’s bakery left a racist tag and it matches something in Anna’s other investigation.

After a threat against Anna, she realizes that her connections with Chris might be what helps her get to the bottom of the death of her former babysitter, the vandalism at Chris’s family’s bakery, and a series of other local racist events.

This is the second contemporary Black YA prep/boarding school book I can think of that published this year (the first being Seton Girls) and I am here for this! More, this one features a 14 year old lead.

Avielle LeBeau is just starting Briarcliff Prep, a historically Black Boarding School. She’s excited to fit in with kids who look like her and get her, and she’s eager to follow in her family’s legacy. But when Avielle discovers a secret about her sister’s boyfriend, she realizes she has to make a choice that could change everyone’s life: keep the secret or tell her sister and potentially ruin their sibling relationship.

For readers looking to fall into a thoughtful and evocative book about grief and healing, this is one to have on your radar.

Jamison’s mother died two years ago. He, his little sister, and his dad are all coping in their separate ways, but when Jamison comes close to completely forgetting the date of his mom’s birthday, he worries that he’s losing the memory of someone he holds dear.

This is his reason for picking up the Nikon camera his mother gave him as a gift, and he decides to take photos on the street at the same time every single night. The simple routine is anything but, and Jamison discovers an incredible world around him and it helps him keep the memory of his mother alive and reconnect more deeply with his dad and sister.

This one is pitched as American Royals meets The Winner’s Curse and is set in a reimagined American monarchy.

It’s 1893 and Claire’s father is a highly sought-after inventor, though he believes his magic comes through the touch of his daughter to whatever it is he is creating. This means she’s under his eye nearly all the time.

The province is preparing for war, and Claire is preparing to leave, despite her best friend begging her to stay and fight in the resistance. But her father’s invention doesn’t work as planned at the World’s Fair and Claire is taken captive by a young ruler who believes she has the magic to help him become more powerful as a leader.

Now Claire has a rare opportunity she never saw coming: does she help build a new world or does she burn everything down?

Willa, Luz, and Britton were the best of friends at 15, at 16, and at 17, through good times and bad. Then, Willa ruined it all at 18.

Now it’s the week of graduation and Willa cracks open a memory box from the times they spent together. She begins to wonder what could end what they had, then realizes that, without them, she has no idea who she herself is.

So often I see YA readers talk about the lack of friendship stories — and there are actually many of them, though they’re overshadowed by stories with a romantic arc — and this is a solid entry into the world of friendship (and friendship breakup) YA.

Maisie Rojas, 17, has spent her life inside the Q. The Q is a post-pandemic quarantine zone, where security walls seal off the perimeter. She is a lieutenant for one of the Q’s leading families.

Lennon Pierce is the son of a U.S. presidential candidate. Kidnapped by enemies of his father, he’s dropped into Q. While given a temporary antidote to the disease, if he’s not out within 48 hours, he’ll become infected and forced to remain within the city’s walls.

Maisie is responsible for getting Lennon out, and what begins is a compelling adventure full of danger and a clock counting down the time way too fast.

If you loved this star-studded author lineup’s Blackout, you’ll be wanting to grab this one ASAP.

12 teens are out to help a friend make a giant apology, but then, Atlanta is struck by a snowstorm. Will they be able to make it happen? This is a sweet winter romance told through several voices, perspectives, and, of course, packed with feelings.

This one is going to be short and sweet, y’all.

It’s a snow-covered kingdom.

Two rivals are secretly competing for the heart of the price.

Except…in the midst of their rivalry, they might be falling for one another.

A queer historical YA book about teens who choose a life outside the norms of their small-town? Yes please!

In 1904, Asta is against marrying Nils, to whom she’s been betrothed. Her parents believe she should feel lucky to be married, as she is partially deaf, has an odd appearance, and is strange. Asta wants instead to run away with her friends who are more like her and live as a performer in the village theater.

When Nils lashes out against one of Asta’s friends, she decides things are officially over. She and her two friends move to a secluded cabin and are determined to make their off-grid life work…by winning the annual horse race put on by their village. None of them have experience, but that doesn’t matter. Their determination and drive are going to help them plan their lives out exactly as they wish.

They’ll just have to avoid death.

The first in a new series that reimagines the Chinese classic story of the Three Kingdoms, we’re dropped into the year 414 during the Xin Dynasty. It is a time of chaos, with a puppet empress at the throne. The land has splintered into three different factions, and now, three warlordesses are itching to take control all for themselves.

Enter Zephyr.

Zephyr knows there’s no contest. She’s a strategist, a skill she’s developed after being orphaned and after studying under Xin Ren, a warlordess. Ren has loyalty to the empress only so much as it is strategic. When Zephyr infiltrates an enemy camp and meets an opposing strategist, she is taken aback. But in a world where everyone could be an enemy, is Zephyr setting herself and Ren up for disaster?

It’s 2019 and Raina is ready for the best summer of her life. But everything changes in an instant when ICE knocks at the door of her family’s Brooklyn apartment and takes her single mother away.

Alone with her brother, Raina has to figure out what to do and how to survive. She thought their asylum case was settled, but now, desperate for answers, she, her brother, and new friend Carlos, will take a road trip to find them.

It’s been a minute since I’ve read Hardinge, but she has been continuing to build a big, loyal fanbase in the U.S. (she’s had one in her native UK for a long time). This one is pitched as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea meets Frankenstein, and it follows in the years after all of the gods have destroyed themselves. Finding even a scrap of them can be worth a fortune, but few are brave enough to search the depths of the sea.

Fifteen year old Hark finds a still-beating heart of one of the gods and now needs to protect it with his life. This heart could be the way he saves his best friend. But when his best friend Jett touches the heart, he begins to transform. Now Hark has to decide whether to stay loyal to his friend, despite the weird changes he’s experiencing, or whether he needs to put an end to it.

This one is short and sweet: it’s a verse novelization of the Donner Party. I loved Wolf’s take on the Titanic in The Watch That Ends the Night, and this book does something similar in giving a multitude of voices and perspectives on a single historical event.

Sam Sakamoto lives in rural Washington and following the recent death of her mother, knows she has to put aside her dreams of becoming a photographer to focus on the family farm. Sam has to help ensure they can make payments on it and keep their livelihood safe.

What Sam doesn’t anticipate is the coming war. It’s December 1941 and Pearl Harbor has just been attacked. White Americans are turning their hatred toward Japanese Americans and, as much hope and promise as there seems to be between Sam and her neighbor Hiro — he wants to help her stoke her creative flames with photography — the real threat of Japanese incarceration camps may put those things even further out of reach.

This queer historical romance, set during the Swing Youth movement in World War II Berlin, follows Charlotte, a teen who would go anywhere Angelika would. That’s how she finds herself in an underground club the summer before the start of the war, dancing to jazz and swing music, both of which were not allowed (not to say anything of the queer club, of course).

Charlie knows she should keep this club and all of this dancing a secret, but she tells her friend Geri. Now, they’re going to the club over and over…despite the rise of the Nazi party and their dangerous rules.

Now, those swing dancers are ready to break even more rules. But how far will they go?

This might be the only book I can think of that tackles esports, despite esports being a huge thing.

By day, Emilia Romero is a field hockey star and incredible student. By night, she’s the only female member of a successful esports team. She keeps that part of her life on the down-low, since it can be a rough place to be a girl. When a major esports competition comes to her town, she decides it’s time to prove herself, both to her team and to the broader community of players.

One problem: a member of a rival team recognizes her. And that rival, Jake, has had a crush on her for a long time. Can they forge a real relationship and keep Emilia’s secret life safe? Or will there be consequences for their feelings?

This is a fabulous read alike to Eric Smith’s Don’t Read The Comments (and lol at their title similarities, even!).

Love the collision of romance, action, and magic? Then look no further.

Their world is on the brink of war, and Ahn — who is without a family or past — meets Altan — a lost heir — and the two of them see each other as an answer. Altan may be able to reclaim the throne while Ahn may be able to understand the power of the magical (and deadly) abilities.

There will, of course, be a price to pay in their quest for knowledge, for answers, and for power.

Tan’s stand alone fantasy has been pitched as Girls of Paper and Fire meets A Song of Wraiths and Ruin.

I am in the middle of this one right now, and I went in without any knowledge, other than I love Saedi’s writing. This is a pandemic book, but in a lot of ways…it’s very cathartic for me so far.

Parisa Naficy and Gabriela Gonzales are seniors and despite how different they are — Parisa is from a wealthy family and Gabriela’s moms can hardly make ends meet — they build a strong friendship. It’s them against the world.

But when a global pandemic hits and their entire lives are turned upside down, what do their futures look like?

This one is funny, it’s full of heart, and, like I said, surprisingly cathartic, despite how much I didn’t think I wanted to read a book about the pandemic.

Itching for a Rapunzel-inspired YA fantasy? This is it.

Selestra has been trapped in a tower for 16 years as she waits to take her mother’s place as the King’s Witch. The King’s Witch foretells death at the Festival Predictions and those who outrun the prediction get the chance to steal immortality from the King.

No one has had that chance yet, as everyone has failed to outrun their own death.

Nox is a soldier in the King’s army and he’s ready to take the King’s mortality, as well as kill his court. Nox is Selestra’s first prediction. But as soon as she touches Nox, death is out for both of them. Now they have to work together to outrun their fate.

I’m so glad to see the YA snake cover slither back in, too.