Category: What’s Up in YA

Natalie and Imogen are best friends and are about as different as they can be. Natalie is a brave adventurer while Imogen is far more quiet and reserved. One thing the two of them have in common is their love of everything supernatural. The two of them spend every summer at the Harlow Hotel, one of the most famously haunted hotels around, and they enjoy the ride. Imogen believes it’s truly haunted while Natalie believes it’s all fun and games.

Then Imogen dies suddenly. It rips apart Natalie’s life, but she’s determined to still spend the summer at Harlow and use it as an opportunity to work on her senior project of creating a teen ghost hunting show. Annoyingly, Leander is also working on his senior project at the hotel, and Natalie cannot stand him.

But as much as she’s annoyed by Leander, he’s not only not hard on the eyes, but Natalie realizes he could be helpful for her project. She asks him to team up to help and he’s game.

The problem? The hotel ghosts might not be figments of either of their imaginations. The Harlow Hotel has secrets that it wants to share with Natalie and Leander—and it might help Natalie work through some of the grief related to losing Imogen.

Ruby Santos is an 18-year-old Filipina American living in San Francisco. Her mother just died, and she’s been grieving—and not just grieving, she and her father are deeply behind on their bills and in debt from mom’s medical treatment. They’ve had to move out of the top floor of their home and into the basement in order to rent out the top floor and bring in some money.

Then Ruby discovers a secret about her father and a secret about her city. Dad has been working as a delivery person for the underworld. He “jumps” train lines and gets packages to a wealthy family of the underworld. But because of his grief and increased alcohol use, he’s fallen behind, and if he doesn’t catch up, the family house might be taken from them.

So Ruby does what any good daughter would do. She offers to help. But it’s not a fun place of magic and romance in the underworld. That exists, sure. But the underground is a world of rivalry, of trafficking illegal goods, and where she realizes she might be creating more trouble for her family than she could have ever imagined.

Magical San Francisco underground? Let’s go!

I really need to do a roundup of YA books featuring teen chefs/teen cooking competitions. This one would fit right in perfectly—and they are not only abundant, but they are so expansive in the types of cuisine featured (which is good for reading but less good when you want to sample that cuisine as you’re reading).

Jackie Oh is tired of being the perfect Korean American daughter. There is so much pressure on her to live up to her parents’ exacting standards. All she wants to do is be a chef, but she knows that expressing that would be rough on Mom and Dad.

But still, Jackie manages to work at her grandparents’ deli after school and at night, she practices her French cooking. She knows she should be studying, but being in the kitchen is a balm to the stress of school, studying, rising anti-Asian violence in New York, and more.

So when Jackie is given the shocking opportunity to compete on one of her favorite teen television cooking competitions, Burn Off!, she takes it. She thinks escaping into the world of privileged kids will be fun and more, she’ll get to hone and show off her skills in the kitchen. Yeah, the gimmicky challenges are just that, but this is her time to shine.

This book dives into identity and culture with both humor and heart.

Described as The Breakfast Club meets Stranger Things, this book is told on more than one timeline and travels more than one dimension.

In 1986, at the height of the AIDS crisis, which filled the country with homophobia (more blatantly so), Tommy knows he’s falling in love with his best friend Renaldo. He knows he can’t share this. But one night Renaldo is hit by lightning and is no longer the person he once was.

It’s now 2044 and Pris Devree wakes up from a nightmare involving a boy named Tommy and a house in her neighborhood that has earned the reputation of “Murder House.” Pris needs to understand, so she goes to the house and stumbles upon a self-help book.

But it’s not what you might think. It’s a guide to trans dimensional travel, and now Pris and Tommy are working together to save Renaldo from a demon.

Deep space exploration is a reality in 2199, but Jessica finds herself on a lander that has crashed into a post-extinction planet 14 light years from Earth. She was only supposed to be viewing this planet from afar, but now, she’s here. Alone.

The lander she is in is covered in bloody handprints. The machines are all malfunctioning. When the 17-year-old steps outside the lander, she discovers a graveyard of fresh graves.

What happened? Why is she here? Those are the questions at heart in this space-set mystery.

This is an excellently plotted historical mystery set in Chinatown, Los Angeles, in the 1930s. Following sisters Gemma and May, who discover the dead body of friend and Hollywood actress Lulu Wong, they work to unearth the truth of who—and what—killed her.

This is a character-driven, multiple point of view story, with a very satisfying conclusion to the mystery. The attention to historical detail is great, as is the rendering of a specific community within Los Angeles.

This book is being pitched as a Korean-inspired, surrealist Alice in Wonderland.

Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were banished five years ago. The young witches were in love with one another. Four years ago, then, their relationship ended as they needed to seek their individual chances at freedom.

Caro has since become a successful Saint-harvester for the royals. She pretends she doesn’t know what the Red Queen does, the evil she perpetrates. Icca, however, does not forget the betrayal she felt by Caro and is out for revenge. She’ll enact that revenge on the Red Queen and on Caro.

But the Red Queen knows more than she’s ever let on and now a volatile magic may destroy Caro and Icca before either ever get the chance to reconnect (even if that reunion was not going to be for good).

If you like stories set in the summer between high school and college and the types of stories set over one epic night, look no further.

Brandy’s been accepted into the best nursing school in the country. She should be excited, but she’s not. It’s her mom’s dream, not her dream, as Brandy wants to be an artist.

She’s a little (lot) envious of Ben Nolan, one of her classmates, who will be pursuing his dream of acting. So when Ben attaches himself to Brandy at the town’s summer carnival, she could not be more annoyed.

But her feelings about everything—her future, nursing school, Ben—will be tested over the course of the evening.

Vale’s life is soccer. She loves the game, but it’s more than just a game. She’s good, her future depends on the game, and she’s got expectations to exceed from her father. But then Vale incites a fight with long-time rival Leticia Ortiz, and everything becomes chaotic.

Vale decides she’ll find solace over the summer by working at her old youth soccer camp. It sounds like the right chance to reignite a love for the game and get back to the heart of what it means to be an athlete.

But then she discovers that she’ll be co-captaining the youth team this summer with none other than Leticia. Will fists fly? Or will it be sparks?

This is an exciting and engaging sports enemies-to-lovers queer romance.

I’m loving the recent college-life YA books I’ve been seeing lately, and here, two aromantic and asexual students find themselves in a messy online situation. Sophie Chi is a first-year student at Wellesley College, and, though she’s very comfortable in her aromantic and asexual identities, she knows she’ll never fall in love. Despite this, she starts an Instagram account (“Dear Wendy”) where she — follow me — gives relationship advice. Yeah. Then, there’s Jo Ephron, another first-year student at the same school, who has created the “Dear Wanda” account, which sorta kinda rivals Dear Wendy. As Sophie and Jo bond over their shared aroace identities and get closer, neither of them knows they’re secretly online rivals, which is just the best setup for some delicious messiness.

This is part of the Elatsoe series (which I loved) but actually takes place before the first book. Here, torn away from their traditional home by a devastating flood, Shane and her mother work with their pack of ghost dogs to track down missing people. When Shane’s mother and a boy from the neighborhood both go missing after interacting with a fairy ring, Shane gathers up a crew to find them. Her brother, friends, and an untrustworthy grandparent all hit the road to find the two missing people, but soon realize that it may not just be a matter of where they are, but when they are.

I loved how the first book incorporated Lipan Apache traditions with other lore, and I’m excited to see that at play in this new book.

This has such a unique magic system that goes so well with its bloody competition. In it, Ning is still gripped by guilt surrounding her mother’s death, and now, the same poison tea that killed her mother may also take her sister, Shu. The only way Ning can think to save her sister’s life is to enter the kingdom’s magical tea-brewing competition; but to win, she’ll have to contend with backstabbers, messy court politics, and handsome strangers.

This has a lot going on…in the way that we like, of course. Here, 17-year-old Ross Quest is a master thief prodigy, descended from a long line of thieves. Thing is, she just wants to live a normal teen life, free of the odd trappings of her heisting family. But then her mother’s life is threatened, and the only way for her to save her that she can see is to enter the Thieves’ Gambit, a dangerous international heisting competition. The plot thickens, of course, once we learn that among her competitors is a smooth-talking cutie…

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.

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.

Joan works as the person who makes and keeps up with the swords for Shakespeare’s acting company. As a member of the Orisha, she’s been given the gift of controlling metal. Her family, all Orisha, are also tasked with keeping an eye on London’s Fae population; usually, there’s nothing to worry about, but there has been more and more Fae activity recently, including some attacks. So when Joan hurts a powerful member of the Fae, she finds herself in the middle of a battle between the human world and the world of the Fae.

This is the first in a duology, and the sequel, Saint-Seducing Gold, hits shelves on April 23, Billy Shakespeare’s birthday.

Stevie and Nora loved one another and had a plan to make their love something they didn’t need to hide. It involved moving away from their conservative hometown and out to California after high school.

Stevie, though, has a terrible fall that leaves her unable to remember much of her life. This includes the plan to leave down and worse, how much she and Nora are in love. Stevie cannot remember anything about the last two years, and her life has become messy, inconsistent, not what she would have wanted before the fall.

As for Nora, she’s unsure how to handle no longer being remembered nor what happens as a result of Stevie no longer wanting the future they had planned.

For readers who would like an adventure story for their picnic.

This book has everything: a historic setting, the Suffragist movement, a girl on an Antarctic exposition, and a survival story.

Clara Ketterling-Dunbar is part of The Resolute, a team of 28 crew members on an Antarctic exposition. It is November 1914, and the ship is stuck on ice 100 miles from the continent. How will the team survive? How will Clara figure out who she is amid a crew that is not necessarily happy there is a woman on board?

As a heads up: this book has sexual assault and harm to animals — the first is not unpunished, and the second is not out of gross cruelty but survival.

If you love survival, discussions of feminism and what it does or does not entail, and reading about the perceptions held by people around the globe about Americans in this era, don’t miss this one.

For readers seeking a swoony, frothy historical picnic companion.

If you want a delicious historical novel featuring an all-Black cast at the beginning of the 1900s in Chicago, do not look further. This book DELIVERS and then some.

Inspired by the very real Black entrepreneur CR Patterson, this book imagines what it would be like to be the daughters of a successful businessman at the time, and in addition to the two sisters’ voices, we get to know another daughter of wealth, as well as the assistant of the Davenport daughters. All of the girls have dreams and passions that fall outside of what is expected of them, and all four seem to be falling for people who are outside of their appropriate circles, too. So what happens when they seek to get what they want rather than what’s expected of them?

For readers who want to take an outdoorsy, (unfairly) cute contemporary romance picnicking.

Celine, the resident conspiracy theorist and local weird girl at her high school, and Bradley, the star football player who struggles with OCD, are ex-best friends. Actually, Bradley abandoned Celine because she didn’t fit in with his new, cool friends (tsks loudly). Now, they’re just academic rivals who engage in general pettiness and who have to work together in a survival course in the woods as part of a scholarship competition. To win, the outdoors isn’t the only messy thing they’ll have to wade through.

This book sounds so good, as it is pitched as a “Magical realism meets Southern Gothic.”

It’s the summer before senior year of high school, and Jericka Walker planned to spend it hanging out on the Jersey Shore. But those plans are upended when her grandmother is dying, and Jericka’s mother drags her to spend time with grandma in Coldwater, Maryland. Jericka doesn’t know her grandmother at all, as she abandoned Jericka’s mother and uncle when they were growing up.

But as much as Jericka’s struggling to form any kind of bond with her grandmother, it’s the town of Coldwater that’s more of a struggle. The vibes of it are off, and there is so much drama. Jericka does meet Kat, though, a “ghost girl” who helps her find some fun in Coldwater.

Coldwater is full of secrets, though, and Jericka might find herself sucked into some pretty big ones.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor’s hero is her name-twin. Eleanor Roosevelt. But this Eleanor is nothing like her—or is she, in her own way?

World War II is raging in Europe, and Eleanor is worried about her Jewish family abroad. She’s also hiding a secret that accidentally gets let out: she’s a math genius and just the kind of person who would be perfect on the job of helping the US Army with a secret weapon that could put an end to the war.

Eleanor is traveling the country and the world as part of this team. It’s a lot of work but she knows she’s involved in a good cause—the only problem is she still doesn’t know or believe in herself, and before she can help with the war, she needs to get to know herself.