June 28, 2022
Sometime in Summer (Katrina Leno)
- Publisher: Poppy
- Reading age: 12 years and up
- Grade level: 7 and up
From critically acclaimed author Katrina Leno comes a tender love letter to books and summertime, with a touch of magic.
Anna Lucia Bell believes in luck: bad luck. Bad luck made her best friend stop talking to her. Bad luck caused her parents’ divorce. Bad luck is forcing her mother, Miriam, to sell the family’s beloved bookstore. And it is definitely bad luck that Anna seems to be the only person in the world Miriam is unable to recommend a life-changing book.
When Anna finds out that she and her mom are spending two months in a New England seaside town called Rockport, she expects a summer plagued with bad luck too. But Rockport has surprises in store for Anna, including a comet making its first appearance in over twenty years and two new—but familiar—friends.
In what will prove to be the most important summer of her life so far, Anna learns about love, herself, and the magic that an ordinary summer can bring.
Blade Breaker (Realm Breaker #2) (Victoria Aveyard)
- Publisher: HarperTeen
- Reading age: 13 – 17 years
- Grade level: 8 – 9
In the sequel to Victoria Aveyard’s instant #1 New York Times bestselling Realm Breaker, a divided world must rally, an unstoppable enemy must be defeated, and the fate of the world rests on a blade’s edge.
Andry, a former squire, continues to fight for hope amid blood and chaos.
Dom, a grieving immortal, strives to fulfill a broken oath.
Sorasa, an outcast assassin, faces her past when it returns with sharpened teeth.
Valtik, an old sorceress, summons a mighty power.
And Corayne, a pirate’s daughter with an ancient magic in her blood, steps closer to becoming the hero she’s destined to be.
Together they must assemble an army to face Queen Erida and Taristan’s wicked forces. But something deadly waits in the shadows, something that might consume the world before there’s any hope for victory.
Stealing Infinity (Stolen Beauty #1) (Alyson Noel)
- Publisher: Entangled: Teen
- Reading age: 14 – 18 years
- Grade level: 10 – 12
These days, I’ve been killing it when it comes to letting people down. Now I’ve been kicked out of high school, arrested, and accepted into a remote, off-the-grid school owned and operated by an inscrutable billionaire tech guru.
Gray Wolf Academy is looking for a certain kind of student. Ones that no one will miss. Like me.
Then there’s Braxton. The beautiful, oddly anachronistic guy who showed up right when the trouble started. And he’s a total enigma―which means that I definitely can’t trust him, even if there’s something about him that makes me want to.
They all tell me I have a gift. A very rare gift. And Gray Wolf Academy wants me to learn it. To use it. Because if what they say is true, I have all the time in the world.
And that makes me the most dangerous high school student you’ll never know…
The Stealing Infinity series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Stealing Infinity
Book #2 Ruling Destiny
This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra #1) (Emily Thiede)
- Publisher: Wednesday Books
- Reading age: 13 – 18 years
- Grade level: 7 – 9
Emily Thiede’s exciting fantasy debut, This Vicious Grace, will keep readers turning the pages until the devastating conclusion and leave them primed for more!
Three weddings. Three funerals. Alessa’s gift from the gods is supposed to magnify a partner’s magic, not kill every suitor she touches.
Now, with only weeks left until a hungry swarm of demons devours everything on her island home, Alessa is running out of time to find a partner and stop the invasion. When a powerful priest convinces the faithful that killing Alessa is the island’s only hope, her own soldiers try to assassinate her.
Desperate to survive, Alessa hires Dante, a cynical outcast marked as a killer, to become her personal bodyguard. But as rebellion explodes outside the gates, Dante’s dark secrets may be the biggest betrayal. He holds the key to her survival and her heart, but is he the one person who can help her master her gift or destroy her once and for all?
The Dream Runners (Shveta Thakrar)
- Publisher: HarperTeen
- Reading age: 13 – 17 years
- Grade level: 8 – 12
A lush tapestry of dreams, myth, and magic—perfect for fans of Holly Black, Roshani Chokshi, and Margaret Rogerson.
Seven years ago, Tanvi was spirited away to the subterranean realm of Nagalok, where she joined the ranks of the dream runners: human children freed of all memory and emotion, who collect mortal dreams for the entertainment of the serpentine, immortal naga court.
But when one of Tanvi’s dream harvests goes awry, she begins to remember her life on earth. Panicked and confused, she turns to the one mortal in Nagalok who might be able to help: Venkat, the dreamsmith responsible for collecting the dream runners’ wares and shaping them into the kingdom’s most tantalizing commodity. And as they search for answers, a terrifying truth begins to take shape—one that could turn the nagas’ realm of dreams into a land of waking nightmare.
From the author of the Indie Next selection and Andre Norton Award finalist Star Daughter, this stand-alone contemporary fantasy, inspired by the nagas and garudas of Hindu mythology, is full of slow-burning romance, haunting intrigue, and shimmering magic.
Katzenjammer (Francesca Zappia)
- Publisher: Greenwillow Books
- Reading age: 14 – 17 years
- Grade level: 9 – 12
American Horror Story meets the dark comedy of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as Cat searches for a way to escape her high school. A tale of family, love, tragedy, and masks—the ones others make for us, and the ones we make for ourselves. Katzenjammer will haunt fans of Chelsea Pitcher’s This Lie Will Kill You andE. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.
Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school’s breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat’s best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh.
Cat doesn’t remember why she is trapped in her school or why half of them—Cat included—are slowly transforming. Escaping has always been the one impossibility in her school’s upside-down world. But to save herself from the eventual self-destruction all the students face, Cat must find the way out. And to do that, she’ll have to remember what put her there in the first place.
Using chapters alternating between the past and the present, acclaimed author Francesca Zappia weaves a spine-tingling, suspenseful, and haunting story about tragedy and the power of memories. Fans of Marieke Nijkamp’s This Is Where It Ends and Karen McManus’s One of Us Is Lying will lose themselves in the pages of this novel—or maybe in the treacherous hallways of the school.
Our Crooked Hearts (Melissa Albert)
- Publisher: Flatiron Books
- Reading age: 14 – 18 years
- Grade level: 10 – 12
The suburbs, right now . . .
Ivy’s summer break kicks off with an accident, a punishment, and a mystery: a stranger whose appearance in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, heralds a string of increasingly unsettling events. As the days pass, Ivy grapples with eerie offerings, corroded memories, and a burning question: What if there’s more to her mother than meets the eye?
The city, back then . . .
Dana has always been perceptive. And the summer she turns sixteen, with the help of her best friend and an ambitious older girl, her gifts bloom into a heady fling with the supernatural. As the trio’s aspirations darken, they find themselves speeding toward a violent breaking point.
Years after it began, Ivy and Dana’s shared story will come down to a reckoning among a daughter, a mother, and the dark forces they never should’ve messed with.
The Song That Moves the Sun (Anna Bright)
- Publisher: HarperTeen
- Reading age: 14 – 17 years
- Grade level: 9 – 12
This sweeping YA fantasy romance full of star-crossed love, complex female friendship, and astrological magic is perfect for fans of Laini Taylor, Alexandra Bracken, and V.E. Schwab. From the acclaimed author of The Beholder.
Best friends Rora and Claudia have never felt more like their lives are spiraling out of control. And when they meet Major and Amir—two boys from one of the secret cities of the spheres, ruled by the magic of the astrological signs—they discover they’re not alone. There is a disruption in the harmony between the spheres, and its chaos is spreading.
To find the source of the disharmony, Rora and Claudia will embark on a whirlwind journey of secrets, romance, and powerful truths—about themselves, each other, and two long-ago explorers named Dante and Beatrice, who were among the first to chart this course toward the stars.
Inspired partly by the classic works of Dante Alighieri, this gorgeous stand-alone contemporary fantasy will captivate readers of Lore and Star Daughter.
The Black Girls Left Standing (Juliana Goodman)
- Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
- Reading age: 14 – 18 years
- Grade level: 10 – 12
In Juliana Goodman’s powerful young adult debut The Black Girls Left Standing, Beau Willet will stop at nothing to clear her sister’s name.
Sixteen-year-old Beau Willet has dreams of being an artist and one day leaving the Chicago projects she’s grown up in. But after her older sister, Katia, is killed by an off-duty police officer, Beau knows she has to clear her sister’s name by finding the only witness to the murder; Katia’s no-good boyfriend, Jordan, who has gone missing. If she doesn’t find him and tell the world what really happened, Katia’s death will be ignored, like the deaths of so many other Black women who are wrongfully killed.
With the help of her friend, Sonnet, Beau sets up a Twitter account to gather anonymous tips. But the more that Beau finds out about her sister’s death, the more danger she finds herself in. And with a new relationship developing with her childhood friend, Champion, and the struggle to keep her family together, Beau is soon in way over her head. How much is she willing to risk to clear her sister’s name and make sure she’s not forgotten?
Godslayers (Gearbreakers #2) (Zoe Hana Mikuta)
- Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
- Reading age: 13 – 18 years
- Grade level: 7 – 9
Godslayers―Zoe Hana Mikuta’s high-octane sequel to Gearbreakers―is perfect for fans of Pacific Rim, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga, and Marie Lu’s Legend series.
The only way to kill a god is from the inside…
The Gearbreakers struck a devastating blow against Godolia on Heavensday, but the cost of victory has been steep. Months later, the few rebels who’ve managed to escape the tyrannical empire’s bloody retribution have fled to the mountains, hunted by the last Zenith―Godolia’s only surviving leader.
Eris has been held prisoner since the attack on the capital city, which almost killed her. And she begins to wish it had when she discovers Sona―the girl she loves, the girl she would tear down cities for―also survived, only to be captured and corrupted by the Zenith. The cybernetic brainwashing that Sona has forcibly undergone now has her believing herself a loyal soldier for Godolia, and Eris’ mortal enemy.
With the rebellion shattered and Godolia moving forward with an insidious plan to begin inducting Badlands children into a new Windup Pilot program, the odds have never been more stacked against the Gearbreakers. Their last hope for victory will depend on whether Eris and Sona can somehow find their way back to each other from opposite sides of a war…
Blood and Moonlight (Erin Beaty)
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Reading age: 14 – 18 years
- Grade level: 10 – 12
In Erin Beaty’s fantasy mystery-thriller, Blood and Moonlight, an orphan with a secret, magical sight gets caught between a mysterious genius and the serial killer he’s hunting.
Rising above the city of Collis is the holy Sanctum. And watching over its spires is Catrin, an orphan girl with unique skills―for she alone can spot the building’s flaws in construction before they turn deadly.
But when Catrin witnesses a murderer escaping the scene of his crime, she’s pulled into a dangerous chain of events where the only certainty is that the killer will strike again. Assigned to investigate is the mysterious and brilliant Simon, whose insights into the mind of a predator are frighteningly accurate.
As the grisly crimes continue, Catrin finds herself caught between killer and detective while hiding her own secret―a supernatural sight granted by the moon, destined to make her an outcast, and the only thing that might save her and those she loves from becoming the next victims…
Ride With Me (Lucy Keating)
- Publisher: Clarion Books
- Reading age: 12 years and up
- Grade level: 7 – 9
In this charming contemporary YA novel, neighborhood rideshare driver Charlie Owens embarks on a collision course with love when she crashes into the school’s cute but annoying party boy and wrecks his car and her no-strings-attached attitude toward life.
As a driver for her local ride share app, Charlie Owens loves what the open road gives her: freedom, extra cash for an epic road trip, and a path to getting out of her sleepy town of Chester Falls, Massachusetts. She’s seen her fair share of mysterious passengers and explosive break-ups in the backseat of her car, but Charlie lives a no-strings-attached lifestyle and never gets involved.
But when a routine post-party pick-up ends with Charlie crashing into Andre, her school’s notorious party boy, she’s forced to make a deal to drive him anywhere he needs to go, anytime, until his car can be repaired. Suddenly Charlie and Andre are stuck together, and they couldn’t be more different. But Andre’s charm wins over Charlie’s passengers, and she soon finds herself at risk of breaking her most sacred rule: don’t fall in love.
A Secret Princess (Margaret Stohl, Melissa de la Cruz )
- Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
- Reading age: 12 – 17 years
- Grade level: 7 – 9
A surprising and romantic YA retelling-mashup of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by bestselling authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz.
Best friends Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe, and Cedric Erroll are best friends. And thank goodness, since their boarding school is basically insufferable. When one of the friends suffers a personal tragedy, a plan—and a secret—change everything for the trio . . . for good.
Filled with charm and romance, and inspired by some of classic literature’s most beloved characters, The Secret Princess is the perfect blend of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden—and the perfect companion to Jo & Laurie.
Clementine Book One (Tillie Walden)
- Publisher : Image Comics (June 28, 2022)
- Reading age : 13 – 16 years
- Grade level : 7 – 9
“Tillie Walden is the future. Her boldly authentic voice brings new heights to the world of The Walking Dead. I couldn’t be more proud of what she’s doing with this series.” –Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible)
“CLEMENTINE is an arresting exploration of trauma, community, and hope, devastatingly rendered in Tillie Walden’s signature style. A triumph of the zombie genre.”–Shannon Watters (Lumberjanes)
“With CLEMENTINE, beloved cartoonist Tillie Walden blows open the WALKING DEAD universe with a story full of blossoming relationships in the shadow of wintery death. It’s ominous and magical and will have you craving more when the final page turns.” –Chip Zdarsky (Daredevil, Stillwater)
“CLEMENTINE brings its own distinct voice, style, and sensibility to the Walking Dead universe, which is quite a feat on its own. On top of that, it’s an exquisitely drawn story about how to survive trauma and find strength in ourselves and others.” –Kelly Sue DeConnick (Pretty Deadly, Captain Marvel)
“Walden’s knack for character development and unique perspective result in a tale perfect for diehard fans of The Walking Dead, as well as newcomers.”-Library Journal (starred review)
FROM THE WORLD OF ROBERT KIRKMAN’S THE WALKING DEAD…
…CLEMENTINE LIVES!
Clementine is back on the road, looking to put her traumatic past behind her and forge a new path all her own.
But when she comes across an Amish teenager named Amos with his head in the clouds, the unlikely pair journeys North to an abandoned ski resort in Vermont, where they meet up with a small group of teenagers attempting to build a new, walker-free settlement.
As friendship, rivalry, and romance begin to blossom amongst the group, the harsh winter soon reveals that the biggest threat to their survival…might be each other.