Archives de catégorie : Bologna 2025 Children’s & YA

A PRINCE AMONG PIRATES de Katie Abdou

A foppish nobleman accidentally joins a pirate ship and falls for his debonair captain.

A PRINCE AMONG PIRATES
by Katie Abdou
Simon & Schuster, Spring 2026
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Kit Davenport is impulsive, headstrong, a little too sure of himself, and desperate to get out from under his father’s thumb. Oh—he’s also the son of a Viscount, and days away from marrying a future marchioness.

But Kit doesn’t want to marry and become trapped in his father’s world of white wigs, dull dinner parties, and odious meetings in the House of Lords.

A string of dubious choices lands him on the crew of Captain Reggie Sharpe’s galleon, the Deliverance. There’s just one problem: Kit has no idea they’re pirates.

PS: Kit can’t swim.

Katie Abdou was born and raised in historic coastal Massachusetts, USA—where she cultivated a love of history, the occult, and piracy. Her goal is for her work to be a safe space for teens and young adults to experience both the good and bad in the world by exploring topics of self-discovery, ethnicity, sexuality, found family, and acceptance—with a dash of myth and magic.

THE TWELVE de Liz Hyder

From the award-winning author of Bearmouth, a haunting and captivating teen fantasy that explores the power of love and friendship in the face of ecological turmoil.

THE TWELVE
by Liz Hyder
Pushkin Children’s Books, October 2024

WINNER OF THE NERO PRIZE FOR CHILDREN’S FICTION

It’s supposed to be a treat for Kit, a winter holiday by the coast with her sister Libby and their mum. But when Libby vanishes into thin air, and no one else remembers her, Kit is faced with a new reality – one in which her sister never existed.

Then she meets Story, a local boy who remembers Libby perfectly. Together they embark on a journey beyond their wildest imagination into a world steeped in ancient folklore. Can Kit and Story uncover the secret of the Twelve and rescue Libby before Time runs out?

‘Channelling the dark menace of classic British fantasy writers such as Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, this is a beguiling tale of ancient magic, good and evil, deeply rooted in the Welsh landscape. Haunting illustrations by Tom de Freston add to the eerie atmosphere.’ — The Guardian

‘The ancient past is rendered vividly in this book that is ideal for tweens and teens who love beachcombing for fossils’ — The Times Children’s Book of the Week

Liz Hyder has been making up stories ever since she can remember. She has a BA in drama from the University of Bristol and, in early 2018, won the Bridge Award/Moniack Mhor’s Emerging Writer Award. Her first novel, Bearmouth, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Readers, the Branford Boase Award, and was The Times‘s Children’s Book of The Year.

Tom De Freston is an artist based in Oxford with his wife, Kiran Millwood Hargrave. His practice is dedicated to the construction of multimedia worlds, combining paintings, film and performance into immersive visceral narratives.

THE SUN AND THE STARMAKER de Rachel Griffin

There once was a village so far north that most considered it the top of the world… and in that village, the Sun fell in love with her Starmaker. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches comes a whimsical and sweeping romantic fantasy.

THE SUN AND THE STARMAKER
by Rachel Griffin
Sourcebooks Fire, February 2026
(via Park, Fine & Brower)

Nestled deep in the snowy mountains of the Lost Range, the village of Reverie is a small miracle. Beyond the reach of the Sun, Reverie is dependent upon the magic of the mysterious Starmaker: every morning, he trudges across a vast glacier and pulls in sunlight over the peaks, providing the village with the light it needs to survive.

Aurora Finch grew up on tales of the Starmaker’s magic, never imagining she’d one day meet him. But on the morning of her wedding, a fateful encounter in the frostbitten woods changes everything. The Starmaker senses a powerful magic within her and demands she come study under his guidance. With her newfound abilities tied to the survival of the village, Aurora is swept away to his ice-covered castle and far from everything she’s ever known.

The Starmaker is as cold and distant as the mountain itself, leaving Aurora to explore his enchanted castle alone. Yet the more she discovers about the sorcerer, the stronger their attraction grows, pulling her closer to the secrets he refuses to share. But a deadly frost approaches and Aurora must uncover what the Starmaker is hiding before she is left in an endless winter that even the Sun cannot touch.

Rachel Griffin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches, Wild is the Witch, and Bring Me Your Midnight. When she isn’t writing, you can find her wandering the Pacific Northwest, reading by the fire, or drinking copious amounts of coffee and tea. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband, dog, and growing collection of houseplants.

FABLE FOR THE END OF THE WORLD d’Ava Reid

The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.

FABLE FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
by Ava Reid
HarperTeen, March 2025
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.

Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoë, this is a game she can’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.

And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.

Ava Reid was born in Manhattan and raised right across the Hudson River in Hoboken but currently lives in Palo Alto. She has a degree in political science from Barnard College, focusing on religion and ethnonationalism.

AMONG GHOSTS de Rachel Hartman

Set in the world of New York Times bestseller Seraphina, a boy on the run from a dragon—among other dangers—seeks refuge in a haunted abbey in this wholly original ghost story about what haunts us, and what connects us.

AMONG GHOSTS
by Rachel Hartman
Penguin Random House, June 2025
(via Writers House)

A few things to know about the town of St. Muckle’s: It’s too out-of-the-way to interest greedy lords, and too damp and muddy for marauding dragons to burn. And anyone, from a humble serf to a runaway nun, may earn their freedom by living for a year and a day within the town walls. Seven years ago, Charl and his mother fled to St. Muckle’s and made it their safe-haven, building a new life in this so called Peasant’s Paradise. But when Charl sees something impossible—a ghost—soon the embers of his past are threatening to engulf his world in flame. A tragic accident is quickly followed by murder, a deadly plague, and a mercenary dragon.

Charl manages to escape to an abandoned abbey outside of town, but finds no safety within those ruined walls. A treacherous nun, a chorus of murdered girls, and the fearsome Battle Bishop await, ready to ensnare him in a complex web of history, magic and fate. For some things should never be forgotten, however much they haunt us, and Charl will need all his wisdom and resiliency if he is to fight for the world he knows…and the people he calls home.

Rachel Hartman is the author of the acclaimed YA fantasy novel Seraphina, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2013 Morris Award, and its sequel Shadow Scale. Coming in 2018 is Tess of the Road, a third novel set in the same fantasy world, following the adventures of one of Seraphina’s younger half-sisters. Rachel lives with her family in Vancouver, Canada. In her free time she sings with a madrigal choir (the QuasiModals), walks her whippet in the rain, and is learning to fence. You can visit her blog at http://rachelhartmanbooks.com or follow her on Twitter at @_rachelhartman.