Archives de catégorie : Young Adult

THE SUMMER LOVE STRATEGY de Ray Stoeve

A sweet and swoony YA rom-com about two friends making a pact to find summer romance like they’ve seen in the movies—and finding love where they least expect it along the way!

THE SUMMER LOVE STRATEGY
by Ray Stoeve
Abrams, May 2024
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)

Hayley always has a crush. The problem is, her crushes never like her back. After her latest unrequited love—a girl from her basketball team—gets a boyfriend, she decides she’s done falling for girls who are unavailable. Her best friend, Talia, wants romance too, but rarely gets crushes on anyone, and she’s tired of watching Hayley get her heart stomped on over and over. So the two girls make a pact: they’ll help each other find summer love by putting themselves in situations that always lead to romance in movies.

To help carry out their summer love strategy, they make a list of all the places they could find their real-life rom-com: the beach, the Pride parade, the pool, a MUNA concert, and a party. But as they go to each place and try to find the one, it seems like they just can’t catch a break—they don’t know how to talk to cute strangers, someone mistakes Hayley as straight, and Hayley does a truly unfortunate DIY haircut (that she cannot be held responsible for––it was a crisis!). But when Talia and Hayley finally manage to score dates, will they be able to get out of their own way and really dive into the romances they deserve? Or is summer love not as far off as Hayley thought?

“This excellent addition to the slew of YA friends-to-lovers romance  novels offers a nuanced portrayal of an autistic sapphic trans girl in Talia and a lesbian with ADHD and anxiety in Hayley…[The novel] genuinely shines when it zeroes in on Hayley and Talia’s friendship and blossoming romance. Readers will feel like they’re in a teen summer romance themselves.” –Booklist

« Hayley and Talia’s story has all the butterfly-worthy moments of first love…Readers will appreciate that neurodivergence is normalized and represented positively in the novel: In addition to Talia, two other members of their friend group are autistic. A charming friends-to-lovers summer romance.” –Kirkus

« THE SUMMER LOVE STRATEGY is a bear hug in book form; it’s a love story within a love story. Intimacy takes so many beautifully complicated forms here. These are friends who care enough to carve out space for each other’s differences, even as they feel their way through shifting relationship dynamics. Stoeve explores what it means to find new ways to love a person you know by heart—and they tackle it with such specificity and care. This one’s going to make so many people feel seen. » –Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Ray Stoeve is the author of the young adult novel Between Perfect and Real, which received a starred review and was a 2021 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and Arden Grey. They also contributed to the young adult anthology Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance. They received a 2016–2017 Made at Hugo House Fellowship and created the YA/MG Trans and Nonbinary Voices Masterlist, a database that tracks all books in those age categories written by trans authors about trans characters. When they’re not writing, they can be found gardening, making art in other mediums, or hiking their beloved Pacific Northwest.

LET’S NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN de Megan Williams

Ella and I have been best friends since grade one. We can spend hours talking about everything and nothing. We know each other’s greatest fears, things that irrationally annoy us, and ideal career if money and skill weren’t an issue. If there was only one Hartford Bakery brownie left in the whole world and it was somehow in my possession, Ella is the only person I’d consider sharing it with.

LET’S NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN
by Megan Williams
Text Publishing, September 2023

Life is pretty good for sixteen-year-old Abby. Okay, her grandma doesn’t remember things anymore, her relationship with her mum is increasingly strained and she accidently kissed her cousin’s cousin on the weekend, so things aren’t exactly perfect. But everything is manageable with her best friend, Ella, by her side.

And with Ella’s brother, Will—interesting and attentive—on the sidelines.

When new girl Chloe arrives, Abby is pleased to be the one to show her around, to welcome her to the group. But Abby doesn’t imagine Chloe fitting in so well or quite so quickly. And before long Abby is feeling just a little left out, a little unsure of Ella’s friendship. In a moment of anger and confusion she wishes something bad would happen.

When it does—with tragic consequences—everything shifts again. And Abby has to face her own feelings and work out what friendship really means.

Megan Williams’ brilliant debut novel is a tender, moving, often funny celebration of female friendship, about the things that test it, and about what matters most.

Megan Williams won the 2022 Text Prize for her debut YA novel, LET’S NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN. She lives in Brisbane with her husband and their three children.

IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU d’Alex Light

Wattpad superstar Alex Light’s third novel is the perfect rom-com for fans of Jenny Han and Emma Lord, starring a self-proclaimed relationship expert on a mission to help her nemesis get his girlfriend back… if she doesn’t fall for him first.

IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU
by Alex Light
HarperTeen, October 2024

Jackie Myers is a fraud. Or she might be a genius—the jury’s still out.

The thing is, she secretly runs pleasebreakmyheart, a gone-viral account aimed at breaking hearts and ending relationships…. And she just used it to break up her insufferable eternal nemesis’s picture-perfect relationship.

Wilson is the buttoned-up, type A assistant manager of her nightmares—but it turns out he’s also, apparently, a really great boyfriend.

So with her conscience (and paycheck) on the line, Jackie decides there’s only one thing to do: She’s going to help Wilson win his ex-girlfriend back. Which should be easy, considering Jackie hates him…right?

Alex Light grew up reading too many books and listening to too many Taylor Swift songs. Now she writes books that make people laugh (and sometimes cry). Alex began writing as a teen. She shared dozens of love stories online, which have now been read over 150 million times. Shockingly, she graduated with a BA in English literature.

THE ANCIENT’S GAME de Loni Crittenden

Alchemy and ancient spirits come to life in this debut fantasy inspired by African Diasporic folklore and the 1920s World Fair, wherein sixteen-year-old Kellan DuCuivre, an orphan from a reviled class, must compete for a coveted apprenticeship among the nation’s elite in order to save her adopted father from a twisted fate.

THE ANCIENT’S GAME
by Loni Crittenden
HarperTeen, October 2024

In THE ANCIENT’S GAME, readers will find themselves on the edge of their seats as Kellan competes in The Gauntlet, a thrilling test of wits and skill wherein eight apprentices studying in the alchemic art of makecraft must compete for a coveted spot among its Guild of Engineers—only for the tests to take a series of deadly turns.

The love stories centered in THE ANCIENT’S GAME touch upon a range of relationships, from familial love in Kellan’s quest to save her adopted father, the love between friends and found families, and the tender, friendship to romantic relationship that’s cultivated when Kellan encounters Axel Bonne, the illegitimate son of the vicious head of the House Bonne, a family of makers renowned for their runework inventions.

With its 1920s World’s Fair inspired setting and thrilling, death-defying gauntlet competition, THE ANCIENT’S GAME is the perfect read for fans of These Violent Delights, Iron Widow, and Dread Nation.

Loni Crittenden is a writer from Buffalo, New York. She has a BA in creative writing from SUNY Oswego and an MFA in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University. When she’s not glued to her laptop, you can find her nursing various cat-inflicted wounds, planning on painting again someday maybe, and hunting for unusually flavored teas.

THE QUEEN’S SPADE de Sarah Raughley

With its sharp, fast-past narrative, and cut-throat revenge arc buoyed by its empowering, emotional core and a heart wrenching romance, THE QUEEN’S SPADE is the crossover YA, Adult book that readers have been clamoring for and is perfect for fans of The Davenports, Queen Charlotte, and A Dowry of Blood.

THE QUEEN’S SPADE
by Sarah Raughley
HarperCollins Children’s Books, January 2025

In this riveting historical thriller that’s loosely inspired by true life events, The Count of Monte Cristo meets Bridgerton, as revenge, romance, and twisted secrets take center stage in Victorian England’s royal court when Sally, a kidnapped African princess and goddaughter to Queen Victoria, plots her way to take down the monarchy that stole her from her homeland.

While falling in love isn’t in Sally’s revenge plans, readers will be beguiled by the slow-burn romance that sparks off the page as Sally becomes drawn to Rui, the crime lord in London’s underworld helping Sally with her revenge for a price—all while she navigates the affections of Queen Victoria’s own son, Prince Albert, her unwanted matrimony, and her dangerous scheme to infiltrate Queen Victoria’s inner circle to take down the crown.

Sarah Raughley is a graduate of the department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. She is also the author of the recent Victorian fantasy Bones of Ruin series and the Effigies series.