Archives de catégorie : Young Adult

THE MEADOWS de Stephanie Oakes

A queer, YA Handmaid’s Tale meets Never Let Me Go about a dystopian society bent on relentless conformity, and the struggle of one girl to save herself and those she loves from a life of lies.

THE MEADOWS
by Stephanie Oakes
Dial/ Penguin Young Readers, September 2023

Everyone hopes for a letter—to attend the Estuary, the Pines, the Glades, the Meadows. These are the special places where only the best and brightest go to burn even brighter.
When Eleanor gets her letter, she knows she’s freed from her hardscrabble life by the sea, in a country ravaged by climate disaster. But despite the Meadows’ luminous facilities, endless fields, and pretty things, it keeps dark secrets.
Four years later, Eleanor and her friends seem free of the Meadows, changed but not in the ways they expected. Eleanor is an adjudicator, ensuring her former classmates don’t stray from the lives they’ve been conditioned to live.
But Eleanor can’t escape her past, or thoughts of the girl she once loved. Because Rose isn’t here anymore. And as secrets emerge that force Eleanor to grapple with her history, she must wage a dangerous battle for her own identity and for the full truth of what happened to the girl she lost, knowing if she’s not careful, Rose’s fate could be her own.

Stephanie Oakes is the author of The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, which was a Morris Award finalist and a Golden Kite Honor book, and The Arsonist, which won the Washington State Book Award and was an ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. An elementary school librarian, Stephanie lives in Spokane, Washington with her wife and family.

LYING IN THE DEEP de Diana Urban

A juicy mystery of jealousy, love, and betrayal set on a Semester at Sea-inspired cruise ship, with a diverse cast of delightfully suspicious characters who’ll leave you guessing with every jaw-dropping twist.

LYING IN THE DEEP
by Diana Urban
‎ Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers, May 2023

After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn’t be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—11 countries in 4 months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart.
But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with….before anyone else winds up in body bags.
Perfect for readers of Natasha Preston, E. Lockhart, and Karen McManus!

« A twisted tale of betrayal, heartbreak, and revenge, Lying in the Deep is shocking from the very first page. As gory as a slasher and as fun as a comedy, this book is a must-read for thriller fans. » — Jessica Goodman, bestselling author of The Counselors

Diana Urban is an author of dark, twisty thrillers, including All Your Twisted Secrets (HarperTeen) and These Deadly Games (Wednesday Books). Her novels have been published internationally, and she’ll be featured in the Firsts and Lasts anthology (Penguin Workshop, 2023). When she’s not torturing fictional characters, she freelances in content writing and digital marketing. She lives with her husband and cat in Boston and enjoys reading, playing video games, fawning over cute animals, and looking at the beach from a safe distance.

SOPHIE THE GIANT SLAYER de Kay Carmichael

A delightful black and white comic that defends the stance that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Set in a dystopian universe where giant monsters invade the Earth – life seems set for destruction when a sword-wielding hero comes to the rescue.

SOPHIE THE GIANT SLAYER
by Kay Carmichael
Publication TBD
(via The Lennon-Ritchie Agency)

Sophie, an eleven-year-old girl in a post-giant world inherits her grandfather Jack’s magical sword and is launched out beyond their island city into a world of treacherous adults and ambitious gods. Driven by the voice inside the sword, she and her companions hunt down the secret of where the giants came from and her own terrible destiny. Sophie finds herself adopted into a group of tree-dwelling refugees, led by a mysterious woman called Rosemara. They capture her and ask her to kill a giant called Ashkeloth, who they claim is a threat. But is everything as it seems? Who exactly is Rosemara? Soon, Sophie finds she also has to stand up for her pursuers and decide whom she can and can’t trust when the giant comes knocking.

Kay Carmichael is a story artist specialising in storyboard work. She’s worked for five years in the animation and live action industries, and done storyboards for a variety of commercial and advertising clients. She also worked on a number of television series and feature films.

THE FAINT OF HEART de Kerilynn Wilson

Utterly immersive and deeply atmospheric, this YA graphic novel is part speculative fiction, party cautionary tale – a true one-of-a-kind project that recalls Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Never Let Me Go, and the work of Charlie Kaufman.

THE FAINT OF HEART
by Kerilynn Wilson
Greenwillow/HarperCollins, June 2023
(via Writers House)

It wasn’t even that long ago. The Scientist discovered that all sadness, anxiety, and anger would disappear when you remove your heart. And that’s all it took. Soon enough the Hospital had lines out the door.
June is an unexceptional teen in almost every way—she’s an average student, she lives at home with her mom, dad, and sister, she loves art. . . but June is the only one in town who still has her heart. Between June’s uncaring family and the blank stare of her former best friend, nothing hurts more than being surrounded by the heartless. Just when June is about to cave to the mounting pressure to remove her heart and stop feeling emotions altogether, she comes across a heart in a jar, left abandoned in an alley. Convincing her family that she went along with the procedure, June instead decides to find a way to put this heart into the person whose love she misses most: her sister Maya. But things get complicated when Max, a heartless boy from school, volunteers to join June on her secret quest. Max has a secret of his own. . . though he removed his heart, he’s starting to feel again. And it hurts.

Kerilynn Wilson is an author/illustrator with a love of the weird and wonderful, who lives in Portland, Oregon. The Faint of Heart is her debut graphic novel.

THE MEMORY HOTEL de Mariko Turk

From the highly acclaimed author of The Other Side of Perfect comes a layered YA novel about grief, love, and what it means to believe in the beyond—perfect for fans of Emily X.R. Pan, Dustin Thao, and Nina LaCour.

THE MEMORY HOTEL
by Mariko Turk
‎ Little, Brown, Winter 2024
(via Writers House)

Natalie and Imogen were inseparable—Imogen was always the infuriatingly humble and intelligent one, while Natalie was the brave one, jumping into danger and new adventures. Despite their differences, one thing tied them together: their love of the supernatural. Every summer, they’d vacation with their parents at the famously haunted Harlow Hotel. Imogen fully believed in the tales of the supernatural, while Natalie saw ghosts stories as nothing but pure fun. Natalie has never been a believer.
Then, their summers change forever. When Imogen unexpectedly passes away from an undiagnosed heart condition, Natalie is left to take on the summer before senior year alone. Now that Imogen’s gone, Natalie’s doesn’t have much to focus on besides her senior project. Her passion is still horror so Natalie decides her project will be all about ghost chasing—specifically, she’s planning to spend her summer back at the Harlow Hotel recording fun fake footage that will get her on the teen ghost hunting show of her dreams. And her plans would be a lot less complicated if Leander, her arch rival from school, wasn’t working on his senior project at the very same hotel.
But the longer that Natalie stays at the Harlow Hotel, the more she realizes that her nemesis Leander might be helpful for her project. After all, she could use an extra hand to help record her fake footage. But, when strange occurrences suggest that ghosts could be real, Natalie questions her long held beliefs and whether Imogen is truly gone. In this story about the way grief shapes the way we look at the world and what we choose to believe, Natalie Nakada learns what it means to let go and let new love in.

Mariko Turk teaches writing and rhetoric classes and works as a writing tutor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She received her PhD in English from the University of Florida, with a concentration in children’s literature. The Other Side of Perfect was her debut novel.