Archives de catégorie : Fiction

TOGETHER WE BURN d’Isabel Ibañez

A lush, enchanting standalone fantasy inspired by medieval Spain about a family of famous Dragonadores—matador-like figures who fight dragons for entertainment.

TOGETHER WE BURN
by Isabel Ibañez
Wednesday Books, May 2022
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

Eighteen-year-old Zarela Zalvidar is a talented flamenco dancer and daughter of the most famous Dragonador in Hispalia. People come for miles to see him fight in their arena, La Giralda. And one day La Giralda will be hers to run. During their five hundredth anniversary show, the family’s dragons mysteriously break free from their pens, causing death and destruction in the ring, and in the carnage, Zarela’s father is horribly injured. Facing punishment from the Dragon Guild, Zarela must keep the arena—her ancestral home and inheritance —safe from their greedy hands. She has no choice but to take her father’s place as the Dragonador of La Giralda. Seeking the help of Arturo Diaz de Montserrat, an infuriatingly handsome former Dragonador with his own secrets, she trains for the role of her life.
But someone is out to ruin the Zalvidar family, and Zarela will have to stay one step ahead of them in order to prevent the Dragon Guild from taking away her birthright.
Ibañez offers a beautifully built world and swiftly paced adventure with exactly the right amount of danger, heroics, sparkling dialogue, and romance. TOGETHER WE BURN is perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas, Shelby Mahurin, and Zoraida Cordova.

Isabel Ibañez was born in Boca Raton, Florida and is the proud daughter of two Bolivian immigrants. A true word nerd, she received her degree in Creative Writing and has been a Pitch Wars mentor for three years. Isabel is an avid movie goer and loves hosting family and friends around the dinner table. She currently lives in Winter Park, Florida with her husband, their adorable dog, and a serious collection of books.

NO WAY HOME de Jody Feldman

An exciting international thriller! When a teenager’s dream exchange program in Italy turns into a nightmare, can she find a way to outwit her criminal host family before she and her parents end up dead?

NO WAY HOME
by Jody Feldman
‎ Sourcebooks Fire, June 2022

Tess Morelli is living a dream: she was selected for an incredible exchange program in Rome, where she’s spending a month taking in the beautiful sights and sounds and tastes of Italy. Her Italian counterpart, Sofia, is staying with Tess’s family while she’s away. Sure, her host parents barely speak English, but they seem cool enough.
Until one day when Tess is woken up before dawn by her hosts, who are on a video chat with their daughter. Tess sees her sleeping parents on the screen―and Sofia brandishing a knife over them. Tess’s parents will die, her hosts tell her, unless she follows their exact instructions. They’ve taken her passport, credit cards and phone, and Tess, at their mercy, must commit a series of crimes that add up to a shocking plan. Now Tess must find a way to outwit these criminals before she―and her family―end up dead.

Jody Feldman is the author of the bestselling middle-grade series The Gollywhopper Games. This is her YA debut.

DEAR FRIENDS de Lisa Greenwald

The Friendship List meets To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in this middle-grade novel about a girl who attempts to get over the worst BFF break-up ever by revisiting her top five friENDships to see if she can learn from past mistakes or if she’s doomed to be friendless 4ever.

DEAR FRIENDS
by Lisa Greenwald
HarperCollins Children’s Books, April 2022

When Eleni comes home from a lonely summer at camp only to get dumped by her BFF since kindergarten, she figures there’s got to be something wrong with her. Who loses two friends in span of a couple of months? So, she sets out to revisit her top five “friendship fails” in an attempt to figure out where she went wrong and what makes a good friend.
Along the way, Eleni reconnects with her across-the-street neighbor, a friend-turned-mean-girl from Hebrew school, and a friend who moved away in Pre-K, all while building new friendships in surprising ways. But will she ever truly work through the burn of losing her BFF?
In the vein of High Fidelity and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Lisa Greenwald uses her exceptional skills at capturing tween social dynamics to explore the ins and outs of friendship in a humorous and insightful novel that affirms that we are all innately capable and worthy of 4ever friendship.

Lisa Greenwald is the author of the Friendship List, TBH, and the Pink & Green series. She works in the library at the Birch Wathen Lenox School in Manhattan, is a graduate of The New School’s MFA program in writing for children, and lives on the Upper East Side with her husband and two kids.

THE LAST BEEKEEPER de Pablo Cartaya

Award-winning author Pablo Cartaya’s latest middle grade follows twelve-year-old Yolanda Cicerón as she fights to the save the last known beehive in the world from extinction against nearly insurmountable obstacles—an environment completely changed by climate change and the greedy humans who will profit from the bees.

THE LAST BEEKEEPER
by Pablo Cartaya
HarperCollins Children’s Books, May 2022

Yolanda Cicerón has big dreams. One day she’s going to become the scientist who gives Silo – the most connected and advanced town in the Valley – the technology the world lost. But as she and her older sister Cami struggle to maintain their family farm that dream floats farther away. With relentless storms across the country, hurricanes on the coast, freezes bearing down from the north, depending on fickle nature for a good harvest is getting Yoly nowhere fast. And when she discovers that they can no longer afford her ticket out of farm life, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
What Yoly doesn’t realize is that in trying to secure her future, she’s actually bargained it away. Silo and its mayor are hiding secrets, and the more Yoly uncovers, the more she realizes they aren’t interested in her bright young mind but in how she might lead them to the secret her family has guarded for decades.
Deep within the woods lies the last remnant of a long extinct species and in its honeycombs is liquid gold –the rarest commodity in the world. When the bees can be Yoly’s one chance to save herself from a horrible future or the key to pulling the Valley out from under Silo’s thumb, will she be able to risk the queen for the colony?
THE LAST BEEKEEPER is a stirring adventure story about fighting to right the wrongs of past generations while finding hope in our present by award-winning author Pablo Cartaya.

Pablo Cartaya is an award-winning author, screenwriter, speaker, and occasional actor. He is the Pura Belpré Honor Book Award winner for The Epic Fail OF Arturo Zamora; an Audie Finalist for Audiobook of the Year in the Middle Grade Category (for which he narrated); an ALSC notable book of the year for Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish; and the 2020 Schneider Family Book Award Honor winner for his middle grade novel, Each Tiny Spark. His newest title, The Last Beekeeper, contemplates a future where bees are central to a re-building world. His novels focus on the themes of family, community, culture, and the environment. He lives in the hyphens between his Cuban and American identities and with his familiain Miami.

ARDEN GREY de Ray Stoeve

An insightful, raw YA novel about a young photographer navigating toxic relationships and how they influence her identity.

ARDEN GREY
by Ray Stoeve
Amulet/Abrams, April 2022
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)

Sixteen-year-old Arden Grey is struggling. Her mother has left their family, her father and her younger brother won’t talk about it, and a classmate, Tanner, keeps harassing her about her sexuality—which isn’t even public. (She knows she likes girls romantically, but she thinks she might be asexual.) At least she’s got her love of film photography and her best and only friend, Jamie, to help her cope. Then Jamie, who is trans, starts dating Caroline, and suddenly he isn’t so reliable. Arden’s insecurity about their friendship grows. She starts to wonder if she’s jealous or if Jamie’s relationship with Caroline is somehow unhealthy—and it makes her reconsider how much of her relationship with her absent mom wasn’t okay, too. Filled with big emotions, first loves, and characters navigating toxic relationships, Ray Stoeve’s honest and nuanced novel is about finding your place in the world and seeking out the love and community that you deserve.

Ray Stoeve is the author of the young adult novel Between Perfect and Real, which was a 2021 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. 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.