Archives de catégorie : Young Adult

THE WITCHES AT THE END OF THE WORLD de Chelsea Iversen

Two sisters find themselves at odds in this breathtaking historical fantasy —and when one releases a dark spell, someone will have to burn. They are witches, after all.

THE WITCHES AT THE END OF THE WORLD
by Chelsea Iversen
Sourcebooks Landmark, October 2023

Minna and Kaija live deep in the birch woods of northern Norway, hiding in the shadows since their mother was burned at the stake thirteen years ago. Sweet-tempered Kaija remembers life before the fire—the friendships, the comfort and warmth of community. Her magic is quiet, mostly charms to heal cuts and bruises. She’d happily give it up to have a normal life. Minna, though, was raised in smoke. She’s a witch through and through: full of power and unafraid of it, wrath always simmering just below the surface. When Kaija decides to return to the village where their mother died to make a new life for herself, Minna, in a rage, releases a curse to raze the community that’s taken everything from her. In doing so, she sets in motion a plot that could destroy Kaija and the new life she’s trying to build. But you can’t take back dark magic once it’s been released, and someone will have to burn. They are witches, after all.

Chelsea Iversen lives with her husband and dog in Colorado, where she reads her runes at every full moon. This is her debut novel.

“Chelsea Iversen’s magical debut is a story for the ages.” –Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone.

THE HEDGEWITCH OF FOXHALL d’Anna Bright

In this gorgeous stand-alone fantasy romance perfect for fans of Margaret Rogerson and Allison Saft, a rebellious witch undertakes a last-ditch quest to restore magic to medieval Wales—as two princes vie for her heart.

THE HEDGEWITCH OF FOXHALL
by Anna Bright
HarperTeen, March 2024
(via Laura Dail Literary)

Magic is fading from Wales—choked off by King Offa’s Dyke, the enemy earthworks that spans the entire border. Even the dragons have disappeared. And now an attack is imminent.

Prince Taliesin would love to watch magic die. Prince Dafydd fears it, and the throne. But when their father promises the crown to whichever son can destroy the dyke and restore magic to Wales, the brothers are forced into an uneasy rivalry.

Ffion works hedgewitch magic for poor folk, not princes. Unlike the power-hungry Foxhall coven, she uses only what nature can spare. But when the coven’s greed costs Ffion everything, she will need power beyond her wildest dreams to get back what she’s lost.

So when Prince Taliesin arrives, begrudgingly seeking a witch’s aid, Ffion agrees to help him—even if it means walking from one end of Wales to the other with the most use-less peacock she’s ever clapped eyes on. Even if it means striking a bargain with Dafydd behind Tal’s back. The fate of Wales depends on their quest… and so might the fate of Ffion’s heart.

Anna Bright lives in Washington, D.C., where she’s an indie bookseller by day and an author by night. She is also the author of THE BEHOLDER and THE BOUNDLESS, her debut novels, as well as THE SONG THAT MOVES THE SUN. 

« A fiercely lovely, wild-hearted enchantment of a story, with characters and a landscape worth falling for. Sheer magic from beginning to end. » — Laura Weymouth, critically acclaimed author of The Light Between Worlds

“A delicate weaving of fantasy and history, THE HEDGEWITCH OF FOXHALL casts a spell of magic, romance, and adventure from the first page.” — Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

ARYA KHANNA’S BOLLYWOOD MOMENT d’Arushi Avachat

Structured like a Bollywood film (entertaining intermission included!) Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment will make you swoon, laugh, cry, think, nod your head in agreement, and quite possibly: make you get up and dance.

ARYA KHANNA’S BOLLYWOOD MOMENT
by Arushi Avachat
Wednesday Books, January 2024

Shaadi preparations are in full swing, which means lehenga shopping, taste testing, dance rehearsals, and best of all, Arya’s sister, Alina, is home. The Khannas are together again, finally, and Arya wants to enjoy it. So, she stifles her lingering resentment towards Alina, plays mediator during her sister’s fights with their mother, and welcomes her sister’s fiancé with open arms. (Okay, maybe enjoy it is the wrong word.)

Meanwhile, at school, Arya’s senior year dreams are unraveling. In between class and her part-time gig as a bookshop assistant, Arya struggles to navigate the aftermath of a bad breakup between her two best friends and a tense student council partnership with her rival, the obnoxiously attractive Dean Merriweather.

Arya is determined to keep the peace at home and at school, but this shaadi season teaches Arya new realities: Alina won’t always be in the bedroom down the hall, Mamma’s sadness isn’t mendable, friendships must evolve, and life doesn’t always work out like the Bollywood movies Arya loves so dearly. But sometimes, the person you least expect will give you a glimpse of your dream sequence just when you need it most.

Arushi Avachat is a writer from the Bay Area, California. She currently studies English and Political Science at UCLA, where she can be found sipping caramel lattes and pretending to be productive at Kerckhoff Coffee House. She is a contributor to the Young Adult anthology Study Break (Feiwel & Friends, March 2023). Arushi loves dark chocolate, Bollywood dramas, and Jane Austen novels.

ONCE A QUEEN de Sarah Arthur

Do you remember reading fairytales about kings and queens—realms filled with colorful stories of mythical creatures and adventures far from ordinary? Now, imagine if those fairytales were true and your grandmother was once a queen.

ONCE A QUEEN
by Sarah Arthur
WaterBrook, January 2024

Welcome to fourteen-year old Eva Joyce’s world. In 1995, Eva and her mother spend the summer in England with her estranged grandmother. Upon arriving to her grandmother’s mysterious manor, Eva begins to unravel secrets lurking around the gardens and manor – some seemingly connected to the fairytales Eva’s mother use to tell her before bedtime.

She quickly learns she is not the only one who knows the stories of Terival and Mesterra. The groundskeeper and his grandson, Frankie, believe the stories that she thought were only fairytales are real. Eva is skeptical at first, until one night she unexplainably sees a woman and a white stag roaming the foggy gardens just below her bedroom window.

Could the fairytales really be true? Do portals to other worlds exist?

With Frankie’s help, Eva sets out to uncover the truth about her grandmother’s past and the magical realms around them, all while wrestling with the grief of a vanishing childhood—and the fear that growing up means giving up fairy tales forever.

Book 2 coming Spring 2025

Book 3 coming Spring 2026

Sarah Arthur is a fun-loving speaker and the author of a dozen books for teens and adults, including the bestselling Walking with Frodo: A Devotional Journey through The Lord of the Rings. She serves as preliminary fiction judge for the CT Book Awards, was a founding board member of the annual C. S. Lewis Festival in Northern Michigan, and codirects the Madeleine L’Engle Writing Retreats.

A BETTER NIGHTMARE de Megan Freeman

A dark and absorbing allegory for the power that young people possess in their bones to change things that feel far bigger than them, A Better Nightmare is a whirlwind adventure — a story of friendship, romance, and a radical crusade for one group of teens to fight for their right to feel.

A BETTER NIGHTMARE
by Megan Freeman
Chicken House/Scholastic, March 2025
(via Northbank Talent Management)

If the entire world believes in a lie, does that make it the truth?

Emily Emerson is nearly sixteen, finally a senior at the Wildsmoor Facility. But so is Meera, isn’t she? Meera, who is nineteen and has been a senior for as long as Emily can remember? Here, the students live each day as shadows, one day blurring into the next, hardly aware of life passing them by while the symptoms of the Grimm Cross Syndrome that afflicts them all is trained out of them. Rules. Order. Repetition. Medication.

Emily was eight when she started showing signs of the disease. Odd dreams, hallucinations – impossible things that happened around her. Unconscious thoughts that could be set free into the world—flowers that covered the house, thick like a forest and sowed with nothing more than her unconscious thoughts. It was beautiful until it turned evil, when Emily did her first bad thing and found herself here. Now, she’ll do anything to get better and get back to her life. She’ll be more quiet and obedient than everyone else.

Until she meets Emir.

Emir isn’t like the other kids at Wildsmoor. He’s quicker and livelier. He says things that he shouldn’t – dangerous things. Emir is electric, magnetic in more ways than Emily can know.

When Emir introduces her to The Cure, a secret society for kids who believe that The Grimm isn’t a disease at all, but a gift, Emily starts to wake up, and so do her strange abilities. The outcome is a dream come true. But sometimes the best dreams and the worst nightmares have the same people in them.

Megan Freeman writes young adult fiction and loves all things magic and mythology. She juggles writing with her day job working for a children’s mental health charity, promoting wellbeing through surf therapy. Megan hails from the far west of Cornwall, and when she’s not working or writing, loves tramping around the moorland and swimming or surfing in the sea.