Recommendations For Teens

Judy I. Lin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Magic Steeped in Poison, weaves a dreamy gothic romance worthy of the heavens in Song of the Six Realms.

Xue, a talented young musician, has no past and probably no future. Orphaned at a young age, her kindly poet uncle took her in and arranged for an apprenticeship at one of the most esteemed entertainment houses in the kingdom. She doesn’t remember much from before entering the House of Flowing Water, and when her uncle is suddenly killed in a bandit attack, she is devastated to lose her last connection to a life outside of her indenture contract.

With no family and no patron, Xue is facing the possibility of a lifetime of servitude playing the qin for nobles that praise her talent with one breath and sneer at her lowly social status with the next. Then one night she is unexpectedly called to the garden to put on a private performance for the enigmatic Duke Meng. For a young man of nobility, he is strangely kind and awkward, and surprises Xue further with an irresistible offer: serve as a musician in residence at his manor for one year, and he’ll set her free of her indenture.

But the Duke’s motives become increasingly more suspect when he and Xue barely survive an attack by a nightmarish monster, and when he whisks her away to his estate, she discovers he’s not just some country noble: He’s the Duke of Dreams, one of the divine rulers of the Celestial Realm. There she learns the Six Realms are on the brink of disaster, and incursions by demonic beasts are growing more frequent.

The Duke needs Xue’s help to unlock memories from her past that could hold the answers to how to stop the impending war... but first Xue will need to survive being the target of every monster and deity in the Six Realms.

Also by Judy I. Lin:
A Magic Steeped in Poison
A Venom Dark and Sweet

Zetian must balance dangerous politics with a new quest for vengeance in the sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Iron Widow, a blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction.
 
After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself at the seat of power in Huaxia. But she has also learned that her world is not as it seems, and revelations about an enemy more daunting than Zetian imagined forces her to share power with a dangerous man she cannot simply depose. Despite having vastly different ideas about how they must deconstruct the corrupt and misogynist system that plagues their country, Zetian must join this man in a dance of truth and lies and perform their roles to perfection in order to take down their common enemy, who seeks to control them as puppets while dangling one of Zetian’s loved ones as a hostage.
 
With political unrest and perilous forces aiming to undermine Zetian at every turn, can she enact positive changes as a fair and just ruler? Or will she be forced to rely on fear and violence and succumb to her darker instincts in her quest for vengeance? Find out in this highly-anticipated sequel to Iron Widow, a #1 New York Times bestseller!

From New York Times and Indie bestselling author Joan He, comes Sound the Gong, the dazzling and sweeping conclusion to The Kingdom of Three duology.

All her life, Zephyr has tried to rise above her humble origins as a no-name orphan. Now she is a god in a warrior’s body, and never has she felt more powerless.

The warlordess Xin Ren holds the Westlands, but her position is tenuous. In the north, the empress remains a puppet under Miasma’s thumb. In the south, the alliance with Cicada is in pieces.

Fate has a winner in mind for the three kingdoms, but Zephyr has no intentions of respecting it. She will pay any price to see Ren succeed—and she will make her enemies pay, especially the enigmatic Crow. What she’ll do when she finds out the truth. . . Only the heavens know.

Featuring gorgeous map art by Anna Frohmann and black-and-white portraits by Tida Kietsungden, Sound the Gong is the second book in Joan He's riveting Kindgom of Three duology.

The Shadowhunter Chronicles meets Chinese diaspora folklore in Darker by Four, the first in an epic contemporary fantasy duology from Jade Fire Gold author June Tan.

A vengeful girl. A hollow boy. A missing god.

Rui has one goal in mind--honing her magic to avenge her mother's death.

Yiran is the black sheep of an illustrious family. The world would be at his feet--had he been born with magic.

Nikai is a Reaper, serving the Fourth King of Hell. When his master disappears, the underworld begins to crumble...and the human world will be next if the King is not found.

When an accident causes Rui's power to transfer to Yiran, everything turns upside down. Without her magic, Rui has no tool for vengeance. With it, Yiran finally feels like he belongs. That is, until Rui discovers she might hold the key to the missing death god and strikes a dangerous bargain with another King.

As darkness takes over, three paths intersect in the shadows. And three lives bound by fate must rise against destiny before the barrier between worlds falls and all Hell breaks loose--literally.

Perfect for fans of This Savage Song and Only a Monster, Darker by Four will pull readers into a world of love and desperation and revenge--a world where every deal has a catch, no secret stays buried, and no one is exactly who they say they are.

Love is more complicated than “boy meets boy” in bestselling author Adib Khorram’s sharply funny new romantic comedy, set in the sordid world of high school theater

Jackson Ghasnavi is a lot of things—a techie, a smoothie afficionado, a totally not obsessive list-maker—but one thing he’s not is a romantic. And why would he be? He’s already had a front row seat to his parents’ divorce and picked up the pieces of his sister Jasmine’s broken heart one too many times.

No, Jackson is perfectly happy living life behind the scenes—he is a stage manager, after all—and keeping his romantic exploits limited to the breakup lists he makes for Jasmine, which chronicle every flaw (real or imagined) of her various and sundry exes.

Enter Liam: the senior swim captain turned leading man that neither of the Ghasnavi siblings stop thinking about. Not that Jackson has a crush, of course. Jasmine is already setting her sights on him and he’s probably—no, definitely—straight anyway.

So why does the idea of eventually writing a breakup list for him feel so impossible?

Fans of Chloe Gong and Judy I. Lin will devour this Korean-inspired Alice in Wonderland retelling about two very wicked girls, forever bonded by blood and betrayal . . .

In a world where Saints are monsters and Wonderland is the dark forest where they lurk, it's been five years since young witches and lovers Caro Rabbit and Iccadora Alice Sickle were both sentenced to that forest for a crime they didn't commit--and four years since they shattered one another's hearts, each willing to sacrifice the other for a chance at freedom.

Now, Caro is a successful royal Saint-harvester, living the high life in the glittering capital and pretending not to know of the twisted monster experiments that her beloved Red Queen hides deep in the bowels of the palace. But for Icca, the memory of Caro's betrayal has hardened her from timid girl to ruthless hunter. A hunter who will stop at nothing to exact her vengeance: On Caro. On the queen. On the throne itself.

But there's a secret about the Saints the Queen's been guarding, and a volatile magic at play even more dangerous to Icca and Caro than they are to each other...

Lush, terrifying, and uncanny, Zoe Hana Mikuta--author of Gearbreakers and Godslayers--takes a delicate knife straight through the heart of this beloved surrealist fairytale.

In this sequel to the New York Times bestselling, “pulse-pounding” (Publishers Weekly) A Door in the Dark, Ren’s intellect and cunning are stretched to the limit in her quest to take down the system that stole her father’s life.

Ren Monroe is a wolf among lions. After infiltrating one of the greatest Houses in Kathor through her successful bond with Theo Brood, she finds Theo’s father is two steps ahead. He exiles Theo and isolates Ren, strategically working to break her unwelcome grasp on his son—and foiling Ren’s first step to enacting the revenge she’s been planning her whole life.

Ren might have more resources than she’d ever imagined growing up, but she’ll still get nowhere without allies. Enter House Tin’Vori. Years ago, House Brood led an unprecedented raid to destroy a fellow House of Kathor. But a few siblings survived, and they haven’t forgotten the horrors waged against their family. Quietly, they’ve plotted their own revenge, waiting for the right moment to strike. And Ren Monroe might be their best chance.

Like fire, the Tin’Vori siblings are as dangerous as they are useful, both gifted in rare magics. Ren must decide how to unleash them against House Brood without hurting Theo in the process. Her feelings for Theo are growing past the boundaries of their bond, and Ren finds herself balanced on a knife’s edge, a breath away from immense power or utter ruin.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl comes a YA murder mystery noir set in 1930s Los Angeles’s Chinatown.

“A captivating and crackling noir full of suspenseful twists. Readers will fall in love with the Chow sisters and their quest for the truth.” —Kathleen Glasgow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces and The Agathas

LOS ANGELES, 1932: Lulu Wong, star of the silver screen and the pride of Chinatown, has a face known to practically everyone, especially the Chow sisters—May, Gemma, and Peony—Lulu’s former classmates and neighbors. So the girls instantly know it’s Lulu when they discover a body one morning in an out-of-the-way stable, far from the Beverly Hills home where she lived after her fame skyrocketed.

The sisters suspect Lulu’s death is the result of foul play, but the police don’t seem motivated to investigate. Even worse, there are signs that point to a cover-up, and powerful forces in the city want to frame the killing as evidence that Chinatown is a den of iniquity and crime, even more reason it should be demolished to make room for the construction of a new railway depot, Union Station.

Worried that neither the police nor the papers will treat Lulu fairly—no matter her fame and wealth—the sisters set out to solve their friend’s murder themselves, and maybe save their neighborhood in the bargain. But with Lulu’s killer still on the loose, the girls’ investigation just might put them square in the crosshairs of a cold-blooded murderer.

The stunning conclusion to the Ouroboros series, a contemporary fantasy duology in which a teen, Gem, finds out they’re a reincarnated god from another world.

That day at the First Church of Gracie changed everything for Gem Echols, and not just because Marian and Poppy betrayed them. Forced to use the Ouroboros knife on Zephyr, who had kidnapped their parents, Gem now has the power of the God of Air.

While for any other god things might work out okay, the Magician—whose role within the pantheon is to keep the balance—having the power of another god has thrown everything into chaos. The Goddess of Death can now reanimate corpses; the God of Art’s powers are now corrupted and twisted, giving life to his macabre creations; and, while the God of Land has always been able to communicate with creatures of the Earth, now everyone can hear their cries.

As Gem, Rory, and Enzo search for a way to restore the balance without sacrificing themselves, new horrors make them question how far they're willing to go. In the end, Gem may be forced to fully embrace their merciless nature and kill off their own humanity—if it ever really existed in the first place.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Every Day, this is a queer love story set against the backdrop of the 2024 presidential election, in a reimagining of David Levithan’s 2004 novel Wide Awake.

When David Levithan published Wide Awake in 2004, he set it in an imagined 2024, where a gay Jewish man had just been elected president of the United States, until a governor decides that some election results in his state are invalid, awarding crucial votes to the other candidate and his fellow party member. What follows is the story of teens Jimmy and Duncan as they explore their relationship, their politics, and their country.

In Wide Awake Now, David Levithan is flipping the script and rewriting Jimmy and Duncan’s story in the real 2024, rather than his imagined version. This is a protest novel for today.

Once again, David Levithan proves the critical importance of standing up for what you believe in and the cost of apathy in today’s political climate.

From acclaimed author Makiia Lucier, a dazzling, romantic fantasy inspired by Pacific Island mythology.

In the old tales, it is written that the egg of a seadragon, dragonfruit, holds within it the power to undo a person's greatest sorrow. But as with all things that offer hope when hope had gone, the tale came with a warning.

Every wish demands a price.

Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong.

Samahtitamahenele, Sam, is the last remaining prince of Tamarind. But he can never inherit the throne, for Tamarind is a matriarchal society. With his mother ill and his grandmother nearing the end of her reign. Sam is left with two choices: to marry, or to find a cure for the sickness that has plagued his mother for ten long years. When a childhood companion returns from exile, she brings with her something he has not felt in a very long time-hope.

But Hanalei and Sam are not the only ones searching for the dragonfruit. And as they battle enemies both near and far, there is another danger they cannot escape...that of the dragonfruit itself.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

"Powerful.... The excellent pacing and heart-wrenching exploration of redemption will sweep readers up." --Kirkus Reviews

"[A] page-turning, highly readable story." --Booklist

"Time-stamped chapters add urgency, intensity, and excitement as the thrilling plot progresses, making for a page-turning story about forgiveness and personal evolution." --Publishers Weekly

In this tour de force about one teen's quest for redemption from the award-winning author of American Road Trip, Antonio is determined to make amends to the people he hurt most--even if it means breaking the terms of his early release from juvenile detention.

It's Friday morning, and seventeen-year-old Antonio Sullivan is on the verge of earning his early release from Zephyr Woods Youth Detention Center. Having been incarcerated for the last year and a half for a crime he didn't directly commit, he's now dedicating himself to his education and his sobriety program. What's more, Antonio is driven by a deep need to make amends to the two people he hurt the most: his mom and his lifelong best friend, Maya. The conditions of his early release are clear--Antonio can't have any contact with his father or miss his first meeting with his parole officer Monday morning. But a lot can happen between Friday and Monday, especially when the odds are against you.

Told through time-stamped chapters that race at a fever pitch over the course of a weekend, this absorbing coming-of-age novel explores what it means to right past wrongs in the face of adversity.

PRAISE FOR NO GOING BACK

"Fast-paced, poignant, and poetic . . . This is a book of unexpected hope." --Sondra Soderborg, author of Sky Ropes

"A deep look into the heart of being misunderstood, told with prose you just can't fake. With honest voices, a flow of poetry, and a satisfying conclusion, this book is a gift with a purpose, the kind you hand to a reader that both wants and needs it." --Sean Beaudoin, author of Welcome Thieves and Wise Young Fool

"A gripping and heart-wrenching novel about family, friendship and second chances--will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end." --Betty Culley, author of Three Things I Know are True and The Name She Gave Me

"Poetry, resilience, unflinching honesty, a steady undercurrent of hope, plus a wild adventure with a ticking clock, this book packs it all in for a three-day turbulent ride that's full of heart." --Kristin Bartley Lenz, author of The Art of Holding On and Letting Go

"A powerful story of the push and pull between doing what's right and being there for the people we love." --Katherine Higgs-Coulthard, author of Junkyard Dogs and Hanging with My Peeps

"Patrick Flores-Scott delivers a beautiful exploration of familial love, the idea of healthy friendships, and the long-term impacts of trauma." --Rita Shah, author of The Meaning of Rehabilitation and Its Impact on Parole

In this epic conclusion to the Shamanborn trilogy, Sirscha must destroy the Dead Wood and defeat the Soulless before his magic consumes them all.

Queen Meilyr is dead, and a tenuous peace has settled over Evewyn. King Meilek's acension has ended his sister's oppression of the shamanborn, marking a new start for the country where Sirscha, once a prisoner, has been elevated to a position as the King's Shadow. Yet, beneath the surface, tensions between shamanborn and other citizens remain high. Conflicts rage at Evewyn's borders. The Soulless still lurks in the darkness. And while some might call Sirscha a hero for allegedly killing the Queen, to many she's a monster—a soulrender just like the Soulless. Sometimes Sirscha even believes that herself.

But Sirscha recognizes the Soulless as the world's common enemy, and she is determined to hunt him down to prevent yet another war. As the Soulless reemerges and both his power and the Dead Wood grow, Sirscha knows time is running short. She'll have to trust in her true friends—and her own power—if she hopes to end the Soulless's hold over the land for good.

But when defeating him requires a sacrifice too terrible to conceive, Sirscha will have to decide how far she's willing to go to save Evewyn.

From the author of the multimillion-copy bestselling A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series and Five Survive comes a gripping mystery thriller following one teen’s search for the truth about her mother’s shocking disappearance—and even more shocking reappearance—during the filming of a true crime documentary.Lights. Camera. Lies.   

Eighteen-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.  
 
But the case is dredged up from the past when the Price family agrees to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.
 
Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And—could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . . 
 
From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl’s search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.

New York Times bestsellers P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast return with Draw Down the Moon, the first book in a new duology set in a dark and magickal world filled with incredible danger and irresistible romance.

A mystical school. A mysterious death. A magickal romance.

Wren Nightingale isn’t supposed to have any elemental powers. Born of magickal parents but not under one of the four fated astrological full moons, she is destined for life as a Mundane—right up until she starts glowing on her eighteenth birthday. In a heartbeat, Wren’s life is turned upside down, and she’s suddenly leaving her home for the mystical Academia de la Luna—a secret magickal school on a hidden island off the Seattle coast.

Lee Young has always known about his future at the academy. He has three goals: pass the trials, impress the Moon Council, and uphold his family’s reputation. But he wasn’t expecting to be attending alongside the girl he’s been secretly in love with for as long as he can remember.

As Wren and Lee are thrown into the academy’s grueling trials, they quickly learn there’s something different—and dangerous—about the school this year. Wren will have to navigate a web of secrets, prophecies . . . and murder. And Lee will have to decide what to protect: his family’s legacy, or the girl he loves.