Author: Kelly Jensen

Maisie Rojas, 17, has spent her life inside the Q. The Q is a post-pandemic quarantine zone, where security walls seal off the perimeter. She is a lieutenant for one of the Q’s leading families.

Lennon Pierce is the son of a U.S. presidential candidate. Kidnapped by enemies of his father, he’s dropped into Q. While given a temporary antidote to the disease, if he’s not out within 48 hours, he’ll become infected and forced to remain within the city’s walls.

Maisie is responsible for getting Lennon out, and what begins is a compelling adventure full of danger and a clock counting down the time way too fast.

If you loved this star-studded author lineup’s Blackout, you’ll be wanting to grab this one ASAP.

12 teens are out to help a friend make a giant apology, but then, Atlanta is struck by a snowstorm. Will they be able to make it happen? This is a sweet winter romance told through several voices, perspectives, and, of course, packed with feelings.

This one is going to be short and sweet, y’all.

It’s a snow-covered kingdom.

Two rivals are secretly competing for the heart of the price.

Except…in the midst of their rivalry, they might be falling for one another.

A queer historical YA book about teens who choose a life outside the norms of their small-town? Yes please!

In 1904, Asta is against marrying Nils, to whom she’s been betrothed. Her parents believe she should feel lucky to be married, as she is partially deaf, has an odd appearance, and is strange. Asta wants instead to run away with her friends who are more like her and live as a performer in the village theater.

When Nils lashes out against one of Asta’s friends, she decides things are officially over. She and her two friends move to a secluded cabin and are determined to make their off-grid life work…by winning the annual horse race put on by their village. None of them have experience, but that doesn’t matter. Their determination and drive are going to help them plan their lives out exactly as they wish.

They’ll just have to avoid death.

The first in a new series that reimagines the Chinese classic story of the Three Kingdoms, we’re dropped into the year 414 during the Xin Dynasty. It is a time of chaos, with a puppet empress at the throne. The land has splintered into three different factions, and now, three warlordesses are itching to take control all for themselves.

Enter Zephyr.

Zephyr knows there’s no contest. She’s a strategist, a skill she’s developed after being orphaned and after studying under Xin Ren, a warlordess. Ren has loyalty to the empress only so much as it is strategic. When Zephyr infiltrates an enemy camp and meets an opposing strategist, she is taken aback. But in a world where everyone could be an enemy, is Zephyr setting herself and Ren up for disaster?

It’s 2019 and Raina is ready for the best summer of her life. But everything changes in an instant when ICE knocks at the door of her family’s Brooklyn apartment and takes her single mother away.

Alone with her brother, Raina has to figure out what to do and how to survive. She thought their asylum case was settled, but now, desperate for answers, she, her brother, and new friend Carlos, will take a road trip to find them.

It’s been a minute since I’ve read Hardinge, but she has been continuing to build a big, loyal fanbase in the U.S. (she’s had one in her native UK for a long time). This one is pitched as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea meets Frankenstein, and it follows in the years after all of the gods have destroyed themselves. Finding even a scrap of them can be worth a fortune, but few are brave enough to search the depths of the sea.

Fifteen year old Hark finds a still-beating heart of one of the gods and now needs to protect it with his life. This heart could be the way he saves his best friend. But when his best friend Jett touches the heart, he begins to transform. Now Hark has to decide whether to stay loyal to his friend, despite the weird changes he’s experiencing, or whether he needs to put an end to it.

This one is short and sweet: it’s a verse novelization of the Donner Party. I loved Wolf’s take on the Titanic in The Watch That Ends the Night, and this book does something similar in giving a multitude of voices and perspectives on a single historical event.

Sam Sakamoto lives in rural Washington and following the recent death of her mother, knows she has to put aside her dreams of becoming a photographer to focus on the family farm. Sam has to help ensure they can make payments on it and keep their livelihood safe.

What Sam doesn’t anticipate is the coming war. It’s December 1941 and Pearl Harbor has just been attacked. White Americans are turning their hatred toward Japanese Americans and, as much hope and promise as there seems to be between Sam and her neighbor Hiro — he wants to help her stoke her creative flames with photography — the real threat of Japanese incarceration camps may put those things even further out of reach.

This queer historical romance, set during the Swing Youth movement in World War II Berlin, follows Charlotte, a teen who would go anywhere Angelika would. That’s how she finds herself in an underground club the summer before the start of the war, dancing to jazz and swing music, both of which were not allowed (not to say anything of the queer club, of course).

Charlie knows she should keep this club and all of this dancing a secret, but she tells her friend Geri. Now, they’re going to the club over and over…despite the rise of the Nazi party and their dangerous rules.

Now, those swing dancers are ready to break even more rules. But how far will they go?

This might be the only book I can think of that tackles esports, despite esports being a huge thing.

By day, Emilia Romero is a field hockey star and incredible student. By night, she’s the only female member of a successful esports team. She keeps that part of her life on the down-low, since it can be a rough place to be a girl. When a major esports competition comes to her town, she decides it’s time to prove herself, both to her team and to the broader community of players.

One problem: a member of a rival team recognizes her. And that rival, Jake, has had a crush on her for a long time. Can they forge a real relationship and keep Emilia’s secret life safe? Or will there be consequences for their feelings?

This is a fabulous read alike to Eric Smith’s Don’t Read The Comments (and lol at their title similarities, even!).

Love the collision of romance, action, and magic? Then look no further.

Their world is on the brink of war, and Ahn — who is without a family or past — meets Altan — a lost heir — and the two of them see each other as an answer. Altan may be able to reclaim the throne while Ahn may be able to understand the power of the magical (and deadly) abilities.

There will, of course, be a price to pay in their quest for knowledge, for answers, and for power.

Tan’s stand alone fantasy has been pitched as Girls of Paper and Fire meets A Song of Wraiths and Ruin.

I am in the middle of this one right now, and I went in without any knowledge, other than I love Saedi’s writing. This is a pandemic book, but in a lot of ways…it’s very cathartic for me so far.

Parisa Naficy and Gabriela Gonzales are seniors and despite how different they are — Parisa is from a wealthy family and Gabriela’s moms can hardly make ends meet — they build a strong friendship. It’s them against the world.

But when a global pandemic hits and their entire lives are turned upside down, what do their futures look like?

This one is funny, it’s full of heart, and, like I said, surprisingly cathartic, despite how much I didn’t think I wanted to read a book about the pandemic.

Itching for a Rapunzel-inspired YA fantasy? This is it.

Selestra has been trapped in a tower for 16 years as she waits to take her mother’s place as the King’s Witch. The King’s Witch foretells death at the Festival Predictions and those who outrun the prediction get the chance to steal immortality from the King.

No one has had that chance yet, as everyone has failed to outrun their own death.

Nox is a soldier in the King’s army and he’s ready to take the King’s mortality, as well as kill his court. Nox is Selestra’s first prediction. But as soon as she touches Nox, death is out for both of them. Now they have to work together to outrun their fate.

I’m so glad to see the YA snake cover slither back in, too.

I love that Malinda’s mystery/thriller is getting a repackage following the huge success of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, though admittedly, the original cover for this book is fantastic. Alas, I suspect this might bring in some new readers who love books that look like this one.

Jess Wong is okay being a girl on the sidelines, always watching and observing. The most important thing to her is being best friends with Angie…even if Angie doesn’t quite pick up all of Jess’s cues. So when Angie begins falling for a girl at a local boarding school named Margot, Jess’s observational skills are heightened.

Angie keeps bringing Jess into her budding friendship with Margot, but Jess continues to resist. Something is wrong with Margot and her circle, but Angie keeps getting closer. When things take the turn Jess saw coming, it is Jess who will have to step in and crack open the secrets and darkness among the three of them.

Go to this one and stay for a twisty story of friendship…and maybe something more.

This one has been on my radar since it was announced and I’m so glad I could be reminded to pick it up sooner, rather than later, in its paperback edition.

A look at the complexities of love – the romantic kind, the familial kind, and the friendship kind – is at the center of the story of Gio, a bisexual teen navigating his father’s drinking habit and friends who seem to keep wanting him involved in their drama. Complicating his life more is his mother, who left him, his brother, and his father, when Gio was 9.

Gio’s mother is back now, and he’s not sure what to do. Does he forgive her? Does he ask questions?

….and then, there’s this boy Gio is starting to catch feelings for, too.

Because Lark wants to be a writer, they begin to build a social media following. Kasim, Lark’s former best friend, accidentally posts on Lark’s Twitter threat about deep and unrequited love for a secret crush and now, those tweets are the subject of school obsession. Who are they in reference to? Lark decides they’ll protect Kasim and claim those tweets were in reference to another classmate. . . but now, with the school and thousands of outsiders following and trying to unravel the truth behind those tweets, it might be bringing Lark and Kasim closer together. Can love ignite revolution?

Sharlot’s mother has caught her in a “compromising position” and decides the best solution is for them to head to her mother’s native Indonesia.

Meanwhile, George Clooney Tanuwijaya’s father–yes, he’s obsessed with American celebrities–is also trying to rein in his son. They are some of the wealthiest people in Indonesia and no way can anything mar the family’s reputation.

So when Sharlot’s mother and George’s father strike up conversation online, each pretending to be one another’s children, they think it’ll be so their children find the “right” kind of partner. But when the real Sharlot and George find out about what their parents are doing, they are horrified…and then maybe begin to actually fall for one another.

This one’s got fake dating, ridiculous parents, a romantic island adventure, and loads of humor.

There is something Not Great happening in Snakebite, Oregon, and when Logan arrives with her dads to town to film for their paranormal reality show, she’s feeling that sense of Not Great, too. No one in Snakebite is excited to be part of this show, but when the girl who has been haunted by her dead boyfriend’s ghost teams up with Logan to solve the mystery of what’s happening, a whole box of secrets about the town and its history opens.

Queer girls + ghosts + Riverdale vibes + paranormal investigator show? I’m all in.

Jenny’s coming back home to St Louis after visiting her grandparents in New York City, and she’s excited about her senior year. Too bad her plane went “missing,” and reappeared 25 years later. Now, Jenny’s missed everything in those 25 years and has to figure out a way to move forward to build a life she never anticipated.

Time travel to the future? This one sounds intriguing!