Author: Kelly Jensen

Someone is out there to get Devon–a talented musician who keeps to himself–and Chiamaka–head girl at the prestigious Niveus Private Academy. In this dark academia thriller, an anonymous text sender named Ace is threatening to share both of their deepest, darkest secrets. Think Gossip Girl meets Get Out.

It’s New Year’s Eve in 1929 New Orleans. Millie is in charge of her aunt’s speakeasy, where tonight, Marion–the boy in the red dress–is performing. A photo of Marion surfaces from a party attendee who begins asking some questions and while Millie writes it off, she can’t when that person’s body is found after what looks like a fall from the club’s balcony. People begin to point the finger at Marion but Millie knows he’s innocent and sets out to find the true killer.

Georgia wants to know why Todd died. Todd’s ghost is still around and questioning all of the choices he made in his life that led him to his untimely death. Even though Georgia never knew him, she becomes obsessed with him and what happened. . . .and she begins to wonder if she knows something she was not supposed to know about him.

Maude plans to fake her own death next week for many reasons, including as a way to get back at her terrible parents. But more, she’s eager to start over again fresh. Those plans go to ruin, though, when Frankie, Maude’s step cousin, finds out about her plan.

Frankie doesn’t plan to rat Maude out though. Frankie plans to join her.

Last summer, the Catalog Killer ravaged the small town of Camera Cove, killing four people before disappearing. One of those killed was Connor, Mac’s best friend. Mac wants this summer to be a new start, a way to shake off what happened a year ago. But when he finds a message from Connor, Mac is sucked back in and determined to find out who the Catalog Killer is. It may not be a random person after all.

Jess is Angie’s best friend. Maybe more. Angie isn’t tuned into that, though, and when Angie starts to fall for Margot, a girl from a neighboring boarding school, Jess sees something wrong coming from a mile away. But as Angie brings Jess and Margot closer–unwillingly, maybe–Jess knows there are secrets that will unravel the relationship and change Angie’s life forever. Lo is skilled at weaving together a complex thriller, where sexuality, race, and class all intertwine and for readers who love a cast of unlikable characters, this is a treat.

It wasn’t the bad SAT scores that ruined Connor’s summer. It wasn’t that the old man he used to deliver meals to died. It was being kidnapped after coming out to his mother and being sent to a conversion camp. Until he changes, Connor will live on the secluded island camp called Nightlight Ministries.

It becomes pretty clear early on that this camp is not what it seems, and it seems pretty bad. No one is safe here. Connor plans to escape, bring fellow campers along with him, and expose the Ministry for what it really is.

Verónica, who is Peruvian-American, wants to become a professional mermaid. But there are a few hurdles to overcome on the way to that dream. First, her overly protective parents. The next is her painful hip dysplasia.

Quinn makes lists for everything, so when her journal of lists gets into the wrong hands and the person holding it hostage posts a list to Instagram with a threat to release more if she doesn’t face seven of her greatest fears, she acts. She doesn’t know who to trust, but she teams up with the person she knew had her journal last. Carter helps Quinn face those fears in a race against time. This is a romance so you know things get Complicated With Carter, too.

Even though she’s always been curious about her Korean heritage, Melody was not prepared to be uprooted from her NYC home following a small school transgression. She and her mom are moving to Seoul to join her father and Melody doesn’t get the chance to say her goodbyes.

The good news is once she arrives in Seoul, it’s amazing. That is…until it isn’t. Now Melody has to figure out how to make the best of her situation, how to understand the challenges her family is dealing with, and what she wants from that relationship with a cute boy she’s met.

This one is at the top of my TBR, as I’ve heard it called the queer take on Paper Towns.

Chloe has spent the past four years making the best of things at her Alabama Christian High School. Now she’s got her sights on valedictorian. The problem is her fierce rival Shara Wheeler. So when Shara kisses Chloe a month before graduation and vanishes, she leaves a trail of clues that Chloe is determined to follow. She wants to beat Shara, but it may be Shara has beaten her at a whole different game.

In 1989 Romania, despite communist regimes falling across the continent, freedom in Romania is still hard to come by. Cristian Florescu dreams of being a writer, but when the dictator’s secret police force him to become an informer, he decides that he’ll use this lot to instead work to undermine the authoritarian regime.

Spies, lies, and a host of little-known history come together in another knockout from Sepetys.

Ellie and Stella are sisters who are one year apart but worlds apart in terms of personality. One thing they have in common, besides having a talent for cross country running, is they’re not eager about the new girl who has come to town.

But both girls begin to drift toward Mila, despite themselves. They want to be friendly but not too friendly…just enough to ensure they stay one step ahead of her when it comes to running.

But when Mila goes for a run and never comes back, everyone believes the sisters had something to do with her disappearance.

Told in 14 voices, this is a verse novel based on the true story of the final group of enslaved Africans brought to America. When the Civil War ended, the survivors created their own community called African Town. This is their story through those years and experiences.

Eliza is passionate about fighting climate change. Five years ago, a hurricane impacted her and her community in New Jersey, and since, she’s been passionate about protecting an area of marshland locally–it’s been slated to be turned into buildable lots.

Then Eliza meets Milo and much as she wants to hate him, since he’s the kind of rich tourist turning her community upside down, she begins to learn he’s got deep, Earth-shattering secrets.

A Heart in a Body in the World meets All the Rage in this verse novel about generations of women in the Dovewick family who’ve shoved down their experiences, thoughts, and realities into a series of journals that have then been passed down again and again. It is Mimi, our 2022 entry, who works to break the cycle.

This book dives into sexual abuse and high-profile #metoo allegations and the impact that has on the survivors and their families. Even deeper, though, is how stories like these have played out in every generation, wherein women are told to be one thing, pinned to a photo of that image, and are unable to break outside those lines for fear of what may or may not happen if they do.

Aaron and Oliver have always been close. Their small, rural town didn’t allow them to meet many other queer young people, and they’ve shared numerous milestones together as trans teens. When Aaron moves away, the pair are rocked and challenged, but they find solace in seeking out stories of American heroes of the past they believed to be queer. It’s through reclaiming the stories of the past that Aaron and Oliver — their adopted names — are able to better understand themselves and relationship to one another.

Set in 1930s Berlin, this novel follows Hilde, who, at 18, is trying to find a job. She takes one at a cabaret as a dancer, where she meets Rosa, another waitress and performer. It’s not a safe time to be queer, but even amid burgeoning war and protest, Hilde wrestles with owning who she is and who she truly loves.

Culley’s next novel is a moving story about a girl named Rynn. She knows she is adopted and even though her records are closed until she turns 18, she decides to seek out her birth mother. Her birth mother may no longer be alive, but when Rynn discovers she has a biological sister in foster care, she wants to reconnect. But that reconnection may cost her her adoptive family.

Set over a single day, Woodfolk’s first novel in verse is a story about queer love, passion, and about how the past and present braid themselves together.

Mack, who is 15, is a romantic. He’s over the moon when long-time crush Karim becomes his boyfriend, but when Mack’s father’s new job forces him to move to another country, Karim makes no effort to keep their relationship alive. Then Mack meets Finlay and starts to fall…and now he doesn’t know if, where, or how to tell Karim.

Poetry, prose, and vignettes tell Angel’s story in Browne’s sophomore novel. Angel’s prior relationship with Darius felt like it was solid, but then the incident happened. No longer was Angel in California but in a new home in Brooklyn. She believes every one in her school knows what happens, but she finds tremendous solace–and healing–in the poetry and novels of powerful Black writers in her literature class.

Ten years ago, Connor and his family moved into Amity. Ten years ago, the house started scaring Connor, convincing him of things that may or may not have been happening. Convincing him that he needed to act upon an impulse. One that led to terrible consequences.

Now, Gwen and her family have just moved into Amity. Immediately, weird things begin happening, and Gwen starts to feel like the house is haunted. She’s visited by Annie — and it’s Annie who convinces her to act upon some impulses she’s getting from Amity. It’s Annie that ties Connor to Gwen across those ten years.

Ostow’s novel is a fun, bloody, and creepy horror romp. It fits the bill for readers who love their horror with a side of exploration of whether it’s the thing at hand or something internal, and while readers who know Amityville Horror will find a whole new layer to the story here, no background is necessary to enjoy Ostow’s book.

Readers who love Supernatural will get many of the same flavors with Blake’s debut novel, which follows Cas, a teen who has an unusual career: he kills the dead. Cas’s father was killed doing this job, so he’s especially determined to keep the family business going. With his kitchen witch mom and his magical cat, he travels the country seeking out local lore and legends to put an end to the creatures who will not stay dead.

When Cas meets Anna Dressed in Blood, he’s ready to do what he usually does. Except Anna, who was murdered in 1958 and seeks vengeance on anyone who steps into the abandoned home where she’s residing, chooses to spare Cas of her wrath.

Now, he’s got more questions than he does answers and doesn’t know if he can do the job with which he’s tasked.

If southern gothic is your jam, don’t miss this duology from Parker.

On a terribly sticky morning in June, Sterling and her brother Phin have a huge argument. In response, Phin runs down to the town swamp and he doesn’t return. The town of Sticks, Louisiana, has always believed the swamp to be dangerous and mysterious. But though Phin doesn’t return, someone does emerge from the swamp: Lenora May.

It seems no one can remember Phin in town, as if his disappearance meant never existing at all, and Sterling is determined to find out what happened to him and how his vanishing is related to Lenora May.

Margot is rescued from a home for orphaned children by a friend of her now-deceased father. Now, she’s to take on the role as companion for Agatha, the family’s daughter who is weak, sick, and kept in a nursery room for constant care. It’s not ideal, but Margot knows she’s lucky to be here, even if it means dealing with the creepy old house, the mysterious words appearing in her sleeping area, all of the rooms she’s not to be in…

It’s Laura, the mother, who is especially suspicious, regularly wanting to talk to Margot about how things are going in a way Margot doesn’t trust. And she’s right for not trusting: Laura’s stories don’t add up, and every new thing Margot discovers only further paints a picture of a woman creating a web of lies about who she is, about what happened to Agatha, and about what the future might hold for Margot.

A delicious modern gothic, the hints here aren’t meant to lead to a huge twist ending. If you’ve read a book with these elements, you know what’ll happen, but it’s a fun, satisfying ride.

Looking for a loose retelling of Rebecca set at a boarding school? Baer’s debut is going to be your jam.

Leena and her friends are eager for their senior year at boarding school. They’ve signed up to live together in Frost House, a Victorian dorm just off campus which promises them freedom. But an unexpected roommate joins them, and the girl, Celeste, brings with her a lot of trouble. Leena feels unsafe around her, especially as Celeste continues to blame Leena and her other roommates for the strange goings-on, including…bug infestations, a creepy owl figurine, frames falling off walls, moving furniture, and more.

As Leena begins to become romantically linked to Celeste’s brother, she’s finding old childhood fears reawakening as things go from bad to worse with her roommate. This creepy, twisty book has a surprise and satisfying ending, though the entire ride is a treat for gothic horror fans.

Jane North-Robinson and her mom leave California after the death of her father and head to her mother’s old, falling apart home in Maine. They’re looking for a fresh start, but North Manor isn’t interested in offering that to them. Instead, Jane and her mother struggle with new relationships, as well as those which emerge as a result of the memories locked in the old home.

Then Jane discovers the room her mother has kept locked that she’s called a “storage room” is anything but. It’s a little girl’s room and though it looks empty, it’s not.

Set during the Spanish influenza, Winters’s debut novel includes archival photographs to add even more atmosphere to the already-chilling story.

Mary Shelly Black, 16, has watched scores of mourners turn to seances and spirit photographers for comfort in the wake of devastating loss from the pandemic and World War I. She’s never been one to believe in the supernatural, when Mary’s first love, who died during a battle, shows up as a spirit, she begins to question what it is she truly believes.

Pair this read with Libba Bray’s The Diviners for a deep dive into the ways spiritualists of the era worked to allay grief, loss, and conjure magic for the bereaved.

Violeta Graceling — Leta — arrives at Lakesedge estate prepared to find a monster in Rowan, who, rumor has it, drowned his entire family. Leta soon discovers neither Lakesedge nor Rowan are what they’ve been built to be. She begins to fall quickly for Rowan, but soon discovers his allegiance to a sinister death god residing in the lake on the estate. Now Leta is drawn to that death god and must unpack the dark truth of her past, as well as her connection to the death god, in order to save herself and Rowan.

The first rule of any horror movie or book is, if you’re with company, don’t separate. Stick together.

After accepting a ride home from a stranger, Sam and best friend Lloyd are trapped, separated, and desperate to find their way out of the remote estate to which they’ve been delivered. Their lives are in danger as the man with them is out for blood.

This compelling and creepy graphic novel is Jane Eyre meets The Secret Garden set in 1982 and 2017, following Ella, who works to unravel the mystery of the ghost named Mary who haunts the abandoned Thornhill Institute for Children.

Ella’s story is told as a graphic novel as she works to understand Mary’s story of abuse and bullying within Thornhill while Mary’s story is told in diary entries, offering insight to both readers and Ella about the conditions under which she lived.

The art is chilling and evocative, and the story includes the best of all things gothic YA: creep dolls, an abandoned institute for orphaned children, ghosts, and a range of other delicious trope-y goodness.

One of the frustrating trends in marketing has been the use of Get Out as a comp for any thriller or horror book by a Black author. But in the case of that comp for Jackson’s first horror novel, it’s absolutely spot on, as this is a gothic read packed with social commentary.

Mari, our main character, is prickly, imperfect, and has a dark history, including intrusive thoughts and severe anxiety. When she and her blended family move to a new home in an area being redeveloped — modeled after Detroit — it’s a chance for her mother to pursue her dream and for them as a family to get a new, fresh, and exciting start. Except, there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the house, as well as in the community. No one seems to live around them. All of the houses seem to be haunted. Their own house is definitely Not Right. What’s the deal?

Jackson is deft in her exploration of mass incarceration and in gentrification. Her character development is outstanding, and the way these two things weave together works so well. The creepy nature of the new house and the community’s residents only heighten the story’s gothic atmosphere.

This Ethiopian-inspired debut novel is a YA retelling of Jane Eyre, following Andromeda, a debtera. Debteras are exorcists who cleanse the homes of Evil Eyes, and Andromeda has been hired by Magnus Rochester for a job. But…it’s not like any job she’s done before, and chances are she herself may not survive what is happening in his household. And yet, Andromeda also knows she can’t leave Magnus to deal with his curse on his own, either.

We often limit our idea of gothic to horror or, as noted earlier, to an aspect of romance. What Blackwood does in this book is offer even more opportunity for the gothic to work across genres, as she applies the aspects of gothic storytelling to fantasy and bonus: this isn’t grounded in the traditional, Euro- or American-centric locations of gothic storytelling.

This graphic novel translated from Spanish follows 19-year-old Andrea, an Indigenous Colombian, as she travels back to her native home after losing a child. But along with the child, she comes with a hidden camera and an agenda: she wants proof that illegal mining is what displaced her family so she can work toward reclaiming what’s rightly theirs.

Translated from Japanese, the novel follows 17-year-old Ginny Park who is close to being expelled from school. She lives in Oregon with a picture book author named Stephanie; Ginny ended up there when she’d been expelled from her last school in Hawaii.

What unravels is a story of how Ginny got to where she is, all thanks to a note she found scrawled on one of Stephanie’s works. It’s a book about Ginny being born ethnic Korean in Japan and always existing in some “in between” space.

The book is inspired by Chesil’s own childhood.

Originally published in The Netherlands in 1999, this queer love story follows Tycho, who has been mostly skating by in life. He decides it’s time for a change and chooses to spend a summer in America as a counselor for summer camp for international kids. Then he meets Oliver, who is from Norway, and sparks fly.

Itching for a historical feminist adventure? Look no further.

18-year-old Constance isn’t a rule-follower. But she doesn’t have a whole lot of choice in being married off–it’s the early 1800s, she’s a girl, and that’s the option.

Rather than fight the arrangement, though, Constance is going to do something bold. Four months into the marriage to a man twice her age, she sneaks out of the house wearing his clothes and meets up with a boy who has just been drafted. When she approaches him, she offers to take his place, and onward she goes into battle.

This book is translated from Dutch.

Translated from Arabic, this story is one for younger YA readers and upper middle grade fans. The story follows Noor, a young Palestinian girl, who must travel back through time with the help of a djinn cat to collect four feathers. This journey is vital–it’s the only way to save the world.

Imagine that a volcanic eruption will put an end to life on Earth as we know it and several of the biggest, brightest, most well-funded people across the world are building a space fleet so humanity can escape. Now imagine that their children are given the opportunity to tour this fleet and said volcano erupts early, leaving these teens as the sole survivors as they travel through space. At what point do they choose to continue the mission or do they work to save humanity?

I don’t know about you, but end-of-the-world stories paired with space stories do it for me–see We Are The Ants by Sean David Hutchinson. Redgate is a fascinating, genre-pushing YA writer and I cannot wait to read this.

It’s possible there is a survival theme here, as Panitch’s latest YA book is pitched as Dry meets Hatchet.

Zara escaped her father’s survivalist home, only to find herself–and humanity–cut off from electricity due to a malware attack. Now she’s completely on her own and has to tap into the skills she so desperately wished to forget from her home life. . . and, as it turns out, make her way back to the compound.

More survival? Yes.

Milo’s gotten through high school without much catastrophe, but that’s about to change now that Marcus, whose been absent from Milo’s life for three years, is back. Worse, Marcus’s return brought with it natural disasters, including blackouts, sink holes, and more.

The more Milo confronts his feelings about Marcus, the more Mother Nature seems to respond and not in kindness. Is their love literally doomed?

Ashley Woodfolk is writing incredible realistic fiction in YA, and I cannot wait to see how she uses verse to continue her storytelling. This sett-in-a-single-day story is about queer love, passion, and about the ways the past braids itself into the present.

I’m cheating a little because I read this book already but I want to make sure other YA readers have it on their radar.

Last year, the reigning Scrabble champion dropped dead during the start of the competition. This year, Najwa returns to that competition determined to not only find out what happened to her best friend, but to also show her Scrabble playing skills. Dig into twisty, sometimes toxic, friendships, a clever and imperfect main character, and tremendous word nerdery.

An illustrated YA nonfiction book about animal sexuality? Yes, please!

This witty book weaves science, anthropology, and sociology with illustrations to showcase how animals across the world display a spectrum of sexualities. It is a book about human sexuality and how diverse sexuality isn’t limited to one species. It’s natural.