Author: Tirzah Price

Margot Murray has just broken up with her longtime girlfriend and isn’t feeling very festive this holiday season. In fact, the only thing she wants is to get away from her apartment and life and not think about her. So she agrees to do something mad: Pose as her new friend Ben’s girlfriend and go home with him for the holidays. His family owns a boutique hotel in the countryside, so it’s the perfect escape — and she’s a lesbian, so it’s not like she needs to worry about playing with Ben’s heart. Ben’s sister Ellie is home from abroad, itching to put down roots, and she wants to make a life for herself in the family business. The only problem? Her family thinks she’s flighty and rash, and she’s determined to prove them wrong this holiday season. Except, when her brother Ben brings home a girl who is clearly a gold digger who wants him for his money, she has to go about breaking them up.

This is a bonkers setup, but I was totally on board with the intriguing falling-for-your-fake-date’s-real-sister premise, and Samuels does a great job of creating a dreamy countryside getaway setting that I would definitely pack my bags to visit if it were real. This book leans heavily on mixed signals, misunderstandings, and other hijinks, and it’s a dual POV so it’s definitely funny (and occasionally cringe!) to read about how Margot selling her role as Ben’s boyfriend is just making Ellie even more suspicious and determined to expose her. I also enjoyed the supporting cast of characters, which include Ellie’s grandpa, her parents, a sister and nephews, and one very pregnant dog. This book does pack a bit of an emotional punch that I wasn’t expecting — partway through, it’s revealed that Margot’s ex, whom she loved very much, is actually emotionally abusive and manipulative, which Margot is in denial about. Ben and Ellie’s response to supporting Margot through this revelation, and giving her the tools she needs to process and space when she needs it felt very sweet and supportive, and serves as a nice way for Margot to discover what love is supposed to look like, especially as Margot tells Ellie the truth about the fake dating scheme and the women start meeting up secretly. Overall, this is a rather tame romance, but certainly sweet, and perfect if you enjoy Hallmark Christmas movies with a fabulous setting — but with a sapphic twist!

Bailey first meets Charlie while on a plane, flying solo to her new life in Omaha, where her mom has resettled after her parents’ divorce. He’s a fellow solo traveler and child of divorce, but the two do not hit it off — in fact, they spend the entire flight bickering and annoying each other. Bailey is happy to never see him again…but then they reconnect three years later as coworkers. Charlie is obnoxious and adamant that boys and girls can’t be friends. Bailey finds him annoying and wants to prove him wrong. When they bet on it — and make a few ill-advised wagers on friends and fellow coworkers — they inadvertently become conspirators as they set out to prove their points…but end up falling for each other along the way.

This is a rom-com that will genuinely make you laugh, and what I appreciate so much about Lynn Painter’s YA romances is that the characters feel believably like teens. They’re awkward and vulnerable at times; they wear glasses and braces, but they’re also very witty, and they get some really great swoony love stories. I enjoyed the dynamic between Bailey and Charlie a lot — Charlie is contrary but not obnoxious, and Bailey is uptight but able to let loose every now and then. They bring out the best in each other, and they have so much fun together they don’t realize that they’re falling until it’s already happened. They both have parental divorce trauma, and they find common ground in navigating life between households despite their apparent dislike for each other. I felt like this element really gave their characters a serious way to connect, and it will also be a lifeline to readers also dealing with that awkward dynamic. Sometimes the plot feels a little over the top, but always in a very good, fun way — moments feel like Taylor Swift verses come to life, and it’s easy for readers to get swept up in the fantasy of it all — but Painter doesn’t really push the bounds of believability, making for a fun escapist read that doesn’t require too much suspension of disbelief.

Pick this one up if you want to laugh and if you enjoy enemies to lovers! Bonus: The Do-Over by Painter is also excellent!

Catalina lives with her father and brother in the woods of Wisconsin. Life is hard for them, and it’s been especially hardscrabble since Mama died, and her father’s mind isn’t always rooted in the present. One day, a series of apples are left on their stoop, and Catalina’s father begins raving about poisoned apples. When he falls ill, he warns them about the Man of Sap…who appears soon after her father succumbs to his illness and steals Catalina’s brother away. Frightened and alone in the world, Catalina goes after this Man of Sap, determined to save her brother. Along the way, she encounters a lumberjack with his own reasons for wanting to find the Man of Sap and must rely on the stories passed down to her if she’s to survive the journey.

This is such a lovely, dark gem of a novel that infuses American folklore with a dark twist. It’s a slim volume at just over 200 pages, but each of those pages is so entrancing. Catalina has a poet’s soul and is inspired by the poetry beloved by her Mexican mother, but life has turned her hard out of necessity. As a result, she understands the darkness that lurks in the world and isn’t frightened by it, but she has to dig deep within herself to find the strength to face it. Her alliance with Paul, the lumberjack, is really lovely, and their slowly blossoming romance provides some sweetness to this darker story. Interspersed throughout the chapters are pages from the Man of Sap’s point of view, and readers learn that he is not the traditional villain and there’s so much more to this story than anyone thinks. This is a really satisfying read, and I enjoyed that it borrowed from 19th-century tall tales and folklore without ignoring the more problematic issues of American history.

In Paris, a girl named Marie-Laure loses her sight as a young child. Her father, who works for the Natural History Museum, spends hours building her a scale replica of their arrondissement so that she can learn how to navigate her way through the world. But as war with Germany looms, Marie-Laure and her father flee to Saint Malo with the museum’s most precious artifact. Meanwhile, in Germany, a young orphan named Werner and his sister tune into radio programs from France and envision a better future for themselves. At first, the war seems to offer opportunities…but at what cost?

The writing in this book is masterful. The chapters at the beginning appear at first like vignettes, giving us glimpses into the parallel lives of Marie-Laure and Werner and the very different and tragic directions that war takes them. It becomes evident that their paths will cross, and you just have to sit back and trust that you are in good hands with Doerr’s storytelling. The prose is lyrical and spare at times, but it conveys such tremendous emotion and the feeling of utter helplessness as everyone, no matter their nationality, is swept up in the madness of WWII. Doerr also creates tension by inserting interludes that tell of the destruction of Saint Malo in 1944, coaxing readers along on a suspenseful ride to the fateful day that Marie and Werner will finally meet. This book doesn’t have plot twists or gimmicks, but the characters are all richly portrayed, and the emotions are deeply felt, and you’ll find yourself racing to the end to see how it all comes together. I inhaled this book and found myself a captive audience as I waited to see how it would all turn out. This is a book that reminds us of humanity’s capacity for violence and hatred but also the capacity for love and goodness.

Ophelia is quiet, small, and peculiar. She can “read” any object she touches with her hands and know its extensive history, and she has the ability to pass through mirrors. She spends most of her days in her family’s museum of artifacts from before the world fractured, but when she learns that the matriarchs of her ark have agreed to arrange her marriage to a foreigner from another ark, her life is turned upside down. Sent away to the Pole, a frigid ark whose politics are deceptive and deadly, Ophelia isn’t thought much of by her icy new fiancé, Thorn. But he underestimates her…for Ophelia may look timid, but she’s not to be shoved into a corner.

The world-building in this book is truly remarkable, and the author throws the reader into it with little explanation or backstory, so one must read carefully to fully envision this strange world. If that’s not your preferred reading experience, I totally get it, but I do enjoy a good immersive fantasy experience, and the details were just interesting enough to pique my interest. I also liked that Ophelia is not your typical YA fantasy protagonist. She’s not outgoing, she’s not beautiful or even pretty, and she doesn’t have much in the way of physical strength. She also has zero interest in her new fiancé, but she does have a passion for her own unique abilities, and she has curiosity. This curiosity gets her in trouble…but it also saves her, too. The court intrigue that she is subjected to is dark, sometimes violent, and always very perilous as alliances are forged and broken, and you never quite know who to trust.

This is the first in a series, and I found myself absorbed by this strange world, the various odd characters within, and Ophelia’s quiet resilience. While the true motives and intentions of various characters take some time to emerge, by the end of the book, I promise you’ll be clamoring for the next volume. I’m not kidding when I say I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it in YA, and that alone makes it worth picking up if you enjoy fantasy!

Fun fact: This book was published in the U.S. by Europa Editions (you might know them as the U.S. publisher of Elena Ferrante), and it’s the first YA book they’ve brought to the U.S.!

Ife doesn’t like her new, posh boarding school, but when she wins a place and a chance to secure a sponsor to fund her education at university, she can’t refuse. But the people are stuck up, some fellow students seem out to get her, and a recent disappearance has Ife on edge. When one of her fellow Black students changes dramatically, Ife begins to wonder if the school’s urban legend about the Changing Man is true — and when she begins to probe at the mystery, what she finds is truly terrifying.

I was really intrigued by the setup of this book and the details that made the Changing Man so shiver-inducing. He comes at night, he has magenta eyes, and he leaves the smell of wet pavement wherever he goes. The menace of this story lingers in the background at first as Ife goes about her day, trying to keep her head up and not get ground down by the oppressive rules and classism that are rife at the school.

The more obvious horror of her day-to-day life is the unfair way she’s treated by the white teachers at her school and their contempt for her presence among them. Ife doesn’t always treat her fellow classmates the best in her desperate attempt to stay connected to her old life, and she seems oblivious to the ways that she shuts out another student, Bijal, also hoping for connection amidst the tough and pressurized academic setting. Her actions feel immature but realistic, and as she slowly becomes more aware of the danger of the Changing Man —who is very real but not at all what she imagines — Ife learns that the only way to survive at Nithercott is to embrace the friendships she’s been resisting.

This story has some tense moments and high stakes, and the Changing Man legend had some nice twists that I didn’t see coming. Definitely pick this one up if you want a dark academia read with a supernatural bent!

When Louise gets the news that her parents are killed in a car accident in her hometown, she’s devastated. She makes the long journey from San Francisco to Charleston in order to sort out her parents’ affairs, but she dreads the entire process. Most of all, she dreads seeing her brother Mark, who was coddled by her parents and never forced to grow up and take responsibility. Now, he’s a grown man who acts like a teenager, and Louise dreads having to take care of him, too. Then, settling their parents’ estate proves to be more complicated than they expect, and Louise is faced with the prospect of cleaning out a house stuffed to the rafters with her mother’s dolls, puppets, and deranged artwork. Dealing with Mark is the least of her worries because it’s becoming clear that there’s something inside the house that doesn’t want to leave.

I loved Louise’s character, and I think a lot of readers can relate to her—she’s grieving the loss of her parents, she’s upset and angry with her younger brother and his approach to the funeral and arrangements, and she’s at a loss as to how to help her young daughter process the loss. The last thing she needs is evidence that her parents’ house is haunted. The clues and signs are subtle at first, but as soon as Louise discovers what’s really going on in her parents’ house, things escalate dramatically and take some sharp and scary turns. Louise and Mark are forced to confront their childhood animosities, secrets, and half-buried memories and face the truth before it destroys them all. I love how Hendrix’s setups are always a bit weird and wacky but downright creepy, and this one is no exception. If you hate dolls, this storyline will give you nightmares! I also love how the horror of this book is wrapped up in shared experiences with siblings you don’t really relate to or understand, and Louise and Mark are forced to face the truth of a past they weren’t fully capable of comprehending at the time. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll shiver in terror—but you won’t want to miss this one!

Bonus: The audiobook narrated by Jay Aaseng and Mikhaila Aaseng is excellent!

Rory has a career, apartment, and fantastic life in New York City, but when her twin sister Scarlet calls and says she’s pregnant and alone, Rory leaves it all behind to be with her sister in their hometown until the birth. Returning to the place she gleefully left behind is a trip—but things get weird when Rory is in a car accident and winds up in the hospital after an animal attack. While she’s trying to recover and move past the bizarre event, she starts to notice changes in her body, and her wounds bleed silver. As the next full moon approaches, Rory starts to contemplate the impossible: Is she a werewolf now?

Out of all of Rachel Harrison’s books, this one might be my favorite because I absolutely adored the characters, and I found Rory to be a really relatable character, even if she doesn’t always make the best of choices. Her devotion to her twin is great, and I loved Rory and Scarlet’s banter and their steadfast but complex relationship. Rory may put on a free-wheeling front, but the reality is she’s afraid of romantic attachments, and while she’s devoted to her job and loves her sister, she doesn’t always find contentment in her life, and she’s got tons of issues with her mom. But her time in her hometown forces her to face these issues once and for all, including her anger about an incident of sexual harassment and assault when she was a young teen that no one fully believed in the moment. Rory’s transformation into a werewolf is an exploration of that anger and the helplessness women often feel about circumstances beyond their control, things that are done to them without their consent. But her story is far from sad. It’s a little dark, very funny, and pretty cathartic to read as Rory goes from reacting to taking control of her life and the unexpected changes she undergoes, and I was rooting for her all the way.

Bonus: The audiobook narrated by Kristen Sieh is excellent!

Evie lives with her Aunt Desdemona in the town of Blight Harbor, which is the seventh most haunted town in the country. She doesn’t mind ghosts—there are lots in Blight Harbor—and her aunt writes an advice column about supernatural issues. But when an old abattoir has Aunt Desdemona spooked, Evie is curious. And when an entity called the Clackity steals her aunt, Evie is forced to face a series of trials to confront the dangerous ghost of a serial killer in order to bring her aunt back.

I enjoyed the setting of Blight Harbor and Evie’s delightfully eccentric family and friends. The author does a good job of creating various creepy settings, from the old abattoir to the curious shadowy world that Evie finds herself venturing into, and the Clackity is a truly chilling monster. The mission that Evie must take on forces her to face her own tragic past—she lost her parents in a house fire, and their remains were never recovered. As she makes deals with supernatural entities and outwits monsters and ghosts, she begins to suspect that perhaps there is more to the fire and her parents aren’t really dead. Although that is a mystery that isn’t resolved in this book (don’t worry, there are sequels!), it provides a tantalizing backdrop to Evie’s journey to save her aunt, using her own unique skills and relying on some unexpected new friends, including a bird tattoo that can move across her skin. The book is a delicious mix of creepy and heartwarming, and it makes for perfect reading on a cold October night! Definitely pick it up if you’re looking for something to read that is evocative of Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

If you enjoy this one, make sure you look out for the sequel, The Nighthouse Keeper, out next week!

Cory, Maz, and Sam were the best of friends until the age of 12, when Sam disappeared, and Cory and Maz fell apart. Part of the reason for their friendship deteriorating? Maz was convinced that Sam wasn’t missing but that a pinball machine at the corner store sucked him in. Cory doesn’t believe them, and now it’s 1992, and they’re 17, going to different schools and not talking anymore. But one night, Sam comes back…only, he’s still 12. Maz and Cory must now face the unbelievable truth that Sam really did spend the last five years trapped in a nefarious pinball machine and hide Sam from their friends and family, all the while figuring out what to do about the pinball machine, which isn’t done with them yet.

Going by the cover alone, this book is clearly trying to evoke a Stranger Things vibe, and while it’s not a one-for-one comparison, there are definitely similarities. If you want a late ’80s/early ’90s setting (the book moves back and forth between before and after Sam goes missing and when he returns), and you like books that look at the various social groups in high school and how they deal with supernatural happenings, this book scratches that itch. It’s also more diverse than Stranger Things in its central characters — Cory is a closeted lesbian who is dealing with a crush on her best friend, Janet, and Maz is Iranian American.

Like I said at the outset, this book isn’t super scary, but it has some really good suspense and intrigue, and there’s a nice mystery wrapped up in the questions about the pinball machine and why it works the way it does. Without giving anything away, Farizan really ratchets up the tension and the danger alongside the emotional stakes for the characters, and I was definitely glued to the pages to see what would happen next! Come for the possessed pinball machine, stay for the nuanced take on friendships and how they change over time!