The long-standing peace between the three kingdoms Auranos, Paelsia and Limeros is coming to an end. Two cruel despots capitalize on the murder of a poor Paelsian boy and form a treacherous alliance. At the center of the conflict are the royal descendents and rebellious youth of the three kingdoms.

Sixteen-year-old Princess Cleo of Auranos has lived a sheltered and frivolous life. She is second in line to the throne behind her much more responsible sister, but when her sister falls ill, Cleo enters into enemy territory, desperate to locate a cure. Eighteen-year-old Prince Magnus of Limeros doubts he has the stomach to rule like his cruel father. Protective of his sister, he harbors a disturbing secret that could be his undoing. At the start of it all is Jonas Agallon, a Paelsian peasant who seeks vengeance for his brother’s murder—but those he’s chosen to align himself with might be more dangerous than the one he’s after. Meanwhile, a powerful, dormant magic has reawakened. In the wrong hands, it could destroy everything. When battle lines are drawn, the kingdoms may be no longer.

The first in a planned quartet, Falling Kingdoms is a superbly written and character-driven narrative told from the viewpoints of several young people who are desperate to find their purposes within their respective kingdoms. Each character is complex and conflicted, making them largely sympathetic. It’s hard to know who to root for and who to root against. This is a perfect novel for fans of Game of Thrones and Graceling, but just as engaging for those who don’t typically read fantasy. Themes of belonging, honor and duty will resonate with everyone.

By the time Greer Cannon is shipped off to rehab at McCracken Hill, her family views her as beyond redemption. Busted for shoplifting, she’s also juggling disordered appetites for both food and sex. Living under constant supervision is hell until she meets Addison, whose magnetic personality opens new worlds to Greer. Addison’s Narcotics Anonymous sponsor Joshua comes into their social circle, and that's when things go frighteningly haywire.

The Believing Game is notably believable, and that makes it very scary. Joshua uses his race (he's African-American) and age to subdue a group of deeply damaged kids into not questioning his behavior; to do so would be racist by implication. The only black kid in their group immediately calls him on his nonsense and is ostracized for it. Instead of making Joshua’s evil more evident, this forces a closer bond between the remaining kids until events spiral out of control.

Eireann Corrigan brings this story to life with an eye for detail and a precise ear for language. When Addison’s temper flares, Greer observes his voice “had a serrated edge.” And Greer is immensely likable. Despite a messed-up childhood, her narration is filled with quick wit and biting observations. Joshua’s promotion of an awkward girl to a position of power sets Greer off: “She could not have served as the ambassador to a ham sandwich, let alone help inspire a world revolution.”

The Believing Game is a knockout horror story, but it should also inspire discussion about race, faith, family and the cult of personality.

Venom is book one in Fiona Paul’s intriguing new series, Secrets of the Eternal Rose, set in Venice at the end of the Renaissance. As the book opens, Cassandra Caravello is attending the funeral of Liviana, one of her oldest friends. Death is no stranger to Cass. Since her parents died, she has been living on tiny San Domenico Island with her aunt, Agnese. Agnese keeps Cass close to home, rarely allowing her to travel to the Rialto, Venice’s commercial center. Cass chafes against the restrictions and the thought of a boring, predictable future with Luca, her fiancé. Luca is studying abroad, and Cass hasn’t even seen him for three years. Writing in her journal and wandering the graveyard at night are about as exciting as her life gets.

But Cass gets more adventure than even she can imagine. On the night of Liviana’s funeral, she makes a gruesome discovery: Liviana’s body has been stolen, replaced by the mutilated corpse of a young girl. While the culprits are nowhere to be found, Cass does meet the mysterious, attractive Falco, a young art student who challenges her to solve the mystery with him.

Soon Cassandra finds herself leading a double life—dutiful young contessa by day, fearless investigator by night. With Falco by her side, Cass goes beyond what is expected for a girl of her station, exploring the dark streets and secrets of Venice in search of the killer. But what about Falco himself? Cass is attracted by his bold impudence and his infectious charm—yet even Falco is keeping secrets from her. And when her fiancé returns, Cass must face a difficult choice.

Venom is a heady combination of romance and intrigue (with some luscious descriptions of Venetian gowns thrown in for good measure). By the end, teen readers will be craving Cassandra’s journey to continue in the next volume of what promises to be a popular YA series set in an unusual and fascinating setting.

In the near-distant future, a catastrophic, Earth-changing event called the Darkness has left the planet without trees. In their place are GenTech’s genetically engineered cornstalks, with each kernel imprinted with the company’s logo. Oh, yeah—and nearly indestructible killer locusts that make their homes in these cornstalks.

Ever since his father was taken a year ago, Banyan has been finding work as a tree builder where he can. Hoarders with enough assets and memories hire Banyan to transform scrap metal and running lights into tree-like sculptures. At his latest job, the violent landowner’s stepdaughter, an inquisitive photographer named Zee, shows Banyan a strange photo. Chained to trees—real trees—is his missing father. Using the photo as inspiration, and a cryptic tattoo on Zee’s mother’s body as a guide, Banyan sets out to find his father and glimpse living trees for the first time.

Nothing’s easy in this atmospheric story. A bleak, desolate land filled with outlaw poachers recalls the Old West, and sudden dust storms exacerbate symptoms of lung crust. But romance is possible when he runs into tough, leggy Alpha and her roving band of road pirates. And a meeting with an old Rasta with bark embedded in his skin and mumblings of Zion provide the teen with more clues along his quest.

Finding his roots is far from a happy homecoming, especially when Banyan discovers the actual source of the trees. While dystopian novels proliferate in young adult literature, Rootless stands out for its world-building that skillfully blends the familiar, such as the walled city of Old Orleans, with a disturbing premise of a treeless, authoritarian society. Banyan offers a seed of hope in this barren land, but fans will have to wait for the sequel to see it realized.

Rachel's older brother Micah has gone missing. She's been keeping his secrets for so long that telling her parents about his drug addiction now seems beside the point. When a stranger sends her an email, warning her that her brother’s in danger, Rachel asks Micah's friend and bandmate Tyler for help. They set out to search for him, finding clues and complications along the way.

Out of Reach is author Carrie Arcos' first novel, and she bravely turns conventional expectations upside-down. Rachel and Tyler search for Micah but also get distracted by crushing on each other. We meet Micah through flashbacks and can see how Rachel's guilt stems from how close the brother and sister once were before drugs and deception pulled them apart. Despite pulling no punches about the destruction caused by meth addiction, Arcos never reduces characters to caricature; there's humanity under every surface story.

The journey is the destination in this novel, and it's full of grimy Southern California coastal towns, surfers, drug dealers and gang-bangers. Arcos uses details to sketch Micah's life, as when Rachel finds a room where he'd been staying: “I sat down on the bed and opened the bag, dumping the contents onto the floor: a pair of jeans, three socks, a guitar pick, a black cap, a broken pair of sunglasses, and The Hobbit. Of all my books, he'd stolen that one. I hadn't even noticed.”

Some readers may wish for a neater conclusion, but the open-ended resolution feels like a new beginning for Rachel. Out of Reach is unconventional, edgy and raw, and a fine first novel.

Famine, disease and old age have been completely eliminated in Arras. Weather is carefully balanced, resources are rationed and neighborhoods are segregated by gender to enforce purity standards. When teens reach their 16th year, courtship appointments are made and lifetime work assignments are distributed. Most girls are assigned roles as teachers, nurses or secretaries—all except the few who show talent in weaving space and time. These few are sent to the four Coventries to become the Spinsters who, together with the ruling Guild, create and maintain the fabric that holds Arras together.

When Adelice is taken to the Western Coventry for Spinster training, she knows that life as a Spinster won’t always be about the fancy parties and glamorous gowns that she’s been told Spinsters enjoy. She also knows that Spinsters cannot marry or have any loyalties outside their work, including maintaining ongoing ties with their families. But she doesn’t know how rare her own talent is—Adelice can see and manipulate the fabric around her even without a loom—or what dark secrets underlie the seemingly perfect lives of her people.

Especially since the success of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, stories about teen characters who first live in and then rebel against totalitarian regimes have become an increasingly popular theme in contemporary young adult literature. But readers expecting a standard dystopian narrative are in for a pleasant surprise: Crewel, the first part of a planned trilogy, both reflects the prevailing norms of its genre and seeks to broaden them, creating a world that invites readers to think critically about love, friendship and the nature of reality itself.

Wren Wells had her future all planned out. After an internship with an art magazine at the end of her senior year of high school, she’d be off to Amherst in the fall, ready to make new friends and study both photography and medicine. But when an argument with her boyfriend ends with his death in a car accident, everything changes. Leaving behind an overprotective mother and a frustrated best friend, Wren goes to live with her artist father in the woods of Maine, where she spends her days sleeping, running or anything else that won't interfere with her desperate need to be empty and numb.

One day she meets Cal, who’s taking time off from college as he battles the same multiple sclerosis that killed his mother. Forming a new relationship, with new possibilities for hurt and anguish, is exactly what Wren doesn’t want. But Cal needs Wren as much as Wren needs Cal, and slowly—with the encouragement of the various students and artists who surround her father—Wren begins to reach outside herself again. At the same time, she starts to think about her future in new ways. Which parts of her plans were really what she wanted, and which were based only on her mother's expectations? How can she wish for love and connection, when she's seen where such wishes inevitably lead?

First-time novelist Amy McNamara wrote Lovely, Dark and Deep after the unexpected death of someone she loved. Her depictions of grief, depression and healing, set against a backdrop of the snow-covered Maine woods, make this a powerful book that's not to be missed.

Time Between Us, Tamara Ireland Stone’s thrilling debut novel, features a determined 16-year-old Anna Greene, who rarely leaves her Chicago suburb. A Time Traveler’s Wife for young adults, it’s set in 1995 with Anna reveling in the lyrics of Green Day and Phish and dreaming of journeying around the world. When quiet and enigmatic new student Bennett Cooper arrives, she just may get more than she ever imagined. He comes from far away—in more ways than one. Bennett’s not only from San Francisco, but he was born in 1995 and presently is living in 2012.

Forced to tell Anna his secret ability, he also reveals that he has come back in time to correct a time-traveling mistake he caused. But just how he time travels, the parameters of his travel and why another version of Bennett suddenly appears all remain mysteries to be solved as the teens explore his gift—and each other. At first, time travel seems idyllic, allowing them to skip class or explore a secluded tropical island in the middle of winter, but when Anna’s best friend ends up in the hospital, they must test the limits of Bennett’s ability and morality.

Just as time travel allows Anna to see life beyond Illinois, her grounded, loving family with deep roots in the community shows loner Bennett a world that doesn’t exist on a map. When their love separated by time takes its toll on the couple, however, Anna must decide between two futures (or is it pasts?). Even in the name of love, the resilient teen must also find self-reliance. This quick-paced romance allows readers to explore the possibilities when time and love have no limits.

Set in the dark jungles of Congo, Endangered chronicles 14-year-old Sophie’s accidental mission to save a group of bonobos when the country is overtaken by civil war.

When she arrives in Congo for the summer, Sophie feels unenthusiastic about the mandatory visit to her mother’s bonobo sanctuary. But when she saves a near-death young bonobo from the streets, she becomes an adoptive mother to the ape, called Otto.

When a minor government upheaval turns into a war, Sophie and Otto are forced to take refuge in the jungle with the bonobo pack. Bonobos are quite possibly our closest relative in the animal kingdom, and unlike chimpanzees, they form close-knit, protective family groups. Nevertheless, gaining acceptance isn’t easy for Sophie and Otto, and they soon discover the jungle provides little protection from bullets. Sophie’s only hope is to seek the safety of the bonobo release site on the other side of the country. With Otto by her side, she begins to cross a slew of rebel-filled villages.

Endangered is a thrilling adventure that explores the transformative bond between a human and an ape. Sophie begins as a fragile Congolese-American girl, unsure of her place in either country; by the end, she has found meaning in a cause that goes far beyond herself.

In the second decade of the 21st century, some might argue that there shouldn’t be a need for young adult novels exploring the angst and liberation of coming out as gay. However, as long as teens still seem deeply in need of initiatives like the “It Gets Better” project, novels like Ask the Passengers—especially one as compassionate and complex as this one—will be essential reading for all people, regardless of how they label themselves.

Astrid Jones is a senior in high school, a brainy, wordy girl whose favorite hobby is lying on the backyard picnic table, sending her love to the airplane passengers overhead: “It feels good to love a thing and not expect anything back,” she thinks. Astrid and her family have recently moved from New York City to a small town in Pennsylvania, where they may always seem like outsiders and a “fog of gossip” seems to surround everything they do.

Keeping secrets is hard in a small town, and Astrid has plenty—both her own and other people’s. When Astrid’s secret comes to light, she must decide whether and how to start telling the truth, and to whom. Like A.S. King’s previous novels, Ask the Passengers can hardly be considered a “problem novel”; instead, it perfectly blends philosophy, emotion and even a little magical realism in a smart, sympathetic story that is as relevant and compelling as ever.

Mia is gearing up for the best senior year ever. She's got cheerleader BFFs, the captain of the soccer team on her arm and her pick of Ivy League schools. When her overall tiredness and tendency to bruise lead to a diagnosis of leukemia, she's stopped in her tracks. Send Me a Sign follows Mia's treatment, recovery and constant pursuit of a definite answer to the question, “What should I do?” When everything around you is a potential message from the universe, it's easy to get confused.

Author Tiffany Schmidt is smart to tell the story from Mia's point of view. When her mother advises her to hide the cancer from her friends, we know Mia doesn't want to hurt them but is afraid of hurting her mother even more. Her best friend Gyver and boyfriend Ryan are supportive at different times in her treatment, leading to a complex triangle of emotions and affection. She spends so much time monitoring the states of everyone around her that her own health is further compromised, leading to another hospitalization. “I slept eighteen hours and woke up feeling betterish and also worse.” When she drops her guard and finally admits to being scared, the healing can begin.

To finally enjoy life again, Mia comes to believe she's not going to make it, then realizes she has a chance and relaxes her superstitions somewhat. By that time, we care enough to root for her health and happiness—and pray her mother will take a yoga class and chill out. Send Me a Sign is a story of serious illness, but it’s also a love story and a fresh look at the nature of belief. Check it out.

Fifteen-year-old orphan Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians. Unfortunately, the worldwide demand for magic is dwindling, and Jennifer struggles to keep the agency going.

Legend has it that there is one remaining dragon—and one remaining dragonslayer. Many would like to get their hands on the pristine and desirable acreage where the final dragon resides, so it is exciting news when magician Kevin Zipp begins to experience visions of the last dragon dying at the hands of the Last Dragonslayer. Things may be about to change for Kazam. “Big Magic” is coming, and Jennifer may play a larger role than she ever could have anticipated. 

Jasper Fforde’s fantasy world is vivid, exciting and unique. In Jennifer he has created a spunky heroine who is easy to root for. She finds herself in the position of being the fabled “Last Dragonslayer,” but she also discovers that she doesn’t particularly want to kill the dragon, who actually turns out to be quite intelligent and interesting.

Moral dilemmas and hilariously sarcastic humor reign supreme in Fforde’s first novel for young adults—book one in a series of three fantastical novels that promise to deliver more than just thrills. Readers will be forced to consider the price of greed and the motivations of those who claim to pursue “progress.”

Emily Booth Masters reviews from Nashville, Tennessee.

In a world where every body is born with two souls—one dominant that will grow into maturity and one that will simply fade away in early childhood—Eva’s future was always meant to be brief. Her sister Addie would have a first kiss, learn to drive a car and start a family of her own, and Eva would die somewhere around the time they learned to read. But Eva doesn't die. When both souls survive, they become hybrid, something dangerous and banned. By the time they start high school, they’ve convinced everyone Eva is gone, but really she's just paralyzed, a voice in Addie's ear with no power over their body. And she’s resigned herself to that fate—until they meet two other teenage hybrids who offer her the chance to share control again. The promise is so incredible, Eva ignores the dangers until it’s too late.

Debut author Kat Zhang uses this alternate reality to create an intense instance of teenage alienation and powerlessness. Watching a crush from afar when social constructions or strict parents stand in the way can be frustrating, but the inability to tell them how you feel because you have no control over your own mouth would be excruciating. Zhang does a terrific job in capturing Eva's hopelessness with her situation and, later, her awakened longing for a life of her own.

The novel's only fumble is its attempt to encompass both the intimate story of two sisters’ secret and the much larger story of a society keeping secrets. The story of the girls' struggle for survival is so overpowering that when Zhang includes a revelation about the government, it doesn't have the shock value it should.

The strength of What's Left of Me lies in the character development, and Eva's efforts are so compelling the reader will be left thinking about her long after they’ve closed the book.

Molly Horan has her MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School and is currently working on her first YA novel.