A soldier. A runaway. A barmaid. Mererid has played many roles, but beneath them all, she has always been a water diviner, blessed with the magical ability to control water in all its forms. Prince Garanhir secretly abused her power for years, until Mer discovered his treachery and fled. Now she longs for a peaceful home of her own, but when her mentor, Renfrew, asks her to join him for one final mission, Mer can’t refuse. 

The mission is simple: Break into the prince’s castle to steal his gold and the source of his magic. Mer joins a crew that also includes a fighter, a scholar, a thief and a corgi. Along the way, she encounters old flames, uncovers kingdom-shattering secrets and realizes that carrying out the heist won’t be nearly as straightforward as she thought.

Emily Lloyd-Jones‘ The Drowned Woods is based on the Welsh myth of Cantre’r Gwaelod, a sunken kingdom purported to lie beneath Cardigan Bay and sometimes called the Welsh Atlantis. Set in the same fantastical world as Lloyd-Jones’ 2019 novel, The Bone Houses, The Drowned Woods introduces a large cast of new characters and stands easily on its own.

The novel has all the elements of a classic heist, including a band of experts who each have a specialized skill, a villain in a fortified stronghold and a seemingly impossible goal. Within this framework, however, Lloyd-Jones delves deeply into the psyches of each member of the crew to thoughtfully explore themes of morality and grief.

Outwardly, Mer seems fiercely independent, always prepared for every possible outcome, but she struggles with guilt over her time spent in the prince’s service. She longs for freedom and meaningful connections with others, but her own self-loathing holds her back. The rest of the crew is just as well developed, and each member brings compelling personal histories, emotional demons and ulterior motives to the collective mission.

Thrilling and perceptive, The Drowned Woods blends the most-loved aspects of a heist narrative with meaningful, profound portraits of characters who satisfyingly defy archetypes and expectations alike. 

Ray is a seer, but instead of visions of what’s to come, she sees the truth of the present—the way things really are. Her rare ability has made her a pragmatist and a realist, but it’s also left her lonely. Ray believes her ability precludes her from forming close relationships, so she avoids physical contact and romantic endeavors. Instead, her goal is to become a member of the Council, the ruling body of the magical world, so she can use her gift to help others and eventually learn to see the future. When she needs a break, Ray slips into her favorite bakery, a place where emotions are magically baked into every sweet treat.

Laurie desperately wants to be a musician. Between unsuccessful auditions, he works at his aunt’s bakery, smiling at the cute girl who comes in every day for tea and a pastry. Masking his own insecurities and grief with that smile, Laurie strikes up an easy friendship with Ray, which soon gives way to flirtation and the possibility of a deeper connection. For the first time, Ray wants to give romance a shot, but if she joins the Council, she’ll be erased from the memories of everyone she knows and loves. Does dedicating her life to helping others mean giving up on her own dreams?

The web comic that would become Crumbs saw massive popularity on the online comics platform WebToon before being acquired for publication, and it’s easy to see why. Danie Stirling offers a warm and lightly fantastical slice-of-life tale about choosing your path. As Laurie and Ray navigate their new relationship, they must also traverse the nebulous transition to adulthood and the many choices that come with it.

Stirling’s art style is sweet and fluffy, all rounded edges and soft lighting. Though it’s not a manga aesthetic, the characters’ expressiveness and frequently glittering eyes will resonate with anime fans. The illustrations exude as much warmth as the story, with subtle visual renderings of magic that become sweet garnishes atop a richer cake. 

Crumbs’ cozy vibes will attract fans of Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu’s Mooncakes, but its emotional complexity will keep them turning the pages. Within the narrative framework of a rom-com, Stirling has written a poignant book about the danger of putting others’ happiness before your own, the burnout that can come from idealism and working in public service, and the realization that no one is ever given a single path to follow. As Ray learns to summon visions of the future, she must also learn to see them for what they are: potential futures in a universe of limitless possibilities. 

Everything changed the night Danny Chen died. The Silence That Binds Us follows Danny’s parents and sister, May, in the aftermath of Danny’s death by suicide.

May and Danny’s Taiwanese American parents raised their children to be xiàoshùn: “obedient, respectful, caring, and every other desirable quality rolled into one intimidating word.” In the wake of their loss, May and her family struggle to move forward together. When a prominent, wealthy member of their suburban Bay Area community publicly claims that Asian American parents “push their kids so hard” and blames the Chens for Danny’s death, May must make an impossible choice. Should she keep her head down and stay silent, or should she speak up and tell her story, even if it means putting everything on the line?

The Silence That Binds Us depicts anti-Asian racism with raw, powerful honesty. It also explores complex webs of prejudice among and against the Bay Area’s ethnic communities, touching on subjects such as redlining and the myth of the model minority. Joanna Ho (Eyes That Kiss in the Corners) captures the emotions of characters experiencing racism for the first time as well as those who have never known a life without its toxic presence.

Bestselling picture book author Ho’s first YA novel is a deeply felt portrayal of a family shattered by tragedy and a thoughtful depiction of how injustice plays people against one another—and themselves—in order to perpetuate itself. In the end, The Silence That Binds Us finds its way through heartbreak to hard-won hopefulness and healing. As May realizes, “Every time we speak out, it is an act of love. Love is how we overcome fear.”

Ivy and her boyfriend are driving home from a party to kick off the beginning of summer break when a strange girl appears in the middle of the road. She’s naked and unafraid, and she seems to recognize Ivy. After this, even more strange things start to happen. Ivy finds a decapitated rabbit in her driveway, and that night at the dinner table, her mom, Dana, spits a rabbit’s tooth out of her mouth. Dana seems increasingly upset by the disturbing string of events—until she disappears, leaving Ivy to figure out what’s going on, protect her family, unearth her mother’s secrets and discover her own true identity.

Alternating between “the suburbs, right now” and “the city, back then,” Our Crooked Hearts unravels both Dana’s and Ivy’s stories. As a teenager in Chicago, Dana experiments with witchcraft and gets in over her head. Twenty-five years later, Ivy must deal with the catastrophic results. Readers will be enchanted as the two young women’s storylines hurtle toward each other, past and present colliding in a supernatural climax that will transform mother and daughter completely.

Melissa Albert (The Hazel Wood) delivers the twisted fairy-tale magic that fans of her Hinterland novels have come to love, along with sharp prose, dark family secrets and a captivating coming-of-age journey for its teenage protagonist. Albert expertly blends mundane high school drama (romantic break-ups, getting grounded, navigating crushes) with black magic (a jar of dirt and blood that Dana buries in the backyard, the mysterious rippling visions in Ivy’s mirror, the aforementioned rabbit). Presented against the vividly rendered and decidedly realistic backdrops of 1990s Chicago and present-day suburbia, all of these elements come together to create a truly bewitching novel.

Every gripping chapter of Our Crooked Hearts is packed with suspense, spellbinding prose and impossible decisions. Despite their otherworldly proclivities, Albert’s dimensional characters feel wholly believable as they grapple with questions of protection, betrayal, friendship and the price of power.

We are in the midst of a golden age of gentle YA romantic comedies. There’s no shortage of reading material for anyone who loves swooning over winsome leads who just can’t seem to get it right until the excruciating final pages, or curling up with novels tailor-made for Netflix adaptations sure to launch the next wave of teen actors. From Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before to Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, YA shelves are awash with feel-good rom-com vibes. Lucy Keating’s Ride With Me is a winning addition to this canon. It’s a perfect bubblegum pop of a read—light and sweet, but with plenty to chew on.  

Charlie Owens is anxious to escape her sleepy hometown of Chester Falls, Massachusetts, nestled deep in the Berkshires. The area’s charm has faded, and visions of a more exciting future in art, architecture and design fill her head. “I’ve lived here for seventeen years,” Charlie says. “I don’t want to get stuck here.” 

For now, though, when Charlie’s not fretting about her family’s historic farmhouse and her parents’ love lives, both of which are increasingly in disrepair, she’s driving for Backseat, a local ride-sharing app created by teens, for teens. Charlie drives as often as she can, saving her earnings for an epic road trip she hopes will help her discover where she’s meant to be. Charlie has a vision and the single-minded determination to achieve it. That is, until she rear-ends a parked car belonging to Andre Minasian, a cute but standoffish classmate. 

Keating could teach a master class in concocting a natural meet cute and keeping the sparks flying between her characters. Charlie begrudgingly agrees to become Andre’s personal driver; in exchange, Andre agrees not to report the fender bender to Backseat. To Charlie’s annoyance and intrigue, Andre is as enchanted by their hometown as she is jaded, and the more time they spend together, the more she begins to let her guard down. The tug of war between the two teens is paced within an inch of perfection.

Ride With Me also makes room for real depth amid all this delicious froth. Keating cleverly foregrounds questions of home via Charlie’s rundown house as well as through the small town she’s so desperate to leave. Can you change your home? Should you? Or is it better to cut and run and find a new home somewhere else? Watching Charlie and Andre grapple with these questions even as they fall for each other is pure pleasure. Ride With Me is well worth the trip.

In her fourth novel, Katzenjammer, author Francesca Zappia crafts a surreal and frightening world that parallels the innate horrors of high school. This story of subversion and sleight-of-hand trickery is difficult to discuss—or forget.

Cat and her classmates live at School. They don’t know why. No one can remember when School’s doors and windows went away. Cat has lost her face, her eyes and even her real name. The class president is a life-size porcelain doll; Cat’s best friend, Jeffrey, has a cardboard box for a head. Some students wander the constricting halls, alone and unmoored, while a few others rule over private domains in School’s underbelly. 

The tenuous equilibrium between School and its students is broken when the class president is found brutalized in the courtyard. More broken bodies follow, and the students’ fear grows. Someone—or something—is killing them, and they can feel the clock beginning to tick. As Cat desperately searches her memories for answers, she circles around truths that are too unbearable to look at directly. But to find the way out of School, Cat must face the thing waiting in the shadows of her mind.

Katzenjammer is a postmodern nightmare, a David Lynchian spiral of terror. Absurdist body horror mingles with slasher-film suspense, and the consistent suspension of reality gives the novel a disorienting, dreamlike quality. Yet Katzenjammer‘s potency is undeniable. Cat’s memories are frequently as disturbing as her new reality. “We all take from each other. We take and take and take,” Cat says of her peers. It’s a cynical view of adolescence, but it will strike true for many teens. Zappia makes no effort to shroud her novel’s darkness. Visceral, bloody and cruel, it almost dares the reader to look away.

Katzenjammer is not a book for every reader, and Zappia includes a series of content warnings on the book’s copyright page: “School bullying and violence, mention of eating disorders, and scenes of gore, blood, and death.” Although she’s not the first YA author to depict school violence and its aftermath, she writes brutality with a frankness that’s virtually unmatched. Teens so often go ignored by their parents, their teachers and people in positions of power. What Katzenjammer ultimately offers its teen readers is the feeling, finally, of being heard.

Leo’s older sister, Nina, died 365 days ago. National Book Award winner Robin Benway’s A Year to the Day opens on the one-year anniversary of Nina’s death, and each chapter takes the reader one step further back in time.

From the moment Leo regains consciousness after the car crash, she struggles with grief—not only for the loss of her sister also but for the memories of the night that she can’t quite grasp. Leo’s first year without Nina is marked by changes, as the accident impacts her friendships, her family and her relationship with Nina’s boyfriend, East. Leo must find a way to live without her sister, and she slowly learns to navigate her sorrow—and to love again, despite it.

The unconventional narrative structure in A Year to the Day reflects the connection between memory and mourning: The story that unfolds for the reader is comprised of confusing, intertwining moments, just like the memories Leo longs to recover. The novel’s structure also conveys the tension and mystery of grief. While the fact of Nina’s death is established in the book’s very first sentence, the novel unveils the details of its circumstances and the year that follows slowly, and every chapter contains a new revelation. 

Benway’s unflinching, close third-person narration fluctuates between wistfully poetic and painfully direct as Leo comes to terms with her true thoughts and feelings. Benway expertly captures how Leo is shaped by the people in her life during big moments, like funerals and anniversaries, but she also poignantly portrays smaller moments. Songs transport Leo back in time, the scent of Nina’s shampoo makes Leo’s heart shatter anew, and looking through the photos on Nina’s old phone with their mom leaves Leo breathless.

A Year to the Day is simultaneously gut-wrenching and heartening, as grief and love so often are. Its unusual structure effectively relates a timeless story in a new and engaging way as Benway offers beautiful, profound reflections on loss, healing and forgiveness. Ultimately, Leo’s story is a lesson in self-compassion and hope, reminding readers that moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting the past, and although love can be painful, it’s worth holding on to.

Miliani, Inez, Natalie and Jasmine are best friends bound by magic and love. When Jasmine is killed by a drunk driver, everything the four girls once shared is shattered. Mili, Inez and Nat try to support one another in the wake of the tragedy while also dealing with illness, addiction and the threat of deportation within their own families. But Mili, the last of the girls to see Jas alive, isn’t content to merely mourn. Drawing on the magical traditions of her Filipino heritage, she convinces her friends that they can bring Jas (or at least a version of her) back from the dead. Though Inez and Nat hesitate, they are spurred onward by Mili’s insistence that their efforts can succeed.

Soon, the girls are attending seances at Mili’s mysterious Aunt Lindy’s house, performing rituals of their own and testing the boundaries between the realms of the living and the dead. But magic always comes with a price, and as the trio descend deeper into spellwork, they uncover terrifying secrets about one another and their families that endanger the plan to resurrect Jas—and could break apart their lives completely. Can the three friends perform the final ritual before everything crashes down around them?

Riss M. Neilson’s ambitious debut novel, Deep in Providence, is a dense, meticulously plotted story. It sits at a curious crossroads, functioning both as a contemporary YA novel about grief and a fantasy rooted in magical practices from Filipino and Jamaican cultures. Remove the novel’s magic and you’d have an emotional yet often-told tale. But by incorporating elements of fantasy, a genre historically predisposed to whiteness and straightness, Deep in Providence becomes a boundary-pushing addition to the canon of teen witches.

Alternating between Mili’s, Inez’s and Nat’s perspectives enables Neilson to create a multifaceted portrait of their close-knit friend group, in which private hurts and joys are refracted and magnified by the girls’ constant proximity. The book’s magic system serves as a metaphor that provides an added layer to the book’s exploration of loss. As the girls’ desperation grows, so too do their powers—and what the trio is willing to do with them. Neilson doesn’t shy away from emotional intensity: The girls’ grief isn’t pretty or palatable, and the spirits answer in full force.

At almost 500 pages, Deep in Providence suffers a bit from too much table setting. Early chapters focus on the girls’ backgrounds without much rising tension, and not all readers will be hooked by the slow start. But once magic enters the scene, the story deepens and widens, eventually arriving at a satisfying emotional climax and denouement.

Deep in Providence is a beautiful, haunting novel about letting go and finding peace for yourself and for those who are gone.