Christina Hammonds Reed’s debut novel, The Black Kids, is set in 1992 but has a timeliness that often feels uncanny.

Ashley is a privileged Black teenager living the good life in Los Angeles. Her parents have tried to shield her from the reality of life as a Black person in America by enrolling her in the best schools, living in the best neighborhood and giving her the kinds of opportunities that are typically out of reach to the Black scholarship students at her private school. However, her all-white friend group constantly reminds her of her Blackness. 

When four police officers are acquitted in a trial for the beating of a Black man named Rodney King, prompting riots in Ashley’s home city, she begins to realize that in order to find her place in the world, she may need to confront her Blackness and her family’s history—even if it means leaving her old life and friends behind.

Reed addresses experiences common to Black teens in both 1992 and 2020 with grace and nuance. Her sentences are searingly beautiful, and her depiction of the breakdown in Ashley’s belief that her privileged lifestyle affords her a certain degree of protection is raw and relatable. Ashley must face what it means to be considered a so-called “good Black person” and grapple with her own culpability in having made another Black student at her school the target of judgment.

The Black Kids also explores what it means to be a good friend and how we must take responsibility when we treat others poorly, even when we haven’t intended to cause harm. The question of whether anyone can truly be deemed a “bad” person, as opposed to a good person who has done bad things, is threaded expertly through the narrative and is sure to prompt hard but necessary self-reflection from readers. This is a striking debut that fearlessly contributes to ongoing discussions of race, justice and power.

Working retail during the holiday season can be brutal, but Shoshanna is more than happy to spend her time at work as a bookseller. The independent bookstore Once Upon is her happy place—at least, it used to be. A holiday hire named Jake, who is both standoffish and good-looking, is making Shoshanna’s happy place a little more complicated than usual. Laura Silverman’s Recommended for You is a whipped cream dollop of a rom-com with an irresistible bookish setup.

Silverman places several obstacles in Shoshanna’s path. Her moms are going through a rough patch in their marriage, Shoshanna is desperately trying to keep her dying car on the road, and then a competition to bring customers into Once Upon reveals the store’s poor financial state. Shoshanna charges at each problem in full attack mode, but her solo efforts are largely ineffective. Only when she leans on her friends does their collective power make waves. The bookstore staff forms a fantastic supporting cast and features in several scenes that play out hilariously. Silverman also smartly uses the bookstore’s shopping mall locale to her advantage, as her characters duke it out for table space in the overcrowded food court and draft the on-site Santa into their schemes. 

And then there’s Jake. Sigh. No sooner does Shoshanna meet a fellow Jewish person in her “midsize” Georgia town than she manages to offend him, then finds herself competing against him at work for a cash prize she desperately wants. The novel plays out over just one week, as the heightened circumstances of the holiday rush force Shoshanna and Jake to work together, at first begrudgingly, then as tentative friends and then . . . well, let’s not spoil it.

Recommended for You is equally recommended for lovers of love stories and lovers of books and bookstores, as both are represented here delightfully.

In April of 1846, the Donner party—a group of 89 men, women and children with plenty of wagons, animals and food—headed west from Illinois. One year later, more than half the group had died, mostly from starvation and fatigue. Infamously, the survivors resorted to eating their dead after heavy snowstorms trapped them in the Sierra Nevada.

The Donner party is sometimes treated as a curious footnote to history, and perhaps rightfully so. Allan Wolf’s The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep revisits this grisly chapter of westward expansion to take a fresh and thought-provoking look at the doomed travelers.

Wolf constructs his story in a multivoice verse format he calls “narrative pointillism.” Readers experience the perspectives of adults, children and even a pair of hardworking oxen. The format also gives voice to lesser known figures in Donner party lore, such as Luis and Salvador, two Native Americans who were conscripted to help the party and were fatally betrayed.

Over the book’s nearly 400 pages, the Donner party members abandon animals, people, loyalties and hope itself. There are many deaths, including murders, and characters must grapple with the moral choice between cannibalism and survival. Readers in the mood for a lighthearted romp should look elsewhere.

In a stroke of brilliance, Hunger serves as a Greek chorus throughout the book. The hunger for food becomes the characters’ primary focus once the expedition goes figuratively south. But this narrative device also cleverly speaks to the many motivations of various Donner party members, including hunger for land, prestige, love, warmth and closeness to God.

Although the surviving members of the group are eventually rescued, nothing is tied up with a neat and tidy bow. To his credit, Wolf does not sensationalize this story’s numerous tragedies, nor spare the reader illuminating details. The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep is historical fiction at its very best.

Henri Haltiwanger is the founder of his own dog-walking business, a valued member of the debate team and a popular kid at New York’s prestigious FATE Academy. He attributes his success to his capital-S Smiles and his carefully cultivated ability to charm just about anyone. That ability is especially important now, as Henri, a first-generation Haitian American, counts down the days until he receives his Columbia University acceptance letter, which will fulfill his parents’ “American dream” for him. But when a classmate named Corinne begins blackmailing him into helping her improve her social status, Henri discovers that his trademark charm may not be his ticket to the American dream after all, and that his dream may not be exactly what he thought it was.

As he did in his debut novel, the William C. Morris Award-winning The Field Guide to the North American Teenager, Ben Philippe once again places readers directly inside the mind of a lovable but flawed protagonist. Henri’s conspiratorial and, yes, charming narration feels like he’s letting us in on secret after secret as he navigates the challenges of senior year, college applications, family pressure and friendships. Henri makes some serious mistakes, and it’s satisfying to watch him evolve into a more honest, open and vulnerable person.

Philippe has a true knack for developing rich casts of supporting characters who bring his protagonists’ worlds to life. Here, this includes Henri’s devoted parents, his sneaker-obsessed best friend, Ming, as well as the students and faculty who populate his high school experience. And of course, there’s Corinne, an academic dynamo who marches to the beat of her own drum, reminiscent of other ambitious yet socially awkward teens such as Paris Geller of “Gilmore Girls” or Rushmore’s Max Fischer. Philippe renders every character as a human being with their own aspirations and imperfections.

Give Charming as a Verb to readers looking for a dynamic YA romp, a touch of romance and the permission to question whether what they’ve always dreamed of is truly what they want.

In an alternate Texas where major cities have Fairy Ring Transport Centers and the university offers an invasive monster program, Ellie, a Lipan Apache teenager, just wants to reincarnate prehistoric fossils and teach her ghost dog new tricks. Then her cousin visits her in a dream, says that a man named Abe Allerton murdered him and asks her to protect his family from further harm.

Together with her parents and her friend Jay, Ellie travels to Willowbee to uncover the truth about Abe Allerton, who by all external appearances has led a virtuous life. As Ellie gathers evidence, pieces together clues and retells the myth-tinged adventures of her six-generations-back great-grandmother, whom she calls Six-Great, it becomes clear that the cousin’s murder is part of a larger secret. With Willowbee’s bicentennial just days away, the time is right to vanquish a horror that’s preyed on Native people for far too long.

Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe is a clever mystery narrated by a teen whose voice radiates with wonderful self-confidence. Six-Great’s stories highlight the importance of storytelling in Ellie’s world, and observant readers will delight in the setting’s sociopolitical details: Same-sex marriage is unremarkable, as is Ellie’s asexuality, and the villain is marked in part by his environmentally unfriendly overuse of disposable eating utensils.

Like the self-published comics Ellie regularly devours, Elatsoe presents readers with a strong heroine, a supernatural mystery and a unique and powerful Native American voice.

Lilliam Rivera’s third young adult novel, Never Look Back, breathes new life into the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, an ancient tale of a girl gone before her time and the boy who would do anything to save her. Rivera transforms this classic tale into a symphony that intertwines the melodies of her characters, their neighborhood in the Bronx and even readers themselves. It builds to a crescendo that reverberates into your very bones, the way only the most exquisite music can.

Pheus is ready to spend the summer at his dad’s, hanging at the beach with his friends and taking full advantage of his musical talents and charm. Then Eury and her struggles arrive. Displaced after losing her home in Puerto Rico to Hurricane Maria, Eury is staying with her cousin in the Bronx to get some rest and to give her mother a break after what the family calls Eury’s “episode.” But Eury hasn’t come to New York alone. Everywhere she goes, Ato, an evil spirit, follows. When Eury and Pheus meet and sparks fly, Ato makes a move to ensure he and Eury will stay together—forever.

Never Look Back honors the Afro Latinx music, language, heritage and history of its characters. It reads like a concert, each chapter a different song, some languid and slow, keeping readers hanging on every word, others fast and staccato, whipping readers around at a dizzying pace, running to keep up and lost in a cacophonous flood of words. Defying expectation and categorization, Never Look Back is a book not to be read with the mind but to be experienced with the soul. It is a revelation.

—Kevin Delecki

The Sullivan sisters might be bound together by genetics, but they couldn’t be more different. Eileen, the eldest, harbors a family secret and a drinking problem. Claire, the high-strung middle sister, has just been inexplicably rejected by Yale. And Murphy, the baby of the family, is a natural performer who can’t seem to get any attention. Despite their father’s death at a young age and their mother’s perpetual absence from their lives, the sisters used to be close, building blanket forts and exchanging Christmas gifts, until a few years ago. Now their interactions are rife with tension. When a mysterious uncle dies and leaves the sisters property on the Oregon coast in his will, the girls embark on a trip to visit their father’s childhood home. A storm rolls in, trapping them in the creepy old house where they must confront their family’s disturbing legacy.

Shifting through each sister's point of view, The Sullivan Sisters lightly drapes a murder mystery over a story about family. Author Kathryn Ormsbee shines an honest light on her characters, introspectively revealing their pain and struggles. When the sisters’ connections to each other were broken, leaving them lacking any source of familial affection, they compensated by seeking comfort outside the bonds of family. Murphy performs magic to feel seen, Claire takes dubious life advice from an Instagram influencer, and Eileen gives up art school for alcohol. Each girl’s ship seems destined to crash on a rocky shore, with no one around to help them steer a smoother course.

The action revs up when the sisters arrive at the sleepy seaside town, and, posing as podcasters, uncover their family’s origin story from the locals. The tension between the sisters dissipates as they’re forced together into close quarters, and the reader gets swept along on their journey. The Sullivan Sisters captures the singular love that only sisters can share as the girls realize that their bond can be battered but never broken.

The victim of a childhood kidnapping that made international headlines, Kate Hildebrand was already famous when she came to stay with her grandfather, a former silent film star, in his Hollywood mansion. An aspiring astronomer, Kate expects a warm welcome from her grandfather, but instead she walks in on a crime scene. As Kate acclimates to her new life in 1938 Hollywood, a challenging job and a burgeoning romance, there’s also a killer to track down. A girl could get blisters doing all that in heels! 

Chasing Starlight is full of golden-age Hollywood glamour but spotlights the sweat and sacrifice that make it all happen. Teri Bailey Black juggles multiple storylines with the same efficiency Kate uses to land a gig as a production assistant. The misfits who rent rooms from Kate’s grandfather are distinct and mostly lovable. Black organically incorporates mentions of the Hays Code, which required strict moral standards in movies during this era, while exploring women’s roles in film and the industry’s history of persecution and blacklisting of communists. It all plays out as if on a movie set, giving things a delightfully meta kick. 

The book’s disparate strands entwine in a conclusion straight out of film noir, complete with speeding roadsters, a complicated switcheroo, a race to find the killer and an overdue reckoning with old family trauma. When you spend your days creating things that aren’t real, it’s doubly important to find the solid ground of truth beneath your feet. 

Chasing Starlight reminds us that there are truths overhead in the night sky, too, and it lets both kinds shine. It’s a fast-paced crime story that nods knowingly at cinematic tropes even as it employs them, and it tugs at the heartstrings just the same.

Shady Grove’s daddy could call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle. He died in a car crash four years ago, but when the woods around Shady’s home suddenly fill with the sound of the bluegrass music he used to play, she knows he’s trying to send her a message. Then her brother is accused of murder, and Shady realizes it’s her turn to take up her daddy’s fiddle, call out the ghosts and illuminate the secrets that have been keeping her family prisoner for generations.

Ghost Wood Song, Erica Waters’ debut novel, is a haunting Southern Gothic tale that will delight fans of Jeff Zentner’s The Serpent King and Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures. Readers will lose themselves in Florida’s rural pine woods, among the ghosts that haunt Shady’s family and the bluegrass melodies she plays to summon them. 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Author Erica Waters shares her favorite murder ballads and explores the appeal of this genre of traditional music.

Waters’ characters are just as vivid, coming into sharp relief against the lush setting as they wrestle with grief, family secrets and high school drama. (Shady and her two best friends, Sarah and Orlando, can’t agree on the set list for their band, and their arguments are complicated by the love triangle between Shady, Sarah and gorgeous cowboy Cedar.) Waters makes it easy to root for Shady as she battles conflicts both mundane and supernatural, working through a wide range of emotions rendered with nuance and authenticity.

Ghost Wood Song is a lyrical, evocative novel that’s part ghost story and part mystery, wrapped around a gorgeous tale of loss, love and family healing.

Marit Olsen is alone in the world. Her father died in an accident in the wealthy Vestergaard family’s mines. The Firn, an icy buildup in the veins that freezes a body from the inside as a result of the overuse of magic, claimed her sister not long after. Like her sister, Marit has magic; Marit’s gives her a connection to fabric, thread and sewing. She can embroider a dress in one night that would take an expert seamstress weeks. But like all magic users, Marit uses her gift sparingly for fear of the Firn.

On the cusp of aging out of the orphanage, Marit is determined to look out for Eve, a younger girl with a gift for ballet who has become like a little sister to her. When Eve is adopted by Helene Vestergaard, Marit manages to obtain a place as a seamstress in the Vestergaard household. As she settles in among the staff, she realizes they all have magical abilities that they use often. While Eve adjusts to a life of wealth and privilege, Marit uncovers new information about her father’s accident with the help of her new friends, siblings Liljan and Jakob. If her father’s death wasn’t an accident, could the Vestergaards have been involved? Is Eve in danger? Marit will risk it all, including the Firn, to ensure that her chosen family is safe.

Emily Bain Murphy’s second novel is an assured blend of historical fiction and fantasy, with satisfyingly researched details appearing alongside a simple but powerful system of magic. The story includes a slow-burning romance, but Marit’s prickly enemies-to-friends relationship with another household servant is even more compelling. Most satisfying is the book’s villain, an occasional narrator whose identity is revealed in time. Murphy has created a more nuanced villain than is usually attempted in YA fantasy, with valid (yet misguided) goals and easily understandable, even sympathetic motivations. 

Marit’s struggle to find and protect her found family, the lush and hygge-filled Scandinavian surroundings and the thrilling showdown with a complex villain make Splinters of Scarlet a finely woven tale perfect for historical fiction and fantasy readers alike.

It’s the last day of high school, the day when the ultimate prizes in a four year-long rivalry between Rowan Roth and Neil McNair will be announced. Which one of them will be named valedictorian? And who will win Howl, an annual senior class scavenger hunt and elimination game, the winner of which walks away not just with bragging rights but also with a generous cash prize?

Rowan’s interest in Neil is only as an aggravating competitor. Neil wears suits to school, thinks The Great Gatsby is the epitome of literary taste and plans to study linguistics at NYU. Rowan’s true goal today is fulfilling a list she made at the beginning of high school, which includes having a fantastical date with her Perfect High School Boyfriend.

Who is definitely not Neil.

Right?

Part delicious puzzle story, part nostalgic reflection on a teen rite of passage and part romance, Today Tonight Tomorrow takes place entirely within a single 24-hour day, interspersing Rowan’s first-person narration with documents, lists of clues and pages of other books . . . including the romance novel she’s secretly writing. As Rowan and her classmates careen from one Seattle local to another in order to complete the scavenger hunt, the suspense of the game of Howl still allows time for personal reflection. What does Rowan’s Jewish Mexican identity mean to her? Will she continue to hide the romance stories she loves, knowing that many people will look down on her because of them? Does Neil’s seemingly perfect exterior mask something he doesn’t want anyone else to know?

Numerous nods to Seattle culture (Nirvana, compostable cups and kitschy attractions) abound, as do delightful bits of literary humor; a condom given to Rowan by her best friends at the beginning of the book is later referred to as “Checkov’s condom” in a nod to the playwright’s famous gun. Author Rachel Lynn Solomon’s first self-described “fun” book is a breezy, one-sitting read that wraps the immediacy of a single day with outstanding layers of nostalgia, empowerment and self-acceptance.

Tanaz Bhathena’s Hunted by the Sky, set in a medieval India-inspired fantasy world, begins with a murder. Gul watches, helpless, as her parents are slaughtered by the king’s warrior, Major Shayla, who has been assigned to hunt down girls born with star-shaped birthmarks—like Gul’s. It’s been prophesied that one of these girls will grow up to kill the king.

Gul is rescued by an underground sisterhood that trains her to wield magic, and she swears she will take revenge against Shayla and the king. Then Gul meets Cavas, an ordinary boy who works in the palace stables and helps Gul pose as a member of the queen’s staff. Gul’s vengeance might bring down a king, but it could also destroy the kingdom and everyone she has come to care about.

Bhathena, the critically acclaimed author of The Beauty of the Moment, creates a vibrant fantasy kingdom that is equal parts beautiful and brutal. Her prose is as lush as the world she has imagined, immersing readers in colorful bazaars and extravagant palaces. Despite the gorgeous scenery, the book thrums with an undercurrent of violence.

In many ways, Gul’s story is a typical hero’s journey. Naive and impulsive, Gul must reconcile her thirst for revenge with her newfound desire for Cavas. She must go up against evil forces far stronger than she is. But in Bhathena’s skilled hands, Hunted by the Sky feels fresh and feminist. It’s a story about women who are both prey and predator, and an exciting start to a series that’s just beginning to stretch its legs.

Many high school basketball players dream of having the talent and the drive to make it to the next level—but what happens to those who actually do? Liara Tamani’s All the Things We Never Knew explores the lives of two young players and the bond they form both on and off of the court.

Carli and Rex are both star athletes with promising careers ahead of them. When Carli literally falls into Rex’s arms during a game, it seems like destiny that they should end up together. But as the two are swept into a whirlwind romance, it quickly becomes clear that their lives are more complicated than they first appeared.

Rex is ambitiously pursuing his goal of playing basketball professionally in the NBA, but Carli is determined to escape the sport permanently. While Carli grapples with her parents’ sudden, jarring divorce, Rex strives to connect with his father, who has become emotionally absent since Rex’s mother’s death. All of this leaves Carli and Rex struggling to hold onto one another.

In chapters that alternate perspectives between Carli and Rex, Tamani develops distinct narrative voices for each character that ring true. Readers will cheer for them, cry with them and occasionally—but passionately—question the choices they make. Tamani doesn’t avoid complexity; although few teens share Carli and Rex’s athletic gifts, every teen has made a mistake and hurt someone they love, and Tamani’s willingness to let her characters make these mistakes too will endear them to readers all the more. Raw and honest, All the Things We Never Knew is a slam dunk.