As the Monarch’s heir, Kali is devoted to her floating kingdom of Ashra, even when doing her duty involves entering an arranged marriage. But on the night of her engagement ceremony, Kali overhears a disturbing conversation, suggesting that the history of Ashra, as recorded in the official annals, might be fabricated. What’s more, some of the citizens may have discovered the truth, and the possibility of a rebellion looms. Kali is desperate to alert her father, but before she can find him, she rescues her fiancé from falling off the edge—and falls to earth herself.

Mysteriously, Kali isn’t killed by the fall. She meets a young monster hunter, Griffin, who agrees to help her find her way back to Ashra. Despite her inexperience, Kali surprises herself, and Griffin, with her determination and bravery against the dangers on the earth’s surface. Along the journey, Kali meets more human survivors, learns the true violent history of Ashra and becomes even more determined to return home and set things right.

In Heir to the Sky, Amanda Sun has created a likable cast of characters and an intriguing plot, but the true star of the novel is the landscape. The floating lands of Ashra and the deserted earth are fascinating and original. The earth is a lush riot of color, texture and danger that leaves the reader craving more descriptive passages. Science-fiction and fantasy elements—an unknown world, a suppressed history and larger-than-life mythical beasts—blend into a rich and unforgettable world that lingers in the readers’ imagination well beyond the final page. 

Everyone is broken in some way. It’s what makes us human. Vivi and Jonah are no exception. They are both broken, yet they are in love—they are colliding planets, specks of sand on this place we call Earth. They meet at a local pottery shop where Jonah has taken his littlest sister, Leah, to create her own piece of art. This is just the beginning.

Jonah suffers from intense grief after the sudden death of his father (a local restaurant owner), which manifests itself through his own gift of cooking. He’s taking it one day—sometimes one hour—at a time. Vivi has a zest for life and a hatred of life, sometimes simultaneously. She’s battling her own demons, including an absent father and an unconventional mother.

Nonetheless, Vivi and Jonah give each other what they didn’t know they needed, before they knew they needed it. This is an atypical love story, one where the ending doesn’t mean it’s over. When We Collided boils down to feelings: strong feelings, flat feelings, non-feelings and all of the feelings in between. It explores identity and individuality, what makes us human and flawed.

Mental illness is a growing, trending topic in YA lit, but the latest novel from Emery Lord stands apart. It doesn’t focus on recovery or diagnosis, but rather on endurance, on how living with a mental illness affects that person as well as the people who surround them. With Vivi, Lord taps into the mind of a teenager unsuccessfully dealing with bipolar disorder, who is pro-medication, pro-therapy, pro-whatever-it-takes to live with the illness, rather than battle against it. Jonah’s grief and his mother’s depression are sensitively addressed, as is Vivi’s attempts to help, inviting herself into their family at a time when they thought the darkness was inescapable.

Where We Collided digs its claws in, leaves readers gasping for air and likely speechless and in tears. Lord sensitively and adequately explores how happiness is a puzzle that we work toward completing, with each person’s pieces being different, but all creating a beautiful work of the art we call life. 

She’s the town brainiac, fifth of nine children, the good girl who constantly hides her mental acumen. He’s a biker and a member of the Reign of Terror, the motorcycle club that everyone in town knows to avoid. When an accidental encounter at senior year orientation leads to an unexpected agreement, Breanna and Thomas—or Razor, as he’s known on the road—find themselves falling for one another. Both have depths of character that their outward personalities don’t always reflect, and both are haunted by past secrets that threaten to overwhelm them. Breanna’s family disapproves of the Terror, and the Terror in turn is skeptical of outsiders. When a fellow teen with an agenda of his own threatens to publicize an innocent but incriminating photo of them, the stakes become even higher. Can Breanna’s code-breaking skills help Razor resolve the mystery surrounding his mother’s death? Is Razor exactly what Breanna needs to break out of the box she’s intentionally built around her identity? Will their relationship blossom, or will conflicting loyalties tear them apart?

Told in alternating points of view, this second Thunder Road novel weaves timely issues like neurological differences, families of choice and social media bullying into the classic good-girl/bad-boy love story fabric. The rituals, rules and unflinching faithfulness of the Reign of Terror motorcycle club is portrayed with loving nuance, and Breanna and Razor’s interactions are sensuously, but not graphically, described. This is a great choice for a teen seeking a steamy but non-explicit contemporary romance.

Jill Ratzan matches readers with books in a small library in southeastern Pennsylvania.

In 13th-century France, the Catholic Church is hell-bent on eradicating heresy. Unfortunately, their definition of heretics includes the bons omes and bonas femnas—saintly aesthetics who are devoted to God but not necessarily to the Catholic Church. Persecution of these wandering souls is top priority for the Church.

For Botille Flasucra, who is eking out a living with her two sisters in a tiny village, these meddlesome inquisitors seem remote. While on an errand to another village, Botille rescues a dying girl she finds lying in the woods. This is Dolssa, an ethereal mystic who has an intimate relationship with Jhesus. Dolssa is pursued by Lucien de Saint-Honore, an inquisitor charged with burning Dolssa alive. Although the Flasucra sisters strive to keep Dolssa hidden, her proclivity to perform miracles soon makes Dolssa the talk of the village.

The story is told from multiple points of view: Lucien, Botille, Dolssa and well-chosen witnesses that flesh out hidden facets of perspective. Botille, in particular, is a wonderful narrator. She is amused by village life as only a teen can be, infusing the story with her dry humor. She is our compass, shaping our understanding of Dolssa’s mysticism as well as the ruthless persecution espoused by the dominant religious power of the day.

As in her debut novel, All the Truth That’s in Me, Berry’s writing is stunning. Poetic, insightful and, at times, deeply disturbing, Dolssa’s story is steeped in 13th-century sensibilities yet so relatable to 21st-century readers. Berry includes a map, glossary and extensive source notes.

Oral histories from World War II come to life in Monica Hesse’s historical fiction debut.

In 1943 German-occupied Amsterdam, 18-year-old Hanneke Bakker busily goes about delivering black market goods until she gets to Mrs. Janssen’s home. The old woman insists that Hanneke help find Mirjam, the Jewish girl she’s kept hidden in her home until she recently vanished. Hanneke’s unsuccessful search at Mirjam’s school leads to a chain of events, including a run-in with a resistance group. Hanneke learns that Mirjam has gone to the infamous Hollandsche Schouwburg, an old theater house turned into a deportation center, and develops an escape plan. But when she tries to come to Mirjam’s rescue, Hanneke discovers that there is more to the mysterious teen than her mere disappearance.

Replete with a well-defined fictional cast, Girl in the Blue Coat is heavily laced with locations and events in the Netherlands from this dark period in history. Inspired by oral histories of people affiliated with the theater, Hesse’s first-person tale captures the inner turmoil of one young adult desperately trying to make sense of her irrational environs. Keeping to a continually flowing storyline, Hesse weaves in various subplots that, taken as a whole, give a glimpse into “small betrayals in the middle of a big war” and aptly fulfills Hesse’s goal of illustrating “the split-second decisions we make of moral courage and cowardice, and how we are all heroes and villains.”

This is a stunning literary work as well as a wonderful addition to WWII and Holocaust collections.

Kurt Dinan’s action-packed debut, Don’t Get Caught, is a terrific pick for readers who prefer fiction with a twist of suspense. There’s nothing remarkable about the novel’s protagonist, Max Cobb. With lackluster grades and a nonexistent social life, Max doesn’t attract much attention in the halls of Asheville High. So he’s surprised to get an invitation from the Chaos Club, an anonymous group of tricksters with a long tradition of enraging school administrators through acts of mischief, from stacking tires up the campus flagpole to hacking the district’s website. To Max, who’s itching for a way to shed his humdrum reputation, this seems like pretty cool stuff.

But Max is wary about the invitation, and he soon learns that he isn’t the only one to be singled out. Four other students received a summons from the club, including his longtime crush, Ellie Wick. When the gang, following the club’s instructions, climbs to the top of the school’s freshly graffitied water tower only to get nabbed by security, they realize they’re nothing more than fall guys. Using tips picked up from his favorite caper flicks (The Fast and the Furious; Ocean’s Eleven), Max goes after the Chaos Club—and proves he can prank like a pro.

Dinan—a high school English teacher—infuses Max’s adventures with sly humor, convincing detail and just the right level of tension. From start to finish, this is a brisk and engaging debut.

Six months ago, Quinn Roberts had big plans: Inspired by the Coens and the Wachowskis, he was writing screenplays that his older sister helped to direct. But after his sister dies in a car accident, Quinn and his mom are mired in grief; she eats her feelings while he sleeps through his. When Quinn’s friend Geoff drags him to a college party and he meets a hot, older guy, things begin to shift. The Great American Whatever finds humor in life’s darkest moments.

Teenage Quinn is a delight, observant to a fault in service to his art and often hilarious. People from Quinn’s past resurface and are not what he remembers them to be, and his relationship with his best friend contains a whopping secret that nearly destroys it—yet both things help him to work through his sadness. (The hot guy doesn’t hurt, either.) 

Author Tim Federle (Better Nate Than Ever) has a fantastic ear for the in-jokes that develop between friends. His YA debut is a genuinely great American novel, with a love of cinema worn on its sleeve.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mira Banul has lived all her life on the six-mile long, half-mile wide island called Haven, and she’s seen everything. Every kind of storm, every kind of family tragedy. And she and her friends have weathered it all. But when a superstorm devastates Haven, leaving her mom and brother stranded on the mainland, her best friend missing and every home destroyed, Mira has to dig deep inside herself to find the strength to move forward.

This Is the Story of You, the latest from National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart, is a beautiful rendering of a terrifying event. If the novel’s pacing is a little awkward at times—slowing in the middle and rushing through climactic twists—Kephart’s liquid prose drives the story, fueling the reader’s own emotional turmoil and rendering Mira and her friends brave and loyal despite their fear. Kephart’s worldbuilding is meticulous and vivid, with details that make Haven feel like a place out of time.

This smart, poignant novel is an absolute pleasure to read.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

“The way Mads and Billy Youngwolf Floyd met was horrible, hideous.” While starting the day with a swim in a Seattle Lake, Madison Murray bumps against the body of a woman who ended her life by jumping off a bridge. After such a horrifying moment, how could anything get better? Just hang on for the beautiful parts, beseeches the omniscient narrator in the eloquently crafted Essential Maps for the Lost.

Mads shouldn’t even be at the lake. She should be hanging out with friends back home instead of finishing up high school early, living with relatives and taking real estate courses to take over her narcissistic mother’s business. When she discovers that the body belongs to Billy’s mother, Mads has a new focus: finding out about this depressed woman and following her son.

Billy, who plays his life like the video game “Night Worlds,” has his own secrets, such as carrying the map from the children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which his mother used to read to him. Together, Mads and Billy try to navigate through their losses—and, eventually, first love. But even love is hard when there isn’t a map.

This seemingly quiet story becomes increasingly nuanced as Mads and Billy’s lives run parallel and intersect in shared dreams. This look at uncharted territories of the heart is a real find.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Teen Top Pick, April 2016

In the town of Palermo Heights, the cheerleading squad is the high school’s most successful team. Cheer captain Hermione Winters is determined to fill her senior year with more victories. She’s hard at work at preseason training camp when the unthinkable happens: She wakes up in a hospital to learn that she was drugged and raped, and soon finds out she was also impregnated. With her memory blank and the evidence compromised, there is little hope of finding Hermione’s attacker. 

While some rape narratives might focus on lurid details, the whodunit aspect and the protagonist’s downward spiral, E.K. Johnston’s latest novel works on more nuanced ground. Hermione is surrounded by a great support system, which allows her to keep cheering, stay in school and stand strong. Her best friend, Polly, is a case study in how to lend support to someone who has suffered an assault. But there are small changes to confront as well. Hermione feels a strange mix of pride and resentment as she watches friends find their own strength because of her circumstances, and she navigates fear and uncertainty as her memories begin to resurface. Johnston avoids unrealistic clichés by exploring Hermione’s emotions in vivid detail.

It may be pointed out that Hermione is too perfect a victim, one whose narrative undermines more complicated assault scenarios. However, Johnston’s carefully crafted novel makes this simplicity work, thanks to its focus on how strongly Hermione advocates for herself after the fact. Should a young reader ever need guidance following an assault, she could do much worse than to emulate Hermione Winters.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Before I begin the review of A Study in Charlotte, let me disclose that I am a Holmesian in the true definition of the word: I have read the canon, studied Victorian literature (and, in particular, the advent of the detective novel genre) and am a thoughtful critic of many “post-Doyle” productions, literary or otherwise. That being said, I was more than pleased to find another great modern model of the beloved classics.

Brittany Cavallaro’s first young adult novel hits all the right notes, bringing us the full flavor of a Holmes/Watson adventure with new characters. The story is told from the perspective of John Watson’s descendant, a 21st-century high school student named Jamie Watson. As in the original, the reader’s introduction to (and understanding of) the enigmatic Charlotte Holmes is filtered through Jamie’s own experience. Their unique relationship has the added spark of attraction, although the friendship remains the key connection.

Having both been packed off to a boarding school in America, the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that threatens their lives. As the danger mounts, Charlotte uses her powers of observation and deduction inherited from her great-plus-grandfather, while Jamie strives to protect her as only a Watson can. The pace keeps you turning the pages, but Cavallaro’s depiction of the characters and their development brings you deep into the moment. A Study in Charlotte as a title is not only a reference to Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, it is what it states: an examination of an intriguing Holmes inheritor. It’s also a bloody good read.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through 8th level Catholic school.

Cat Winters (In the Shadow of Blackbirds) offers a suspenseful Hamlet retelling, made all the more haunting by the rich and troubling historical time period.

It’s 1923, and Hanalee Denney’s black father has been killed by a drunk driver, and her white mother has remarried a prominent doctor from their rural Oregon town. When her father’s killer, Joe, a 17-year-old who spent nearly two years in a rough prison, is released, Hanalee is consumed by thoughts of revenge. But then Joe insists that the doctor murdered her father. Conflicted and unsure of whom to trust, Hanalee confronts the one person who can tell her the truth—her father’s ghost, who corroborates Joe’s story.

Surrounded by a potentially murderous stepfather, bootleggers, unscrupulous lawmen and junior members of the Ku Klux Klan, Hanalee isn’t sure where to turn for help. Both Hanalee and Joe’s lives are in constant danger, not just because of what they know, but because of who they are.

Winters stands apart as a unique YA literature storyteller. She deftly uses the occult to hook readers into examining tough historical topics such as racism, eugenics and violence, while exploring themes of injustice and forgiveness. The Steep and Thorny Way will provoke thought about how far we’ve come as a society and how far we have yet to go.

Kimberly Giarratano is the author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards, a young adult paranormal mystery.