In Ketchup Clouds, Annabel Pitcher introduces what must be one of the more unusual pen-pal relationships ever set to paper. Zoe is a teenage girl living in Bath, England, and the recipient of her letters is Mr. Stuart Harris, an inmate on Texas’ death row. At first glance, the two seem to have nothing in common, but as Zoe begins to reveal her story through her letters to Stuart, readers start to understand why Zoe feels an affinity for this doomed man half a world away.

Zoe is consumed with guilt over events that happened a year ago. What should have been a fun and exciting experience—her very first time falling in love—instead resulted in heartbreak, betrayal and death. In addition to concealing her own role in this tragedy, she’s still secretly grieving and nursing a broken heart—things she imagines that Stuart, who’s been sentenced to death for murdering his wife, also must feel.

Zoe’s letters alternate between telling Stuart about her life as it is right now—complete with family dramas and ongoing attempts to avoid the dead boy’s mother—and gradually recounting the events from the year before. Throughout the novel, Pitcher delays revealing not only Zoe’s role in the death, but also the identity of the dead boy, skillfully building suspense while inciting sympathy. Ketchup Clouds is alternately romantic, sad and even surprisingly funny, as readers come to know this quirky character through her most unconventional confession.

Victoria McKernan’s The Devil’s Paintbox told the gripping tale of 16-year-old Aiden Lynch and his struggle to survive in the post-Civil War Pacific Northwest. The sequel, Son of Fortune, carries the young hero into new territory.

Fleeing Seattle after a vicious encounter that left his opponent dead, Aiden earns passage to San Francisco by caring for polar bears bound for a zoo. Aiden then lands a job as a tutor, but adventure is always right around the corner. With a ship won in a card game, he is soon heading to an island off the coast of Peru, from where guano is exported to the U.S. as highly prized fertilizer.

On his ship, Aiden finds himself part of a complex web of relationships, as the competing ship owners vie for the favor of the island’s manager and while away the days until their ships can be loaded. But as each day goes by, Aiden’s horror increases as he learns more about the Chinese laborers and the appalling mining conditions on the island.

Using her prodigious research skills, McKernan paints a vivid picture of 19th-century life without shying away from complex subjects like race relations. Readers will find Aiden to be an engaging hero, struggling to make sense of the world and to find a code to live by.

Imagine a past where the tragic Titanic never sank, but instead flew across the Atlantic Ocean. For 13-year-old Hollis Dakota, the wealthy heir to an incredible fleet of airships, this is his reality. When his grandfather, Samuel Dakota, was an infantryman in the Civil War, he discovered an unusual biochemical process for flight, a process that swiftly ended the war when the Union Army decimated the Confederates from the air.

Fast-forward to 1912, when Hollis and his family board the Wendell Dakota. It’s the largest airship ever built and is named after Hollis’ late father, whose death weighs heavily on Hollis’ heart. Hollis has been groomed to take over the company, but he fears he does not have his father’s ingenuity and confidence to successfully take the helm.

But then the Wendell Dakota is hijacked and his mother is kidnapped. To save the lives of everyone on board, Hollis needs to muster his courage, lead a motley crew of friends and reconcile his grandfather’s unfortunate past—all while trying to evade the hijackers.

Andy Marino’s latest novel is a genre mash-up of alternate history and steampunk fiction that touches on very real class inequalities. The Wendell Dakota, inspired by the Titanic, is a behemoth of luxury and indulgence, with America’s wealthiest families booking first-class accommodations while the poorest live in tent cities in steerage.

With smart and savvy female characters, anachronistic technology and a hero with gumption, Uncrashable Dakota is an adventure tale for even the most reluctant reader.

When Gerald was 5 years old, he was the star of a reality television show that chronicled his family’s domestic affairs. The cameras showed a defiant little boy but never the reasons behind his rage. Now 17, Gerald spends his school days in a special education class where he doesn’t belong but is afraid to leave. His home life has never fully recovered from the aftereffects of stardom: His oldest sister lives in the basement with her boyfriend, and his middle sister hasn’t been in touch since she left for college. Gerald employs several defense mechanisms, all designed to insulate himself from those who continue to judge him by his childhood misbehavior.

When he first meets Hannah, Gerald won’t let himself get attached because he can’t believe that she might actually care for him. But Hannah has family issues of her own, and the two gradually let down their guards for one another. Together, they find a way toward a present—and a future—that’s more than either of their pasts.

In Reality Boy, author A.S. King once again displays the range of her writing talent. Gerald’s voice is authentic, and his anger is palpable. In the end, his story is as much about the lack of reality in “reality” TV as it is about how a teen can choose to define his own identity rather than letting others define it for him.

After three weeks of nonstop terrorist attacks around the country—from the fall of the St. Louis Gateway Arch to the elimination of Chicago—the military has started rounding up every young person between 13 and 20. No place is left untouched, including Aubrey Parsons’ small town in Utah. When her alcoholic, good-for-nothing father rats her out for beer money, Aubrey, along with classmate (and occasional high school janitor) Jack, ends up in a military compound meant to weed out Lambdas, or teens infected with a virus that attacks developing brains.

Leaving victims with symptoms that range from laughable (hot breath that can boil coffee) to deadly (superhuman strength that can crush bones), the X-Men-like virus has given Aubrey the power to become invisible. Aubrey and Jack prepare to use their powers to help a Green Beret unit, but not even the military is certain who the real enemy is.

This multilayered science-fiction thriller takes on more complexity and intensity when the pair meets Lambdas Alec and Laura, professionally trained terrorists. When Aubrey and Jack unknowingly end up in Alec and Laura’s destructive plan to take down America’s beloved monuments around the West, the fast-paced plot doesn’t let up until the final pages.

Author Robison Wells skillfully converges multiple storylines and points of view throughout Blackout, revealing clues about the nation’s terrorist activity and the teens’ involvement along the way. But don’t expect all the secrets to be revealed. Wells leaves just enough loose ends and intrigue to entice readers back for a sequel. Just like the mutant virus, fan appeal will quickly spread.

“I am not given to dreaminess, have something of a terrier’s determination. If there is something to notice, I will notice it first.” Despite being just 12 and a half, Mila is often relied upon for her attention to detail. She sees things her musician mother and translator father, Gil, don’t. So when her father’s best friend disappears without a trace, he brings her along on a trip from London to upstate New York. There’s a longer view to this mystery that Mila can’t make out at first—but when she does, it shatters everything that came before. Picture Me Gone gathers these glimpses and fragments into something raw and real.

Printz Award winner Meg Rosoff presents us with a beautiful contradiction: Mila is emotionally walled off in many respects, but every feeling she experiences hits the reader directly in the heart. Her parents’ love is unyielding, but their failures are the catalyst for Mila’s growth. She recognizes that her limited life experiences give her a truncated range of possible scenarios to consider as she tries to solve the mystery. However, she’s unaware that love has expanded her blind spot to the people she trusts, not all of whom are honest.

While the themes in Picture Me Gone are heavy hitting, Mila also has a first brush with romance, reconnects with a friend and is perpetually nonplussed by Americans who compliment her London accent. What she learns on the trip is bruising, but her resilience develops as a result, and for readers it’s a privilege to be along for the ride.

Read Picture Me Gone. If Mila doesn’t touch your heart, check with a doctor because you might be dead. She’s complex, fragile, resilient and utterly unforgettable.

Jack has a tendency to think too much, which is why, at the opening of Emil Ostrovski’s debut novel, The Paradox of Vertical Flight, he’s sent into a spiral of near-suicidal despair prompted by something as seemingly harmless as his friends’ Facebook birthday wishes. It’s shaping up to be Jack’s worst birthday ever, and maybe his last—until he gets a phone call from the last person he ever would have expected.

Jack’s ex-girlfriend Jess is in the hospital, where she’s just given birth to a baby boy—Jack’s son. She’s planning to give the baby up for adoption, but as soon as Jack sees the baby, he knows he’s not ready to say goodbye. Instead of turning him over to the adoptive parents, Jack takes his newborn son, whom he’s named Socrates, and hits the road. Soon he and Socrates—along with Jack’s best friend Tommy and, eventually, Jess—are heading from Maine to New York to see Jack’s dying grandmother.

Along the way, Jack and his baby son engage in Socratic dialogue, in which baby Socrates’ (imaginary) questions prompt Jack to investigate his notions of happiness, success and life itself. Despite the fact that their journey culminates in several kinds of goodbyes, Jack manages to wrest a kind of hope from their situation: “The world’s so fragile, and we’re all so clumsy. But maybe Socrates will be more sure-footed than me. That’s worth believing in.”

The Paradox of Vertical Flight might not give readers a real introduction to the classical philosophers, but its thoughtful, often funny approach to philosophy may just inspire readers to ask their own deep questions and seek their own profound answers.

Step into any bookstore and you’ll likely see adults of all ages perusing the YA shelves. It’s not just fantasy or dystopian novels that attract this wider audience but the work of a number of incredibly talented contemporary authors. Among them is Trish Doller, whose 2012 debut novel, Something Like Normal, received numerous accolades. Doller’s new book, Where the Stars Still Shine, is an engaging, compulsive read and a thought-provoking look at a family under duress.

Callie has been on the run with her mother for 12 years. After her mother’s marriage fell apart and she kidnapped young Callie, both became survivors. Callie’s idea of “normal” includes hanging out in a Laundromat when her mother has men over, never going to school, avoiding her mother’s friends who might abuse her, pursuing casual sexual encounters and leaving one nameless town for another at a moment’s notice. All that ends when her mother is stopped for a missing taillight and is arrested.

The next day, Callie is claimed by her father and flies with him to Florida, where she suddenly finds herself thrown into a new family with a father she barely remembers, a stepmother and two younger half-brothers. Family life in close-knit Tarpon Springs, especially in the extended Greek community, comes with rules, responsibilities and expectations (like letting your dad know if you stay out until all hours). All this is a difficult adjustment for Callie, who is used to fending for herself. She also finds that forging real friendships and romantic relationships presents challenges—and rewards—she never dreamed of in her previous nomadic life.

Callie is a complex, fully drawn character struggling to make sense of who she is when everything she has learned about the world is turned upside-down. Where the Stars Still Shine is a compelling coming-of-age story and a portrait of an extended family seeking to move forward and heal. Remember Trish Doller’s name the next time you’re looking for something simply marvelous to read.

In Tumble & Fall, under the looming, inevitable threat of a world-shattering asteroid on course to collide with Earth, the lives of three teenagers unfold in their last week of existence. Like a well-written soapy drama, the novel cuts back and forth between each teen and explores their relationships with families, friends and newfound love interests. Bipolar Sienna is readjusting to life outside the mental institution, grieving Zan is learning to live without the recently deceased love of her life, and abandoned Caden struggles to carry on with his alcoholic mother and without his absent father.

Because the end of the world is a matter of how soon rather than if, Sienna, Zan and Caden feel compelled to take risks that were previously unfathomable. When their last-ditch efforts to find love and discover themselves take unexpected turns, their truest selves begin to surface. Disparate coping mechanisms for past and oncoming tragedies define them as well, but each eventually wonders, “What will [I] be like, in those final minutes, should it come to that? Calm, like the rabbit, or a total, inconsolable mess?”

Employing plot devices and narrative tools similar to those made famous by blockbuster movies such as Armageddon and Crash, author Alexandra Coutts, a former playwright and script reader, crafts an episodic saga of tangentially related characters whose lives have been intertwined all along. She sets Tumble & Fall in her native Massachusetts with the central locale on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, one of the last remaining safe havens as the end nears, and includes a visit to Boston, which has been transformed from bustling city to ghost town in a matter of days.

Tumble & Fall, Coutts’ third novel for young adults, is a well-paced and well-planned end-of-days tale that left me eager to read more about the lives and emotional reactions of characters who very easily could be my own neighbors.

Classic detective literature meets vampires and steampunk London in Colleen Gleason’s new Stoker and Holmes series, featuring budding detectives Mina Holmes (Sherlock’s niece) and Evaline Stoker (Bram’s half-sister). With love interests, time travel and murder, The Clockwork Scarab has all the elements of a must-read not just for teens but for anybody who loves any of these genres.

Mina and Evaline begin as somewhat prickly, reluctant partners, brought together by a summons to the British Museum at midnight. Their partnership is forged by the formidable Irene Adler—yes, “the woman” from the Holmes story, “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Miss Adler, working for the British Museum under royal command, calls for Mina and Evaline to place themselves at service to the Crown and help solve the mystery of why the daughters of London society are disappearing.

Murder, of course, is in the wings. Quite close, in fact. In the very midst of their briefing, the three discover the body of a young woman in the halls of the Museum. Standing over her, knife in hand, is a handsome young man dressed rather strangely. As Mina will soon discover, he is wearing the telltale footwear of any self-respecting 21st-century time traveler, “decorated with an odd swoop-like design on the sides.”

And so the fun begins. Told in alternating points of view by Mina and Evaline, The Clockwork Scarab is an exciting YA debut for Colleen Gleason, who is best known for her adult paranormal romance series. The novel is sure to be crowd-pleasing, and an Educator Guide linking the book to the new Common Core Standards is also available.

In a world where all humans are born with two souls in every body, hybrids are the citizens who refuse to lose or sacrifice their second souls. Once We Were, the second book in Kat Zhang’s Hybrid Chronicles, takes us deeper into the hidden realm of the hybrids.

In What’s Left of Me, hybrid Addie/Eva struggled to share their body and join the revolution for hybrid freedom. Now, after being rescued from the Nornand Clinic, where doctors attempted to "cure" them of their hybridity, Addie/Eva find protection with an underground hybrid movement run by cautious, scheming Peter. In the safety of their new underground existence, Addie/Eva discover and hone “going under”—voluntarily and temporarily separating their consciousnesses for up to a few hours. This new skill allows them a little precious time “away” from each other, to feel more like actual individuals, and to focus on developing their respective relationships with fellow Nornand escapee(s) Devon/Ryan.

The secret lovers later befriend a smaller, younger faction of the underground movement, and they all quietly become more and more rebellious as they tire of Peter’s endless plans and precautions. But their collective rebel spirit, born of camaraderie and retribution, turns violent, and Addie/Eva are left wondering: Should they stand by and watch as a hateful world has its way with them, or will they be agents of change within it, helping themselves and their fellow hybrids along the way?

Young author Kat Zhang blends elements of fantasy, sci-fi and historical fiction to compose a riveting, semi-dystopian narrative, both inside Addie/Eva’s head and beyond. Through a bevy of new hybrid characters, each with two distinct and dynamic personalities, Once We Were expands the imaginative world Zhang first introduced in What’s Left of Me. Zhang has only begun to tap the potential of this alternative world and its history, and with Once We Were, she has once again ensnared the reader’s interest to discover what will happen next to each of these characters.

At first glance, Oleander, Kansas, is a town like any other—small, isolated and full of secrets—until the “killing day,” when five citizens inexplicably murder 12 people before killing themselves. Only one teenage girl survives. Cassandra Porter is convicted and locked away without any answers as to how she could kill a person—let alone an infant.

A year after the killing day, the town is leveled by a Category 5 tornado, but that’s just the beginning of the destruction. Oleander is immediately quarantined, the town elders impose their own rule and violence ensues. Five teenagers—the closeted jock, the drug dealer’s daughter, the outcast’s son, the religious fanatic and Cassandra the baby killer—can see the evil plaguing their town, even if they don’t quite understand it. And only they can stop the madness or die trying.

The Waking Dark is a well-crafted, multi-narrative tour de force that explores weighty issues such as physical and sexual abuse, drug addiction, hypocrisy and homophobia with the chill of a Stephen King novel. Robin Wasserman cleverly uses science fiction and horror to explore themes of good and evil, and the choices people make to be one or the other. Are the townspeople driven to commit such violence because deep down that’s who they really are? Or is it because something sinister is turning them into monsters? Wasserman doesn’t tread lightly here: The violence is cringe-worthy and frequent, but it serves a narrative purpose. Fast-paced and engrossing, The Waking Dark has great crossover potential for adults as well as teens.

Holly Black’s highly anticipated novel opens with a massacre. Seventeen-year-old Tana Bach wakes up in a bathtub after a night of partying to find all her classmates dead, their bodies strewn about like bloody confetti—the victims of a vampire attack. Tana also discovers her ex-boyfriend, Aidan, tied up in a bedroom. He’s been bitten and is now infected, but he’s alive. And he’s not alone. He’s trapped with a wounded vampire, the enigmatic and dangerous Gavriel. Tana makes a quick decision to save them both, putting her life in danger and risking infection. The three of them drive to Coldtown, an inescapable ghetto for vampires and the humans who venerate them.

Once inside the walls of Coldtown, Tana gets mixed up in a centuries-old power struggle that pits her against a celebrity vampire. Tana’s only thought is to stay human and stay alive, but that may not be possible when she has a weakness for saving others.

Black treats readers to a richly woven narrative full of flawed characters with unenviable choices. Coldtown is a place of nightmares, but it’s also a place of seduction. Some humans will do anything to get inside, giving up their comfortable homes to live in squalor, all for the chance to become immortal. But Black shows that immortality eventually becomes hellish, even for those who willfully seek it. Rich in imagery and told in Black’s standout, signature prose, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a memorable literary feast.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read an interview with Holly Black for The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.