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Set in Florida, Gods and Comics by Kat Cho offers readers insight on Korean mythology while also telling a story about the power of belief. Cho weaves her tale through the perspective of Grace Xavier Bak, a seventeen-year-old overachiever who designs webtoon episodes and is prone to anxiety attacks. As Grace works under the pseudonym Cho Sun, she unveils panels that feature Haemosu, the Korean sun god, and Yuhwa, his love interest. The “two teenage gods are trapped in human bodies, cursed to navigate the modern world” (1) while attending high school. Grace creates the episodes in part as a homage to her halmeoni whoRead More →

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Set in West Fork, Colorado, at Meddlehart Academy, A House of Vipers is Emma Jackson’s debut young adult novel. A boarding school for young people with wealthy parents, Meddlehart has a hidden treasure story, but is there really a buried treasure or is the story just one to entice the youth to join the Order of the Vipers? With mystery at its core, Jackson’s book has a three-pronged plot: a tragedy, a treasure, and a love triangle. Five students are bound by the loyalty of friendship and a bond like family, so when Sutter Heyward seeks the support of his friends: Carter Sterling, Grayson Hendricks,Read More →

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Set in 2425’s London, Burn the Water by Billy Ray begins with the world in peril. The polar ice caps have melted, the world is underwater, and the Rogues and the Crowns have been engaged in a centuries-long war. Now in its fourth century, death, water, and war are all London knows. With uncertainty and courage as her companions, Jule must conquer her doubt and prevent herself from drowning in despair. Although the “fiercest and most famous soldier the Crown Army ever produced” (4), she is also the loneliest. When on patrol, Jule spots her sworn enemy Rafe rescuing the corpse of a young boy,Read More →

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With We’re a Bad Idea, Right? K.L. Walther writes a hilarious romance for young adults. Set in Connecticut, this coming-of-age story explores themes of friendship, love, and self-discovery. Told with just the right amount of realism, the rom-com pulls in the reader with characters who are full of shenanigans but who are enduring conflicts that resonate as relevant. Just about to graduate from high school, Audrey Barbour has been accepted to Wharton School for Business, but she has also been granted an internship with the Blue Ridge Glass School. An artisan and entrepreneur with her best friend’s support, Audrey blows glass, not only as aRead More →

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Wishing to learn from the teachers at Sibylline, a college of magical arts that trains students to understand and use their powers, Atticus Garcia, Dorian Winthrop, and Raven Chen instead learn that wanting is a terrible thing. The trio is denied admission to the “oldest and best” school dedicated to the study of magic. So, they go under cover as staff members, hoping to glean whatever knowledge they can. But when they get caught up in a grand conspiracy and attacked by a shadow monster, things grow complicated. Such is the plot of Melissa De La Cruz’s novel Sibylline. In Book One of what promisesRead More →

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A sophomore at Hero High School, Eliza Gordon-Fergus lives a regimented life.  Imposed by her scientist parents and monitored remotely, rules for everything from nutrition, sleep, and exercise to socializing and studying regulate Eliza’s behavior. Meanwhile, her parents conduct research at such places as Brazil or the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station. Although rules and routines feel safe, Eliza discovers that capable, brilliant, and independent are synonyms for lonely. She begins to yearn for family and maybe even a boyfriend, wondering  whether love is real and whether she trusts herself enough to be vulnerable and inept. Friends like Merri Campbell keep Eliza, who may beRead More →

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Although Witchkiller by Ashlee Latimer is in part a reimagined version of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, it moves beyond that to explore gender roles and to share timeless morals. As the story opens, readers learn that Gretel Henoth walks an emotional tightrope. Worry stands over her, reminding her that she lives in a world where “a man with a sword was a hero—a woman with a weapon, even her own voice, was a threat” (4). When she was young, her brother Hansel shielded and supported her, defending her from the dangers of the outside world and protecting her from their abusive father whoseRead More →

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Lydia Gregovic shares her genre-blended style with readers in her recent novel The Weaver Bride. Mixing a little bit of romance with intrigue, she adds a splash of murder mystery and supplies some fantasy-thriller vibes. Readers familiar with classic tales will likely see some elements shared by the stories of Rumpelstiltskin and Pygmalion. Gregovic’s protagonist, Lovett Tamerlane is a silkwitch who must preserve her magical talent until she is wed to a Weaver. “Only Weavers were taught the process by which [a silkwitch’s] hair could be spun into magesilk” (20). Although her magic is made potent by a Weaver, the Envies did allow each silkwitchRead More →

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Set in a suburb of Philadelphia, Heartsick by Kristina Forest invites readers to wonder: If there were a pill to ease and erase the pain of heartbreak, would you take it to cope with the loss of a beloved who has decided to move on? Forest’s speculative novel features Margot Whitman, a realist and a lover of cold hard facts, who doesn’t believe in love at first sight until she meets Isaac Fisher. Isaac’s passions are comics and video games. He has been working on his Electro-Man comics—an environmentalist superhero of sorts—since he was thirteen. The two form a comfortable relationship for a year andRead More →