(2) YA Breathmarked series. Honor, family, respect, ambition -- familiar values are embedded in this Chinese-inspired fantasy set in a world with a long, winding Snake Wall separating East and West. Some children are "breathmarked," born with a patch of dragon scales on their skin indicating an innate talent. East-born twins Sai and Jun have always shared everything, except that Sai is breathmarked and specially chosen to train to protect the East. Jun, who has been illegally training in martial arts for years, betrays his own secret in a fit of jealousy, which tears their family apart; Jun and his father are banished to the West, while Sai and his mother remain in the East. Resentful but undeterred, Jun runs away to fight in a tournament to restore his family's honor. He soon discovers that political corruption has transformed the tournament into a deadly battle against reunification, and he must decide what he is willing to risk. Sensory details plunge readers into the danger and splendor of the tournament as well as Jun's poignant inner conflicts. A page-turning adventure and coming-of-age tale steeped in fantastical myth.

Reviewer: J. Elizabeth Mills | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(2) YA Seventeen-year-old Jo is quick to list qualities she's learned are "the trouble with girls like me." She's "wild," "difficult," "a slut." A social outcast after a classmate leaked nude photos, she's mostly ignored by her parents and failing school. When her ex-best friend, Maddie, one of the popular girls, asks for help, Jo can't imagine why -- but before Maddie can explain, she disappears. Everyone thinks she ran away, but Jo believes it's not that simple. She teams up with Hudson, a friend (or maybe more) who has his own reasons to investigate Maddie's disappearance; together, they uncover a schoolwide scandal with dangerous implications. The mystery has all the elements of a good thriller: characters you can't necessarily trust; nail-biting suspense; and a twisty, surprising conclusion. But there's another layer: what happened to Jo at age fifteen, when she and Maddie stopped being friends. Jo's experience, once revealed, is clearly sexual assault, contextualizing her bitterness, rage, and self-blame. It takes time, and some help, for Jo to recognize it, too, and reclaim her body and her voice. Adamo writes with compassion for "girls like me" (an author's note acknowledges firsthand experience) who deserve to be listened to, believed, and loved -- and nothing less.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Kerns | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(4) 4-6 Historical fiction mainstay Avi presents a slow-burn turn-of-the-previous-century novel detailing the harrowing experience of one Italian immigrant as he navigates a new world where “no one cares about immigrants unless they want you to do something unpleasant.” At the request of his father who immigrated to America years earlier, thirteen-year-old (“perhaps fourteen”) Santo, along with his mother and siblings, leave Italy for the promise of a better life. The family is separated on Ellis Island; alone and unable to find his father, Santo is effectively forced into a gang of young thieves. Run by a tyrannical teen leader, the gang becomes an uneasy source of security for Santo. In the end, the family is (mostly) reunited—arguably through a series of slightly implausible events. The first-person narrative is concise; short chapters and multiple cliffhangers will compel readers forward. An author’s note provides brief historical context on the crime ring presented in the book, plus select resources.

Reviewer: Patrick Gall

(2) 4-6 In this novel set in 1973, all seventh grader Melanie wants is to be one of the popular Shimmers. As her best friend, Vicky, seems to be having more success achieving that goal than Melanie is, the sudden appearance of a new friend is welcome. New classmate Dorit was born in Israel and has moved from place to place, and she and Melanie discover they have a lot in common. In fact, each has a parent with symptoms of what the author's note identifies as PTSD -- Melanie's mother from a car accident and Dorit's father from fighting in the Six-Day War. The Shimmers are less than compassionate, and in an attempt to impress them, Melanie crosses a line in what she shares about Dorit and her family. The start of the Yom Kippur War believably heightens emotions, while Melanie's growing understanding of the Watergate scandal mirrors issues of trust among Melanie and her peers in this tale of friendship dynamics that doesn't reach for easy resolutions or immediate forgiveness.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA Nelson (Printz Award winner for I'll Give You the Sun, rev. 11/14) begins with definitions of a fantasia -- one of which is "a literary work composed of a mixture of different forms or styles." This fantasia features the author's use of magical realism, along with lyrical prose, an epic plot, and the kind of flawed characters who are essential in stories of dysfunctional family relationships and the resultant themes of loss, betrayal, and redemption. The novel opens with the rotating third-person viewpoints of a trio of siblings: twelve-year-old Dizzy, a supernaturally gifted girl muddling through prepubescent friendship issues; seemingly perfect seventeen-year-old Miles, who struggles with depression and coming out as gay; and nineteen-year-old Wynton, the violin virtuoso who is still haunted by their father's abandonment. Each has an early encounter with a mysterious rainbow-haired girl named Cassidy, newly arrived in Paradise, California, who eventually largely takes over the narration. Her first-person perspective provides the backstory, alongside the plethora of letters, emails, transcripts, and newspaper articles interspersed throughout. It's a lot to take in, but patient readers will eventually feel the pull of Nelson's carefully woven storytelling and succumb to her special kind of magic. Not every subplot is resolved, and not all that are resolved have happy endings, but there's catharsis in the realization that "when the world tips over," there is still joy to be experienced.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Levi Pinfold. Beginning deceptively blandly, this tale soon slips into the uneasiness of horror and brain-teasing mystification. Best friends Hex and Tommo head to the woods to play on the rope swing over the creek. En route, little Sascha insists on joining them; through the boys' rough play, she ends up with a broken arm. Afterward, Hex's confused emotional response alienates Tommo and enrages Maria, Sascha's older sister, who beats Hex up. So far, so ordinary...but in the forest is Missus, a "short, jolly" woman and her huge dog, Leafy. Wouldn't you like to get revenge on the one who hurt you? Missus asks both Hex and Maria, separately. "We will simply persuade the world to forget them...your world will heal, reshape itself around the hole." Before he can decide, Hex himself disappears, preempted by Maria's choice. Thus we begin again in a new reality: off to the woods with his buddy Jayce is Tommo, who neither quite recalls nor quite forgets having had a best friend named Hex. "He could remember remembering, but couldn't remember exactly what he'd remembered about this other, missing kid." In this new world things are disconcertingly different from or disconcertingly resonant with Tommo's memories. Harrold's (The Song from Somewhere Else, rev. 5/17) creepy tale takes off with this altered world, uncanny in its innocuous but distressing changes ("Mum used to keep cactuses, but now there's not a single cactus in the house," Maria cries); that unsettling sense of the uncanny swells to out-and-out terror as Tommo makes his own visit to Missus. Pinfold's chiaroscuro-esque, surreal illustrations raise the stakes on the crone from Disney's Snow White: this isn't for the timid.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) 4-6 Classmates Chloe and Maddie, both twelve, used to be best friends. Now they decidedly aren't, and they're dismayed to find themselves in the same bunk at a drama camp. Scenes of the summer (and a production of Wicked) alternate with flashbacks to the previous school year (and The Music Man), gradually revealing the embarrassing secrets each has about the other and the incident that caused the rift. The dynamic between Chloe, a professional child actor (but, lately, not child star), and Maddie, a self-described "chubby Jewish girl with thick glasses and a tendency to fall over at the worst possible moments" (she has dyspraxia), has settled into patterns that leave both feeling frustrated. They're each figuring things out about themselves, and what seems a simple case of an unbalanced friendship reveals itself to be more complex as the two eventually speak honestly about issues that have long festered between them. The book doesn't reach for tidy resolutions, but there's lighthearted fun to be had along the way, including some creativity with golem stories in a screenwriting elective and (spoiler alert) a sweet queer romantic subplot for one of the girls.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) YA In this page-turning drama, two teens from different backgrounds forge a brief romantic connection amid the tumultuous 2019 Hong Kong anti-government protests. Phoenix Lam, sixteen, comes from a wealthy shipping family. Zhang Kai En, seventeen, an amateur painter who has been living in Shanghai, returns to Hong Kong after his mother's death to reunite with his estranged father and enroll in the police academy. The two protagonists meet by chance at a restaurant and connect after they accidentally swap cellphones. Apolitical Phoenix follows her brother into protesting. Kai joins their student group while secretly undermining their efforts. Tension builds as the teens grow closer, peaceful protests turn deadly, and Kai's betrayal is discovered. The novel succeeds in using the lens of young love in an undercover thriller to capture a significant historical moment. Song does a strong job with her vivid descriptions of the cosmopolitan city in peaceful moments and in realistic, chaotic protest scenes, including examples of police and protester violence. She also manages the difficult balancing act of exploring various characters' viewpoints on the China/Hong Kong political situation with nuance, whether they see the pro-democracy protests as necessary, destructive, or futile. In her author's note, Song emphasizes that her novel is "not representative of the entire Hong Kong population...there is a vast range of perspectives." A short list of recommended nonfiction books and documentaries is also appended.

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) 4-6 Eight-year-old Duck, orphaned as an infant, is the youngest member of a gang of urchins called the Crowns, who forage and pickpocket and scam their way through Avilogne (think medieval France) to survive--barely. In the city of Odierne, the Crowns find temporary shelter in a crumbling, abandoned cathedral watched over by forgotten, brooding, sentient gargoyles, one of whom narrates interspersed chapters. Duck is reluctantly apprenticed to kindly, trusting baker Griselde, who is nearly blind, in order to carry out ruthless gang-leader Gnat's scheme to steal from Griselde on a regular basis. And we're off--into a riveting novel full of tension and action; sensory-rich scenes and settings; and vividly portrayed, believable characters. As the seasons progress, we experience with Duck her moral dilemmas (taking advantage of the generous but vulnerable Griselde feels wrong); crisis of identity as she is torn between being a loyal apprentice and serving the Crowns; growing attachment not just to Griselde but to the wider community to which she now belongs; a terrible, costly betrayal; and an ultimate rescue. There are revelations at the end (one involving the gargoyle narrator), but they're as nuanced as the rest of the novel. Eagar's themes never feel tacked on but instead are thoroughly kneaded into her characters and story.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2022

(2) YA This formidable prequel to We Were Liars (rev. 5/14), focusing on the wealthy Sinclair family a generation before that novel's events, opens with a harsh truth, and a spoiler. Johnny, one of the cousins of the first book's protagonist, appears as a ghost to his mother, narrator Carrie, on the family's private island. With the promise to tell him "the worst thing [she] ever did" as a framing device, Carrie flashes back to reveal many of the dark secrets and lies she had helped to perpetuate over the years. In 1987 on the island, seventeen-year-old Carrie is deeply saddened about the drowning death of her youngest sister (the first ghost to appear to her); recovering from the surgery on which her father has insisted to correct her jawline; and beginning a protracted dependence on painkillers and sedatives. Carrie is swept off her feet by Pfeff, a charming, impulsive cad who betrays her in what she feels is the worst possible way. The violent consequences entail a massive cover-up that requires full utilization of the Sinclairs' good standing, privilege, and cunning. The engrossing narration, full of fairy-tale references and family mottos ("Never complain, never explain"), is neither reliable nor neatly wrapped up, but the novel is uncomfortably thought-provoking. The story (understandable on its own but richer when read after We Were Liars) asks readers to consider hard questions and is impossible to put down.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(2) YA Charlotte--a dreamy, tenacious eighteen-year-old from Seattle--thinks she has what it takes to become an author: largely, "the will and intention of an artist." When she's awarded a scholarship to attend a workshop in Venice led by her novelist idol, literary darling Luca Bruni, Charlotte jumps at the opportunity to develop her craft, make powerful connections, and research her ancestor, sixteenth-century Venetian poet Isabella di Angelo. Sumptuous descriptions bring the cityscape to life as Charlotte basks in both Venice's haunting beauty and (at least at first) Bruni's intoxicating presence; on the side, a cute local-history scholar helps her uncover more about Isabella's fate. Close narration keeps Charlotte's shifting feelings of wonder, enlightenment, and vulnerability at the forefront; the third-person perspective allows readers to see clearly what Charlotte cannot admit about her teacher's predatorily flirtatious behavior toward students. The tension breaks when Bruni turns his attention to Charlotte, and she must finally face the truth about him. The fallout from his advances shatters her literary fantasies and she quits the program, but a discovery about Isabella's history draws Charlotte back to Venice--on her own terms--for a quietly triumphant conclusion. Caletti (A Heart in a Body in the World, rev. 11/18; Girl, Unframed, rev. 9/20) weaves the lives of these two striving artists together with an expert hand, with chapter headers profiling dozens of real-life, little-known, subjugated female writers from Isabella's era, highlighting parallels in women's--especially female creative artists'--stories throughout history.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2021

(2) YA Folk of the Air series. Mortal Jude (The Cruel Prince), raised in the realm of Faerie and skilled at manipulation, resourcefully keeps her one-time nemesis Cardan's numerous rivals in check. The growing trust between Jude and Cardan blossoms into an unlikely romance and ultimately a clandestine marriage--but one final betrayal threatens to undo all of Jude's plans. The plot twists, turns, and dovetails perfectly with the assured character development; Black is a master storyteller.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2019

(2) YA In LaFevers's alt-historical fifteenth-century Brittany, Sybella (from the His Fair Assassin trilogy), the trained assassin and daughter of Saint Mortain, becomes attendant to the Queen of France. Not far away, Genevieve, a novice from Saint Mortain's convent who had gone missing, is making the hazardous journey back to the French court. Alternating between Sybella's and Genevieve's voices, LaFevers maintains an intense pitch of intrigue, with murders, assaults, romance, and betrayals.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2019

(4) YA In this sequel to Traitor's Kiss, Sage's decision to go behind Alex's back on a military adventure prevents a war but damages their relationship. As Sage's diplomatic skills and experiences deepen, misunderstandings and betrayals threaten both the future of their romance and the kingdom of Demora. Sage grows in this craftily plotted second installment, but Alex and supporting characters lack depth.

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac

(3) YA After learning that her archaeologist father's death was faked by "crazy-pants cultists" hell-bent on resurrecting the Egyptian god of chaos, eighteen-year-old Memphis ("M") races to locate ancient artifacts to trade for her father's life. Smart and spunky, M jets around the world--and shares narration--with Ash Sood, a member of a rival cult. Mythology, religion, and magic broaden this international adventure novel.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(3) 4-6 The series concludes in this sixth entry with code-cracking super-agent Ruby in search of a traitor within Spectrum's ranks. The familiar supporting cast is here to help, but another child spy may play an integral part in the mystery. Ruby is in top form, solving ingenious puzzles, performing impossible physical feats, and amassing clues to discover the solution. An exciting and satisfying finale for fans.

Reviewer: Grace Enriquez

(3) 4-6 Erth Dragons series. The dragon Wearle holds human boy Ren captive, fearing Ren's new abilities now that he's been gifted with dragon powers. While friendly dragon Gabrial hopes to make peace with Ren's tribe, a stranger's plan to resurrect the dragons' ancient enemy could mean disaster for all. Blending mystery, action, and suspense, this worthy sequel to The Wearle will leave readers eager for more. Glos.

Reviewer: Russell Perry

(3) YA After a mysterious fire killed all but one member of the wealthy Garrison family, suspicion fell on Pearl Haskins's father, caretaker of the Garrison mansion. This summer, Pearl is determined to clear her father's name and befriends the Maine vacation town's elite to investigate; complications arise when Pearl finds herself drawn to Tristan Garrison. French's compelling murder-mystery is stoked with glitzy intrigue and thrilling twists.

Reviewer: Grace Enriquez

(3) YA When Mari enters the competition to survive the four magical season-themed rooms and marry the emperor-to-be, Prince Taro, she must hide that she is yōkai, one of the supernatural creatures whom the emperor treats as second class. Meanwhile, a yōkai rebellion is brewing. The Japanese-inspired setting of this political fantasy gives depth and texture to the fast-paced action, and the romance will melt hearts.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(3) 4-6 In this modern, middle-school spin on Dickens's A Christmas Carol, thirteen-year-old mean-girl Ellie is visited by a ghost, who shows Ellie scenes from her life to inspire her to change her ways. Margolis first presents Ellie as a deplorable monster, then, in the heart-rending flashbacks, strips away her confidence and perfection to reveal a broken teen with whom readers will sympathize.

Reviewer: Lana Barnes