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April Debut YA Novels

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Written by: Kelly on April 27, 2015.

It’s time for another round-up of debut YA novels of the month.

Like always, this round-up includes debut novels, where “debut” is in its purest definition. These are first-time books by first-time authors. I’m not including books by authors who are using or have used a pseudonym in the past or those who have written in other categories (adult, middle grade, etc.) in the past.

All descriptions are from WorldCat, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts out in February from traditional publishers, let me know in the comments. As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. 

Ask The Dark by Henry Turner: A thriller about Billy Zeets, a 14-year-old semi-delinquent in a deadly tango with a killer.

Becoming Jinn by Lori Goldstein: Behind closed doors, sixteen-year-old Azra is learning how to harness her powers and fulfill the obligations of her destiny. Mentored by her mother and her Zar “sisters,” Azra discovers she may not be quite like the rest of her circle of female Jinn … and that her powers could endanger them all.

Dating Down by Stefanie Lyons: Seventeen-year-old aspiring artist Samantha Henderson, eager to learn about life and to get away from her father’s political campaigns and her stepmother, refuses to give up on her new boyfriend, “X,” even after he proves to be trouble, damaging her friendships and introducing her to drugs.

Denton Little’s Deathdate by Lance Rubin: In a world where everyone knows the day they will die, a teenage boy is determined to outlive his upcoming expiration date.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir: Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.

Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz: In 1994, Fig looks back on her life and relates her experiences, from age six to nineteen, as she desperately tries to save her mother from schizophrenia while her own mental health and relationships deteriorate.

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey: A girl who’s adopted and raised by a race of creatures with feathers for hair and magic in their veins becomes involved in an ancient war and a centuries-old love, discovering startling truths about the world she lives in.

I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore: Enrolled at an English boarding school, Vivian targets an innocent senior as part of a revenge plot her manipulative mother devised, but as the plan’s set into motion, Vivian starts to uncover secrets so dark and deadly they threaten to unravel the deceptive being that Mother worked so hard to create.

In A World Just Right by Jen Brooks: Eighteen-year-old Jonathan Aubrey, a scarred loner, escapes at will into other worlds of his making, but suddenly the world in which a popular girl is his long-term girlfriend is intersecting reality in startling ways.

None of the Above by I. W. Gregorio: A groundbreaking story about a teenage girl who discovers she’s intersex…and what happens when her secret is revealed to the entire school. Incredibly compelling and sensitively told, None of the Above is a thought-provoking novel that explores what it means to be a boy, a girl, or something in between. Reviewed here. 

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli: Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised. With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out — without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met. Reviewed here. 

Still Waters by Ash Parsons: High-schooler Jason, who lives with a drunk, abusive father at home, hopes to earn enough money to escape with his younger sister, Janie, by being tough at school, but the stakes grow ever more dangerous and soon even his fists and ability to think on his feet are not enough to keep his head above water.

Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee: As seventeen-year-old Carr ‘the Raptor’ Luka rises to fame in the weightless combat sport of zeroboxing, he learns a devastating secret that jeopardizes not only his future in the sport, but interplanetary relations

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April Debut YA Novels

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Written by: Kelly on April 25, 2014.

It’s time to talk April debut YA novels, and this month, there are quite a few. I’ve rounded them up best as I can, but as usual, it’s likely I’ll miss a title or two and I’m happy to hear of other debuts from traditional publishers in the comments. I define debut as first novel. I’m not including debuts that are an author’s first YA novel; I want them to be first novels. 

All descriptions are from WorldCat. Titles that Kimberly or I may have reviewed we’ll include links to, as well. 

Breakfast Served Anytime by Sarah Combs: Spending the summer before her senior year at a camp for gifted and talented students, Gloria struggles with the recent loss of her grandmother while trying to meet new friends and make the best of her new circumstances.

Burn Out by Kristi Helvig: In the future, when the Earth is no longer easily habitable, seventeen-year-old Tora Reynolds, a girl in hiding, struggles to protect weapons developed by her father that could lead to disaster should they fall into the wrong hands.

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell: Kit, a seventeen-year-old moral nihilist serial killer, chooses who to kill based on anonymous letters left in a secret mailbox, while simultaneously maintaining a close relationship with the young detective in charge of the murder cases. 



Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige: Amy Gumm, the other girl from Kansas, has been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked to stop Dorothy who has found a way to come back to Oz, seizing a power that has gone to her head — so now no one is safe!

Expiration Day by William Campbell Powell: t is the year 2049, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Tania Deeley has always been told that she’s a rarity: a human child in a world where most children are sophisticated androids manufactured by Oxted Corporation. 

Far From You by Tess Sharpe: After Sophie Winters survives a brutal attack in which her best friend, Mina, is murdered, she sets out to find the killer. At the same time she must prove she is free of her past Oxy addiction and in no way to blame for Mina’s death. 

Learning Not to Drown by Anna Shinoda: Clare, seventeen, has always stood up for her eldest brother, Luke, despite his many jail stints but when her mother takes Clare’s hard-earned savings to post bail for Luke, Clare begins to understand truths about her brother and her family.

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaria: When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister’s mysterious death, her mother’s departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

Open Road Summer by Emery Lord: Follows seventeen-year-old Reagan as she tries to escape heartbreak and a bad reputation by going on tour with her country superstar best friend–only to find more trouble as she falls for the surprisingly sweet guy hired to pose as the singer’s boyfriend.

Pointe by Brandy Colbert: Four years after Theo’s best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. Kelly’s review. 

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman: In 1930s Munich, the favorite niece of rising political leader Adolph Hitler is torn between duty and love after meeting a fearless and handsome young Jewish reporter.

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan: Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated, conservative deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean. How will she build a future on an Earth ravaged by climate change? Kimberly’s review. 

Sekret by Lindsay Smith: A group of psychic teenagers in 1960s Soviet Russia are forced to use their powers to spy for the KGB. Kimberly’s review. 

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen: Trolls are said to love gold. They are said to live underground and hate humans, perhaps even eat them. They are said to be evil. When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and sold to the trolls, she finds out that there is truth in the rumors, but there is also so much more to trolls than she could have imagined. Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus, the city she hadn’t even known existed under Forsaken Mountain: escape. But the trolls are inhumanly strong. And fast. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity. But something strange happens while she’s waiting–she begins to fall in love with the handsome, thoughtful troll prince that she has been bonded and married to. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods–part troll/part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

Talker 25 by Joshua McCune: The fifteen-year-long war between man and dragons seems nearly over until Melissa becomes an unwilling pawn of the government after she–and those driving the beasts to extinction–discover that she can communicate with dragons.





Tease by Amanda Maciel: A teenage girl faces criminal charges for bullying after a classmate commits suicide. 

The Chance You Won’t Return by Annie Cardi: High school student Alex Winchester struggles to hold her life together in the face of her mother’s threatening delusions about being Amelia Earhart.

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer: When a sleazy reality television show takes over Ethan’s arts academy, he and his friends concoct an artsy plan to take it down. 

April Debut YA Novels

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Written by: Kelly on April 24, 2013.

Ready for your monthly dose of debut novels, YA style? I’ve been trying to keep track of everything Kim and I have read through these posts, linking to reviews where relevant. Last month’s debut post will link you to the debut posts in prior months,. 

As always, summaries are from WorldCat, unless otherwise noted. Debut is defined as the first published novel by an author within any category, confirmed to the best of our ability; we include first-time publication in the US as debut (meaning if it published in Australia or the UK prior to this month, but it’s the first publication in the US, it’s a debut). If we’re missing a traditionally-published title for the month of April, let us know in the comments. And if you’ve read anything here we should make sure we don’t miss, we’d love to hear! 

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters: In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first love, killed in battle, returns.

Taken by Erin Bowman: In the isolated town of Claysoot, every male is mysteriously “Heisted” on his eighteenth birthday, and seventeen-year-old Gray Weathersby is determined to figure out why. 

That Time I Joined the Circus by JJ Howard: After her father’s sudden death and a break-up with her best friends, seventeen-year-old Lexi has no choice but to leave New York City seeking her long-absent mother, rumored to be in Florida with a traveling circus, where she just may discover her destiny.

The Ward by Jordana Frankel: Set in a futuristic Manhattan after a catastrophic flood called the Wash Out, sixteen-year-old Ren must race against a conspiracy to find freshwater springs and a cure for the deadly disease that has stricken her sister and many others in the Ward. 

The Symptoms of My Insanity by Mindy Raf: When you’re a hypochondriac, there are a million different things that could be wrong with you, but for Izzy, focusing on what could be wrong might be keeping her from dealing with what’s really wrong–with her friendships, her romantic entanglements, and even her family. 

Vengeance Bound by Justina Ireland: Amelie Ainsworth longs to graduate from high school and live a normal life, but as an abused child she became one of the Furies, driven to mete out justice on the Guilty, and lives on the run from the murders they commit.

Anthem for Jackson Dawes by Celia Bryce: When Megan, thirteen, arrives for her first cancer treatment, she is frustrated to be on the pediatric unit where the only other teen is Jackson Dawes, who is as cute and charming as he is rebellious and annoying, and who helps when her friends are frightened away by her illness.

Arclight by Josin L. McQuein (via Goodreads): No one crosses the wall of light . . . except for one girl who doesn’t remember who she is, where she came from, or how she survived. A harrowing, powerful debut thriller about finding yourself and protecting your future—no matter how short and uncertain it may be. The Arclight is the last defense. The Fade can’t get in. Outside the Arclight’s border of high-powered beams is the Dark. And between the Light and the Dark is the Grey, a narrow, barren no-man’s-land. That’s where the rescue team finds Marina, a lone teenage girl with no memory of the horrors she faced or the family she lost. Marina is the only person who has ever survived an encounter with the Fade. She’s the first hope humanity has had in generations, but she could also be the catalyst for their final destruction. Because the Fade will stop at nothing to get her back. Marina knows it. Tobin, who’s determined to take his revenge on the Fade, knows it. Anne-Marie, who just wishes it were all over, knows it. When one of the Fade infiltrates the Arclight and Marina recognizes it, she will begin to unlock secrets she didn’t even know she had. Who will Marina become? Who can she never be again?

The Boyfriend App by Katie Sise: Seeking to win a scholarship offered by global computing corporation Public, programming genius Audrey McCarthy writes a matchmaking app but discovers her results may be skewed by a program Public is secretly using to influence teens.

Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski: Fourteen-year-old bookmaker’s apprentice Baltasar, pursued by a secret witch-hunting arm of the Inquisition, escapes by joining Columbus’s expedition and discovers magical secrets about his own past that his family had tried to keep hidden. 

The Loop by Shandy Lawson: In New Orleans, Louisiana, star-crossed teens Ben and Maggie try to find a way to escape the time loop that always ends in their murder.

My Life After Now by Jessica Verdi: When she loses a leading role and her leading man to another girl, sixteen-year-old Lucy, a member of the high school drama club, does something completely out of character that has life-altering consequences.

Comments

    • And you are absolutely correct. I think I did a good job taking the author's name, April, and applying it to release month. Thanks for pointing it out!