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April Debut YA Novels

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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

How Do You Keep Track of YA Book Releases?: A Resource Guide

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A popular question I get in my inbox or on social media from people is how I find and keep track of book releases. I thought rather than keep answering that question, I’d write about it so more people can keep tabs on upcoming YA releases. My method isn’t perfect and it’s not consistent, but I can offer the wheres and leave the hows up to how they work best for you.

There are three main sources from which I collect YA release date information: publisher catalogs, YA Lit/Bloggers/Goodreads, and Tumblr. There are a couple of other places I peruse, as well, which I’ll note at the end.

Publisher Catalogs


I spend a little time every single week going to Edelweiss. From there, I look at the center column to see what the most recently added catalogs are. If there’s a catalog from a publisher I like to peruse, I’ll make note and spend a little time with it when I can allot an hour or so.

It’s really easy to remember the big five publishers, and all of them — Hachette, Macmillain, Simon & Schuster, Penguin/Random House, and Harper Collins — are on Edelweiss. They each do a good job of separating out their children’s catalogs from their general and adult catalogs. Generally, though not always, the catalogs come out during three seasons: winter, summer, and fall. Some of those publishers do four catalogs, one for each season, and some do a spring catalog instead of a winter. They tend to come out about six months in advance, if not more. That means, I can look at Fall 2015 catalogs now for most of these publishers and it probably won’t be too long until Winter/Spring 2016 catalogs hit.

Mid-size publishers are recognizable on Edelweiss, too, though they’re not all there. Publishers like Scholastic are easy to find, as are Abrams, Candlewick, Chronicle, Disney, and Sourcebooks. Smaller publishers, those which are ensconced within bigger houses, can be more difficult to find because you have to know the name of the bigger house. For example, Carolrhoda LAB books are found in the Lerner catalog, Algonquin Young Reader books are found in the Workman Press catalog, and sometimes Harlequin Teen is within Harlequin. I find the Harlequin catalogs very difficult to figure out on Edelweiss, so I tend to instead go to their website and do a search there.

Not all publishers are on Edelweiss, so I know that I will have to do some searching elsewhere. Amazon publishing, Switch Press, and Flux, for example, don’t have a presence on Edelweiss, so I have to go to their sites specifically to look. Flux, I should note, is finally getting onto Edelweiss, but I still like to cross check.

Edelweiss catalog use is a time investment, but I am okay spending the bulk of my research time here. I can, as noted in the link above explaining Edelweiss, be efficient in my searching by release date or keywords. That makes an hour or two there not feel overwhelming. Likewise, I find looking at the available digital review copies helpful, too. But that’s more for immediate information rather than long-term planning.

YA Lit/Bloggers/Goodreads

One of the best non-publisher resources, one that I tell every single person to keep tabs on, is YA Lit. Kari and Stefan have been running this site since 2006, and it’s a straight up compilation of YA books by release dates, with links to appropriate retailers. You can see upcoming releases for a few months ahead of time, as well as look through already-published titles. It’s that simple and straightforward. Since it’s curated by a librarian, I trust the information being correct. If I had to direct general readers to one place for book release information or those who have little time but want to stay ahead of the game, it would be YA Lit.

I don’t read as many blogs as I used to and a number of blogs I used to read aren’t running any longer. But there are still a few that do excellent round-ups of books that they’re excited about and looking forward to. The Book Smugglers do this in their weekly “On the Radar” feature and Leila at Bookshelves of Doom does this through her “By The Catalog” posts, her “New Books” posts, as well as her previews over on Kirkus.

I don’t tend to use a lot of Goodreads lists, since they’re crowdsourced and people don’t tend to keep them well managed, but I do peruse the 2015 YA books lists periodically. This is especially useful for smaller press books AND for being conscious of what books look like they’re going to be extremely popular. There’s also a nice list of diverse YA/MG titles out in 2015 and debut 2015 YA novels (though sometimes this one in particular isn’t always correct).

Tumblr


I love Tumblr’s book lists. There are some really solid ones, and there are some that come out each and every week. Though I often know about the books from the publisher’s catalogs, these do tend to fill in some holes or cover some titles I miss. And what’s great about Tumblr is I can share the lists easily and return to them when I need to do some research.

Two of the best Tumblrs for book lists: Paperbacked’s monthly new releases post andRich in Color’s weekly roundup of new diverse books being released. I read a ton of other Tumblrs too, including Diversity in YA and Disability in Kid Lit, though they don’t tend to offer up regular new/upcoming books features.

Another really solid Tumblr is the Pickerington Public Library, which regularly does reader’s advisory for brand new or upcoming YA titles, which helps me sometimes place who a book might be for before I’ve even read it. They do some excellent graphic reader’s advisory, too, with flow charts and read alikes.

Other Resources


A few other resources I take advantage of, but to a much lesser extent, include trade reviews and the handful of debut novelist websites.

I don’t tend to love trade reviews. They’re often reviewing things I know about already or that are already published, though not always. I like to peruse Kirkus in particular, in part because I love the honesty of the reviews (though I sometimes think they love and pan the same authors/styles over and over) but more, they’re reviewing well in advance of publication. They pick up on a lot of mid size and smaller presses I might otherwise miss. You can read the reviews by those recently posted, those which have the books out already, or those books which are coming soon. That ease of navigation works for me.

For monthly debut YA novel roundups here at Stacked, alongside the other tools above, I make sure to check the Fearless Fifteeners site and the Class 2K15 site. I use their author profile/book links on site, then I do a search by month. As a side note: if you run a site like this, either now or in the future, the best thing you can offer to those who aren’t insiders is a way to quickly find relevant information about publication dates. I’ve seen sites in the past where the publication dates haven’t been easy to find and I don’t spend time trying to figure it out. This is my last stop, so by this point, I’m only picking up what I’ve missed and double checking what I’ve got.

Once in a great while, I do look at the previews on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but since those tend to be the biggest books of the season or are paid for by publishers, I generally already know about those books.

How I Organize Information


I have a really good memory for book titles, release dates, and especially covers. So when I read catalogs or blogs or reviews, I’m able to make mental notes that get them on my mind well enough. Things I am personally really looking forward to reading or that I think I might forget I tend to pop onto Goodreads in my “to read” shelf.

When I know I’m going to write something specific relating to book releases, such as a big roundup on Book Riot or the monthly “on the radar” posts here, I write book titles, authors, and month of release down (see the photo above). Usually it’s in a notebook dedicated to my notes about books or reading, and sometimes, I’ll open up either a draft email or a draft blog post and take notes. Sometimes, perusing catalogs leads me to seeing a thematic trend, and I note those things down, too, to think about later. Since migrating from post-it notes to using a bullet journal for my day-to-day planning, I’ve made use of one specific notebook for taking these notes and returning to them at a later date to think about.

I know of folks who use spreadsheets to track book releases, particularly when it comes to the books they’re receiving from publishers. I tried to do this, but I found it overwhelming and ineffective for me. It would take me more time to do that than it would to do research when I can dedicate time to it and it keeps me from actually reading the books.

So what about you? Do you have any sources you frequent when organizing information about upcoming YA releases? Anything I should know about?

March Debut YA Novels

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I don’t know if it’s this way everywhere, but this March is already a welcomed weather relief. As I’m putting together, I have my windows open because it’s 60 degrees and there’s almost no snow left on the ground.

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. 

Duplicity by N. K. Traver: When seventeen-year-old Brandon, a tattooed bad boy skilled in computer hacking, is sucked into a digital hell and replaced with a preppy Stepford-esque clone, his life and sanity rest on the shoulders of a classy girl he never thought he would fall for.

Under A Painted Sky by Stacey Lee: In 1845, Sammy, a Chinese American girl, and Annamae, an African American slave girl, disguise themselves as boys and travel on the Oregon Trail to California from Missouri. 

The Wrong Side of Right by Jenn Marie Thorne: After her mother dies, sixteen-year-old Kate Quinn meets the father she did not know she had, joins his presidential campaign, falls for a rebellious boy, and when what she truly believes flies in the face of the campaign’s talking points, Kate must decide what is best.

Everything That Makes You by Moriah McStay: In alternating voices, Fiona “Fi” Doyle experiences her teen years in two ways, with and without a disfiguring accident that occurred at age six, dealing with its effects on her brother and parents, her friendships, her dating life, her involvement in sports and hobbies, her future plans, and especially her self-image.

Mosquitoland by David Arnold: After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the “wastelands” of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland. So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

The Storyspinner by Becky Wallace: The Keepers, a race of people with magical abilities, are seeking a supposedly-dead princess to place her on the throne and end political turmoil, but girls who look like the princess are being murdered and Johanna Von Arlo, forced to work for Lord Rafael DeSilva after her father’s suspicious death, is a dead-ringer.

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed: Naila’s vacation to visit relatives in Pakistan turns into a nightmare when she discovers her parents want to force her to marry a man she’s never met. 

Solitaire by Alice Oseman: In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story. My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t.

Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten: Adam not only is trying to understand his OCD, while trying to balance his relationship with his divorced parents, but he’s also trying to navigate through the issues that teenagers normally face, namely the perils of young love. 

My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp: When her father loses her college tuition money, Lulu works with Mason, a local boy, making and selling moonshine but their growing romance may mean giving up her dream of escaping her small Virginia hometown.

Dead to Me by Mary McCoy: In 1948 Hollywood, a treacherous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets, sixteen-year-old Alice tries to find a young runaway who is the sole witness to a beating that put her sister, Annie, in a coma.

How to Win at High School by Owen Matthews: Partly for the sake of his brother Sam, who is paralyzed, Adam decides to go from high school loser to god by selling completed homework assignments, buying alcohol, and arranging for fake IDs, but before the end of junior year, he realizes his quest for popularity has gone way too far.

The Memory Key by Liana Liu: In the not-so-distant future, everyone is implanted with a memory key to stave off a virulent form of Alzeimer’s. Lora Mint fears her memories of her deceased mother are fading, but when her memory key is damaged she has perfect recall–of everything– which brings her mother’s memory vividly back–but may also drive Lora mad

No Parking at the End Times by Bryan Bliss

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When Abigail’s father loses his job, things in her household change. Her father becomes fascinated with Brother John, and soon, he’s convinced her mother to follow the word of Brother John as well. He promises a better afterlife, and it’s one that’s coming soon.

It takes little time for Abigail’s father to begin selling their earthly possessions. Despite not being on board, Abigail and her twin brother Aaron are pulled into this world, forced to climb into the traveling van and leave their home town in North Carolina for San Francisco, where Brother John would be waiting with the rest of his followers for the rapture.

But when they arrive in San Francisco, homeless and mostly possession-less, the rapture doesn’t come. And rather than turn back or give up, Abigail and Aaron’s father decides they have to stick it out. They have to have faith that Brother John knows what’s happening.

They have to have faith that God has a reason for things not to come to an end, even on the date Brother John believed it would happen.

No Parking at the End Times is Bryan Bliss’s debut novel, and it’s a knock out. Where many stories of the rapture in YA happen prior to it, this takes place after the failed event. But this isn’t really a story about the rapture. It’s much more a story about family and togetherness, with a unique take on homelessness.

Throughout the story, we’re shown an angry, frustrated character in Aaron. As much as Abigail tries to break through to him and tries to get him to talk with her, he won’t. Instead, he’s sneaking out of the van at night. It’s not until Abigail threatens to follow him that she finds out his nightly trips are his way of making friends and connections in San Francisco; he’s become friends with a group of homeless teens.

Despite finding a sort of community, being in San Francisco is the last thing Aaron wants. He’s eager to get out, and he’s upfront with Abigail about how they need to figure out how to get away. When they make a plan that seems achievable and make strides toward getting out, though, he becomes unable to follow through because of some of the people with whom he’d been associating at night.

From the start, neither Abigail nor Aaron are on board with their father and mother’s devotion to Brother John. As readers, we’re also exceptionally frustrated — why would a father do this to his family? He’s sold their lives away, and he willingly sacrifices security and safety in the name of faith in this system. He hands over money, and he at times cheats the system. Mother follows along, mostly, her voice and story a far smaller part of the story than the father’s until the end.

But there are cracks.

As much as we’re left to be angry at both mom and dad for how selfish and self-serving they’re being, we’re also allowed to see they truly believe that having faith — that believing good things will happen — will get them through this tough situation. They’ve found places to get free meals, and they’ve learned where they can park at night to keep their family safe. They continue attending church services, as well as offering money to Brother John, believing with their whole hearts that this is the right thing to do. That it is what will solve their problems and make a better life for their children. Though they want their kids to follow Brother John and his word, they don’t force them to attend services or counseling with him.

It’s blind faith, of course, and it’s the kind of faith that overruns practicality and sufficiency. But it’s done out of utter love for their children, even if their children are the ones who suffer the consequences of these decisions.

Bliss does an excellent job in his portrayal of homelessness. In multiple instances throughout the story, Abigail has a painful realization that what she believed homelessness looked like isn’t always what homelessness is. The people Aaron hangs out with are homeless, and even though they fit what she thought homelessness would look like, she’s surprised to see how human and how relatable and likable some of those people are. When Abigail is confronted with the reality that, despite her internal protests, she and her family are homeless, too, it’s tough for her to swallow. She isn’t like the them of her imagined state of homeless people. Her family didn’t choose to become homeless. And yet, this is still homelessness and it’s still the situation her family is in. More, she comes to the realization that adults can be wrong and make poor choices that do indeed change the lives of those for whom they’re entrusted to care. It’s because of her parents choosing to give all of their money to Brother John that she has a limited selection of things to wear and can’t get her clothing dirty. It’s because of her parents selling everything for this trip to San Francisco that they’re brushing their teeth in public restrooms.

Abigail’s voice in this book is what stands out most — she is straightforward in how she feels, even if she doesn’t always act upon her intuitions when she thinks she should. She’s full of love and full of want, despite the set backs in her life and despite the fact she’s learning that her situation is worse than she thought. It’s in the moments when reality hits perception that readers see how desperate her and her family’s situation really is.

No Parking at the End Times is a respectful story. This isn’t about bashing faith or God or belief in any way, despite the premise being about parents who are devoted to a religious cult-like leader. It’s an entire story about the limits of faith. Have it, use it, believe in it, but don’t let it be the only currency in your life.

The ending of this book is a little tidy, but it doesn’t feel undeserved. In fact, it’s that final chapter, where Abigail has to face God and faith again where we see that this isn’t a story that decries religion but instead, seeks to talk about how it’s a deeply personal and sometimes extremely challenging experience.

This is a tightly-written, engaging read and would make for an excellent next read for those who love Sara Zarr, especially Once Was Lost. Pass this along, too, to those readers who loved Blake Nelson’s The Prince of Venice Beach — the depictions of homelessness are worth looking at together — and/or Melissa Walker’s Small Town Sinners. Bliss is an author to keep an eye on, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what a sophomore novel will look like, after this powerful debut.

Review copy received from the publisher. No Parking at the End Times publishes tomorrow, February 24. 

February Debut YA Novels

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For what’s usually a fairly quiet month in publishing, February is heavy on debut YA titles this year. Like always, this round up includes debut novels with “debut” 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. Where we’ve reviewed books, I’ve included links.

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!  

One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin: Tomboy to the core, Toni Valentine understands guys. She’ll take horror movies, monster hunts and burping contests over manicures. So Toni is horrified when she’s sent to the Winston Academy for Girls, where she has to wear a skirt and learn to be a “lady” while the guys move on without her. Then Toni meets Emma Elizabeth, a girl at school with boy troubles, and she volunteers one of her friends as a pretend date. Word spreads of Toni’s connections with boys, and she discovers that her new wealthy female classmates will pay big money for fake dates. Looking for a way to connect her old best friends with her new life at school, Toni and Emma start up Toni Valentine’s Rent-A-Gent Service. But the business meets a scandal when Toni falls for one of her friends–the same guy who happens to be the most sought-after date. With everything she’s built on the line, Toni has to decide if she wants to save the business and her old life, or let go of being one of the guys for a chance at love.

My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga: Seventeen-year-old Aysel’s hobby–planning her own death–take a new path when she meets a boy who has similar plan of his own.

When Reason Breaks by Cindy L. Rodriguez: Elizabeth Davis and Emily Delgado seem to have little in common except Ms. Diaz’s English class and the solace they find in the words of Emily Dickinson, but both are struggling to cope with monumental secrets and tumultuous emotions that will lead one to attempt suicide.

The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes: Sophomore Hallie Calhoun, her former friend Jonah, and new friend Rachel leave a church youth group hike in the Great Smoky Mountains and become lost for five days, struggling to survive as Hallie finally speaks about the incident that made her a social pariah and Jonah admits why it hurt him so much.

Vendetta by Catherine Doyle: When five brothers move into the abandoned mansion next door, Sophie Gracewell’s life changes forever. Irresistibly drawn to bad boy Nic Falcone, Sophie finds herself falling into an underworld governed by powerful families. When Sophie’s own family skeletons come to life, she must choose between two warring dynasties–the one she was born into, and the one she is falling in love with.

Scripted by Maya Rock: Nettie Starling has spent all her life on the set of a reality show, but as her friends mysteriously get cut, she learns that her seemingly-perfect world hides some dangerous secrets. 

Dove Arising by Karen Bao: On a lunar colony, fifteen-year-old Phaet Theta does the unthinkable and joins the Militia when her mother is imprisoned by the Moon’s oppressive government.

Shutter by Courtney Alameda: Seventeen-year-old Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat, able to see ghosts in color and capture them on film, but when a routine hunt goes awry, Micheline’s infected with a curse known as a soulchain and if she’s unable to exorcise the entity in seven days, she’ll be destroyed, body and soul.

When My Heart Was Wicked by Tricia Stirling: After her father dies, leaving sixteen-year-old Lacy with her much-loved stepmother, Lacy’s birth mother suddenly shows up wanting Lacy back–and she will stop at nothing, not even dark magic, to control her daughter and draw her into her own twisted life.

No Parking At The End Times by Bryan Bliss: Abigail’s parents, believing the end of the world is near, sell their house, give the money to an end-of-times preacher, and drive from North Carolina to San Francisco where they remain homeless and destitute, as Abigail fights to keep her parents, her twin brother, and herself united against all odds.

The Sin-Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury: For four years sixteen-year-old Twylla has lived in the castle of Lormere, the goddess-embodied, whose touch can poison and kill, and hence the Queen’s executioner–but when Prince Merek, her betrothed, who is immune to her touch returns to the kingdom she finds herself caught up in palace intrigues, unsure if she can trust him or the bodyguard who claims to love her.

A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas: One hundred years after falling asleep, Aurora wakes to the kiss of a handsome prince and a kingdom that has dreamed of her return, but her happily-ever-after seems unlikely as she faces grief over the loss of everything she knew and a cruel new king.

The Boy Next Door by Katie Van Ark: Neighbors and figure skating partners since preschool, Gabe and Maddy tell, in their separate voices, of changes on and off the ice when they are assigned a new, romantic program, raising Maddy’s hopes of her love being returned and Gabe’s fears that romance will break up their partnership.