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December 2019 Debut YA Novels

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Get ready to get your read on with these December 2019 debut YA novels. There are only three debut books this month, so it’s a great chance to catch up on titles you’ve missed and to dive into this year’s Morris Award finalists. I’ve read only one of the titles on their short list, so I’ve got some reading to do there, too.

December 2019 Debut YA books

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. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.

All descriptions are from Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts that came out in December from traditional publishers — and I should clarify that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.

As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. List is arranged alphabetically by title, with publication dates in parentheses if the book hasn’t already been published. Starred titles are the beginning of a new series.

December 2019 Debut YA Novels

Dangerous Alliance by Jennieke Cohen

Lady Victoria Aston has everything she could want: an older sister happily wed, the future of her family estate secure, and ample opportunity to while her time away in the fields around her home.

But now Vicky must marry—or find herself and her family destitute. Armed only with the wisdom she has gained from her beloved novels by Jane Austen, she enters society’s treacherous season.

Sadly, Miss Austen has little to say about Vicky’s exactcircumstances: whether the roguish Mr. Carmichael is indeed a scoundrel, if her former best friend, Tom Sherborne, is out for her dowry or for her heart, or even how to fend off the attentions of the foppish Mr. Silby, he of the unfortunate fashion sensibility.

Most unfortunately of all, Vicky’s books are silent on the topic of the mysterious accidents cropping up around her…ones that could prevent her from surviving until her wedding day.

Couple leaning on brick wall

Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things by Jacqueline Firkins (17)

Mansfield, Massachusetts is the last place seventeen-year-old Edie Price wants to spend her final summer before college. It’s the home of wealthy suburbanites and prima donnas like Edie’s cousins, who are determined to distract her from her mother’s death with cute boys and Cinderella-style makeovers. Edie has her own plans, and they don’t include a prince charming.

But as Edie dives into schoolwork and applying for college scholarships, she finds herself drawn to two Mansfield boys who start vying for her attention. First there’s Sebastian, Edie’s childhood friend and first love. He’s sweet and smart and . . . already has a girlfriend. Then there’s Henry, the local bad boy and all-around player. He’s totally off limits, even if his kisses are chemically addictive.

Both boys are trouble. Edie can’t help but get caught between them. Someone’s heart is going to break. Now she just has to make sure it isn’t hers.

 

Reverie by Ryan La Sala

All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember how he got there, what happened after, and why his life seems so different now. And it’s not just Kane who’s different, the world feels off, reality itself seems different.

As Kane pieces together clues, three almost-strangers claim to be his friends and the only people who can truly tell him what’s going on. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere—the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery—Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident. And when a sinister force threatens to alter reality for good, they will have to do everything they can to stop it before it unravels everything they know.

This wildly imaginative debut explores what happens when the secret worlds that people hide within themselves come to light.

 

Cover Trend: Cross Outs, But For Faces

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In early 2018, Kimberly highlighted a cover design trend: the cross out. Words in titles specifically were being crossed out as part of the design and there were a slew of them.

That post came back to me vividly as I perused cover trends in YA for 2020, but in a bit of a different way. We’re having a lot of cross outs in 2020 YA, but rather than most of them being part of the title, they’re across a teen’s — or multiple teens’ — face. This isn’t especially new or novel, but the fact there are so many of them is worth taking a peek at (heh) if for no reason than it might be hard to distinguish among them.

The trend makes sense in many ways. As YA has grown to accommodate a significant rise in thrillers, the cross out of the face can cue to readers the type of story they’re about to pick up. It’s mysterious and it gives a sense of anonymity.

Interestingly, most of these books feature white characters with their eyes or faces crossed out. It’s interesting because we have seen a huge rise in the number of teens of color on YA book covers, which is great, but we haven’t necessarily seen thrillers become inclusive in the same way many other genres within YA have. This isn’t to say they don’t exist, but they’re much rarer here than in, say, YA contemporary or YA fantasy.

I’ve pooled the crossed out face covers for 2020 best as I can, but if you know of others, drop them in the comments. I’ve pulled descriptions from Goodreads.

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban (March 17)

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.

Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

 

Clique Bait by Ann Valett (April 28)

Pretty Little Liars meets Burn for Burn in this thrilling debut from Wattpad star Ann Valett.

Chloe Whittaker is out for revenge. Last year her best friend Monica’s life was unceremoniously ruined by the most popular students at their high school, so this year Chloe plans to take each and every one of them down. She traded her jeans and T-shirts for the latest designer clothes, deleted everything on social media that would tie her to Monica (and blow her cover), and carefully devised a way to befriend the members of the popular clique. Now all that’s left to do is uncover their deepest, darkest secrets and reveal them to the world.

Chloe has the perfect plan…that is, until she begins to fall for one of the people she’s determined to destroy.

 

Girl From Nowhere by Tiffany Rosenhan (July 21)

Ninety-four countries. Thirty-one schools. Two bullets.
Now it’s over…or so she thinks.

Sophia arrives in Montana with the promise of a normal high school experience. But after a turbulent few years abroad with her diplomat parents, forgetting the past is easier said than done. After all, “normal” high schoolers aren’t trained in several forms of combat.

Then Sophia meets Aksel and finds herself opening up in ways she never thought she could. Except Sophia’s past is about to catch up with her, and she must confront who she really is, why she was betrayed, and what she is capable of in the name of love and survival.

Full of heart-stopping action and breathtaking romance, this cinematic debut features a girl willing to risk everything to save the life she built for herself.

 

 

Girl, Unframed by Deb Caletti (June 23)

Sydney Reilly has a bad feeling about going home to San Francisco before she even gets on the plane. How could she not? Her mother is Lila Shore—the Lila Shore—a film star who prizes her beauty and male attention above all else…certainly above her daughter.

But Sydney’s worries multiply when she discovers that Lila is involved with the dangerous Jake, an art dealer with shady connections. Jake loves all beautiful objects, and Syndey can feel his eyes on her whenever he’s around. And he’s not the only one. Sydney is starting to attract attention—good and bad—wherever she goes: from sweet, handsome Nicco Ricci, from the unsettling construction worker next door, and even from Lila. Behaviors that once seemed like misunderstandings begin to feel like threats as the summer grows longer and hotter.

It’s unnerving, how beauty is complicated, and objects have histories, and you can be looked at without ever being seen. But real danger, crimes of passion, the kind of stuff where someone gets killed—it only mostly happens in the movies, Sydney is sure. Until the night something life-changing happens on the stairs that lead to the beach. A thrilling night that goes suddenly very wrong. When loyalties are called into question. And when Sydney learns a terrible truth: beautiful objects can break.

 

Jane Anonymous by Laurie Faria Stolarz (January 7)

Then, “Jane” was just your typical 17-year-old in a typical New England suburb getting ready to start her senior year. She had a part-time job she enjoyed, an awesome best friend, overbearing but loving parents, and a crush on a boy who was taking her to see her favorite band. She never would’ve imagined that in her town where nothing ever happens, a series of small coincidences would lead to a devastating turn of events that would forever change her life.

Now, it’s been three months since “Jane” escaped captivity and returned home. Three months of being that girl who was kidnapped, the girl who was held by a “monster.” Three months of writing down everything she remembered from those seven months locked up in that stark white room. But, what if everything you thought you knew―everything you thought you experienced―turned out to be a lie?

 

One Of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus (January 7)

Come on, Bayview, you know you’ve missed this.

A ton of copycat gossip apps have popped up since Simon died, but in the year since the Bayview four were cleared of his shocking death, no one’s been able to fill the gossip void quite like he could. The problem is no one has the facts.

Until now.

This time it’s not an app, though—it’s a game.

Truth or Dare.

Phoebe’s the first target. If you choose not to play, it’s a truth. And hers is dark.

Then comes Maeve and she should know better—always choose the dare.

But by the time Knox is about to be tagged, things have gotten dangerous. The dares have become deadly, and if Maeve learned anything from Bronwyn last year, it’s that they can’t count on the police for help. Or protection.

Simon’s gone, but someone’s determined to keep his legacy at Bayview High alive. And this time, there’s a whole new set of rules.

 

 

You’re Next by Kylie Schachte (June 30)

When a girl with a troubled history of finding dead bodies investigates the murder of her ex, she uncovers a plot to put herself—and everyone she loves—on the list of who’s next.

Flora Calhoun has a reputation for sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. After stumbling upon a classmate’s body years ago, the trauma of that discovery and the police’s failure to find the killer has haunted her ever since. One night, she gets a midnight text from Ava McQueen, the beautiful girl who had ignited Flora’s heart last summer, then never spoke to her again.

Just in time to witness Ava’s death from a gunshot wound, Flora is set on a path of rage and vengeance for all the dead girls whose killer is never found. Her tunnel-visioned sleuthing leads to valuable clues about a shocking conspiracy involving her school and beyond, but also earns her sinister threats from the murderer. She has a choice—to give up the hunt for answers, or keep digging and risk her loved ones’ lives. Either way, Flora will regret the consequences. Who’s next on the killer’s list?

 

A Few Cybils Reads – Part 3 (2019)

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Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

Echo Alkaev’s father has been stranded in the wintry forest, and the only way to save him is to make a deal with a talking wolf to live with him for a year, but never look upon him at night. While Meyer’s novel is predominantly a retelling of East of the Sun and West of the Moon (which might by a Cybils trend this year), it also includes a few elements of many other fairy tales, including Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. Listening to this one so close on the heels of Edith Pattou’s West, I was concerned that I’d find it repetitive, but Meyer’s writing style is very different, and she sprinkles her story with some fresh elements. For example, the huge house that Echo is trapped in is deteriorating – as time goes by, rooms just disappear, and it has something to do with the curse laid upon the wolf. The real gem of this story, and what made it a step above the average retelling, is a magnificent twist near the end that I didn’t see coming but makes total sense in context. This is a good pick for fans of fairy tale retellings; they won’t be disappointed. Plus that cover is gorgeous.

 

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

Donnelly’s twist on Cinderella is unique among the slew of villain-POV fairy tale retellings. The stepsister referenced in the title really isn’t a good person – at least not during the traditional Cinderella story. Both stepsisters treated Ella horribly, and when Ella marries the Prince, the rest of the country learns of their behavior and reviles them. But this is a story of redemption. Donnelly shows how Isabelle, the stepsister this story centers on, came to be the way she is and how she transforms herself into a person not only other people will love, but a person she herself can love. Readers will feel sympathy for Isabelle almost from page 1, as her mother urges her to cut off a piece of her foot to win the prince, something Isabelle doesn’t want to do for multiple reasons but doesn’t see a way out of. Isabelle’s mother and the rest of the world has told her that her value lies in men’s perceptions of her, and since Isabelle is not pretty and does not have the traditional values Ella is praised for, she has been told and shown over and over again that she has no value at all.

It’s a long journey to unwind this lie she has internalized, and along the way, she makes amends for her own behavior and saves the country from a warmonger, using her own unique skills and abilities. It’s quite a moving story, one where Isabelle is held responsible for her actions while also given the space to be viewed with empathy and love by those around her, something she experienced all too rarely. It’s also really funny – Isabelle’s sister Octavia is an aspiring scientist and conducts an ill-advised cheese-making experiment one day, and the results are…unpleasant. In a perfect bit of plotting, this experiment is put to good use in a crucial moment. There’s plenty of magic and adventure in this story, which includes personified versions of the Fates and Chance wagering on Isabelle’s ability to change. Hand this one to readers who want something more than a little different in their fairy tale retellings – and want to bring down the patriarchy.

November 2019 Debut YA Novels

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Get ready to get your read on with these November 2019 debut YA novels. It’s a quieter month on the book release front, so it’s an excellent time, too, to get caught up on the previous debut releases this year.

 

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. Authors who have self-published are not included here either.

All descriptions are from Goodreads, unless otherwise noted. If I’m missing any debuts that came out in November from traditional publishers — and I should clarify that indie/small presses are okay — let me know in the comments.

As always, not all noted titles included here are necessarily endorsements for those titles. List is arranged alphabetically by title, with publication dates in parentheses. Starred titles are the beginning of a new series.

November 2019 Debut YA Novels

 

Eight Will Fall by Sarah Harian (11/26)

In a land where magic is outlawed, eight criminals led by seventeen-year-old Larkin are sent on a mission to kill an ancient evil that plagues their kingdom. Descending into an underground realm full of unspeakable horrors, Larkin and her party must use their forbidden magic to survive what lies in wait, teeth sharp and jaws deadly.

As she fights for her life, Larkin finds a light in Amias, a fellow outlaw with a notorious past. Soon Larkin and Amias realize their fates are entwined. The eight of them were chosen for a reason.

But as the dangers multiply and her band of felons are picked off one by one, Larkin must confront a terrible truth: They were never meant to return.

 

 

Every Stolen Breath by Kimberly Gabriel (Available now)

The Swarm is unrecognizable, untraceable, and unpredictable—random attacks on the streets of Chicago by a mob of crazed teens that leaves death in its wake. It’s been two years since the last attack, but Lia Finch has found clues that reveal the Swarm is ready to claim a new victim.

Lia is the only one still pursuing her father’s killers, two years after attorney Steven Finch’s murder by the Swarm. Devastated and desperate for answers, Lia will do anything to uncover the reasons behind his death and to stop someone else from being struck down. But due to debilitating asthma and PTSD that leaves her with a tenuous hold on reality, Lia is the last person to mount a crusade on her own.

After a close encounter with the Swarm puts Lia on their radar, she teams up with a teen hacker, a reporter, and a mysterious stranger who knows firsthand how the mob works. Together, they work to uncover the master puppeteer behind the group. Though if Lia and her network don’t stop the person pulling the strings—and fast—Lia may end up the next target.

 

Songs From The Deep by Kelly Powell (Available now)

A girl searches for a killer on an island where deadly sirens lurk just beneath the waves in this gripping, atmospheric debut novel.

The sea holds many secrets.

Moira Alexander has always been fascinated by the deadly sirens who lurk along the shores of her island town. Even though their haunting songs can lure anyone to a swift and watery grave, she gets as close to them as she can, playing her violin on the edge of the enchanted sea. When a young boy is found dead on the beach, the islanders assume that he’s one of the sirens’ victims. Moira isn’t so sure.

Certain that someone has framed the boy’s death as a siren attack, Moira convinces her childhood friend, the lighthouse keeper Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process. With townspeople itching to hunt the sirens down, and their own secrets threatening to unravel their fragile new alliance, Moira and Jude must race against time to stop the killer before it’s too late—for humans and sirens alike.

 

A Thousand Fires by Shannon Price (Available now)

10 Years. 3 Gangs. 1 Girl’s Epic Quest…

Valerie Simons knows the city’s gang wars are dangerous—her own brother was killed by the Boars two years ago. But nothing will sway her from joining the elite and beautiful Herons to avenge his death—a death she feels responsible for.

But when Valerie is recruited by the mysterious Stags, their charismatic and volatile leader Jax promises to help her get revenge. Torn between old love and new loyalty, Valerie fights to stay alive as she races across the streets of San Francisco to finish the mission that got her into the gangs.

 

 

When The Stars Lead To You by Ronni Davis (Available now)

Eighteen-year-old Devon longs for two things.

The stars.
And the boy she fell in love with last summer.

When Ashton breaks Devon’s heart at the end of the most romantic and magical summer ever, she thinks her heart will never heal again. But over the course of the following year, Devon finds herself slowly putting the broken pieces back together.

Now it’s senior year, and she’s determined to enjoy every moment of it as she prepares for a future studying the galaxies. That is, until Ashton shows up on the first day of school. Can she forgive him and open her heart again? Or are they doomed to repeat history?

From debut author, Ronni Davis, comes a stunning novel about passion, loss, and the power of first love.

 

Wild Life: Dispatches From A Childhood of Baboons and Button Downs by Keena Roberts (Available now)

**Technically adult, but it’s such a great crossover book and Roberts is part of the Class 2K19 debut group, so I’m including it!

Keena Roberts split her adolescence between the wilds of an island camp in Botswana and the even more treacherous halls of an elite Philadelphia private school. In Africa, she slept in a tent, cooked over a campfire, and lived each day alongside the baboon colony her parents were studying. She could wield a spear as easily as a pencil, and it wasn’t unusual to be chased by lions or elephants on any given day. But for the months of the year when her family lived in the United States, this brave kid from the bush was cowed by the far more treacherous landscape of the preppy, private school social hierarchy.

Most girls Keena’s age didn’t spend their days changing truck tires, baking their own bread, or running from elephants as they tried to do their schoolwork. They also didn’t carve bird whistles from palm nuts or nearly knock themselves unconscious trying to make homemade palm wine. But Keena’s parents were famous primatologists who shuttled her and her sister between Philadelphia and Botswana every six months. Dreamer, reader, and adventurer, she was always far more comfortable avoiding lions and hippopotamuses than she was dealing with spoiled middle-school field hockey players.

In Keena’s funny, tender memoir, Wild Life, Africa bleeds into America and vice versa, each culture amplifying the other. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Wild Life is ultimately the story of a daring but sensitive young girl desperately trying to figure out if there’s any place where she truly fits in.

 

A Few Cybils Reads – Part 2 (2019)

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West by Edith Pattou

Edith Pattou’s books are just not for me, I’ve concluded. I know that the first book in this (now) duology, East, made a big splash when it was published in 2003 and won all sorts of awards and critical acclaim. I read it in 2010, as an adult, and thought it was fine, but nothing more than that. Part of the problem stems from the story source: the Norwegian folk tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The premise of the enchanted bear forcing a young girl to spend a year with him, and the girl subsequently falling in love with him (as an animal) always rubbed me the wrong way. In most versions of the story, the bear sleeps in the same bed as the girl at night, not just in the same house. The implied assault overtones are too strong. Still, there are definitely ways to take an unsettling fairy tale and reinvent it in unique ways. I just didn’t find a whole lot that I loved in East, and my notes in Goodreads remind me that I listened to it on audio and didn’t care for the narrator.

I felt much the same about this sequel, West, with the added annoyance that it basically retold the same story as in East. The prince is kidnapped again by the Troll Queen, and Rose must travel to the ends of the earth to save him. One of my biggest annoyances in (unplanned) sequels is when the creator simply brings back the villain from the first book and expects it to feel like a new story. It doesn’t. This book in particular meandered a lot, with a lot of different points of view that didn’t contribute much to the story each time they were given page time. It felt overstuffed and slow, and once again, I didn’t care for the performance of the person who narrated Rose. Overall, this felt like an unnecessary book. I’d be interested to see what big fans of East felt about this one.

 

We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett

Debut author Bartlett tackles the Night Witches of World War II – the Soviet women pilots who flew nighttime combat missions and were the only women to officially serve in a combat capacity in the war. Bartlett’s world is held together by the Weave, and two types of magic can control it: Spark magic and Weave magic. Spark magic is a way of producing energy and is legal in the Union; Weave magic involves manipulating the fabric of the world itself and is forbidden. Only a few people have any sort of magic at all. When Revna is caught using Weave magic to save herself and others from a bombing, she feels her life may be over. Instead, she’s sent to become a pilot, where she will be paired with a Spark magic user. Together, the two types of magic can power and maneuver war planes that might be able to compete with the magical, terrifying planes of the enemy. Revna’s Spark partner is Linné, a girl who had disguised herself as a boy in order to fight and was caught. The two don’t get along at all, in part due to class differences (Revna is working class and the daughter of a traitor, and Linné upper class and the daughter of an honored general), and in part due to personality differences (Revna is less than patriotic due to her country’s treatment of her and her family and has no experience fighting in a war, whereas Linné is overconfident and has a massive superiority complex). Worst in Linné’s mind, Revna is physically disabled, which Linné regards as a liability.

Still, the two must work together; their lives, and the lives of their compatriots, are on the line each night. They’re also fighting against their own country in other ways: aside from the pervasive sexism any reader should expect, the soldiers have to contend with the Skarov, a secretive government division whose job is to hunt traitors. In Bartlett’s Union, just as in the real-world Soviet Union, no evidence is really needed for conviction. This creates an almost unbearable tension – there is nowhere any of the girls are truly safe.

I read this soon after reading A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth Wein, a nonfiction account of the real Soviet airwomen during World War II. Having already read the true story added greatly to my appreciation of Bartlett’s twist. I knew which bits of Bartlett’s tale were based directly on the real Night Witches of the Soviet Union and their circumstances. It’s true that Soviet fighters who were shot down in enemy territory and survived would generally be executed as traitors. It’s true that the Night Witches were provided with planes that provided no protection if shot at. Certain characters in Bartlett’s book are stand-ins for real people. I was impressed by Bartlett’s attention to historical detail and how well she integrated her magical system into these real events. I fully believed that if magic existed in World War II Soviet Union, this was how events would have played out. This is a good pick for lovers of historical fantasy and women warriors, and I’d always recommend reading it in conjunction with Wein’s book – the two interact with each other so well.