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September Debut YA Novels

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Written by: Kelly on September 29, 2014.
September is my favorite month. It’s also a really busy and full month for YA books, and there are a ton of debut novels that are out or coming out before this month ends. As usual, all of these debuts are first novels written by the author — I don’t include books by authors who have published under other names or who have published in another category. There are a ton of great-sounding contemporary titles this month in particular. 
All descriptions are from WorldCat. If I’ve missed any titles from traditional publishers, feel free to let me know in the comments. Links go to relevant reviews here at STACKED.

Don’t Touch by Rachel M. Wilson: 16-year-old Caddie struggles with OCD, anxiety, and a powerful fear of touching another person’s skin, which threatens her dreams of being an actress–until the boy playing Hamlet opposite her Ophelia gives her a reason to overcome her fears.

Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang: One cold fall day, high school junior Liz Emerson steers her car into a tree. This haunting and heartbreaking story is told by a surprising and unexpected narrator and unfolds in nonlinear flashbacks even as Liz’s friends, foes, and family gather at the hospital and Liz clings to life. 

Falls The Shadow by Stefanie Gaither: When her sister Violet dies, Cate’s wealthy family brings home Violet’s clone who fits in perfectly until Cate uncovers something sinister about the cloning movement.

Feuds by Avery Hastings: In 2135 Ohio, Davis Morrow, a fiercely ambitious ballerina, has been primed to be smarter, stronger, and more graceful than the lowly Imperfects but when a deadly virus, the Narxis, begins killing Davis’s friends she turns to Cole, a mysterious boy with his own agenda, and their love may be the only thing that can save her world.

Kiss of Broken Glass by Madeleine Kuderick: A tale told through evocative verse chronicles a mandatory seventy-two-hour psychiatric evaluation of a teen who has been caught cutting herself in an effort to feel alive.

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley: In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily. Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town’s most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept “separate but equal.” Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another. (Description via Goodreads).

Mary: The Summoning by Hillary Monahan: Teens Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna follow all the rules, but when their summoning circle is broken the vengeful spirit of Bloody Mary slips through, and as the girls struggle to escape Mary’s wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships torn apart, and lives changed forever.

Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley: Sixteen-year-old Sam McKenna discovers that becoming one of the first girls to attend the revered Denmark Military Academy means living with a target on her back. 

Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper: Sixteen-year-old Avery Roe wants to take her rightful place as the sea witch of Prince Island. When she foresees her own murder, a harpoon boy named Tane promises to help her change her fate and keep her island safe and prosperous, but salvation will require an unexpected sacrifice.

Survival Colony 9 by Joshua David Bellin: Querry Gen, a member of one of the last human survivor groups following global war, is targeted by the monstrous Skaldi, although Querry has no memory of why.

Sway by Kat Spears: High school senior Sway could sell hell to a bishop. When Ken, captain of the football team, hires Jesse to help him win the heart of Bridget, Jesse agrees. While learning about Bridget, he falls helplessly in love. A Cyrano De Bergerac story with a modern twist, it’s Jesse’s point of view, his observations about the world around him unimpeded by empathy or compassion; until Bridget forces him to confront his devastation over a crushing event a year ago and just maybe feel something again. 



Tabula Rasa by Kristen Lippert-Martin: A girl who has been held in an experimental medical facility to remove the memories that gave her post-traumatic stress disorder begins to recover her memory after fleeing mercenaries sent to eliminate her.

The Dolls by Kiki Sullivan: Eveny Cheval returns to Louisiana after growing up in New York and discovers she’s a voodoo queen.

The Jewel by Amy Ewing: Violet, a poor girl from the outer city, finds forbidden romance and uncovers brutal secrets when, after three years of training, she is purchased by a royal family as a surrogate mother for royal children.

The Only Thing to Fear by Caroline Tung Richmond: It has been nearly seventy years since Hitler’s armies won the war, and sixteen-year-old Zara St. James lives in the Shenandoah hills, part of the Eastern American Territories, under the rule of the Nazis–but a resistance movement is growing, and Zara, who dreams of freedom, may be the key to its success.

Winterkill by Kate A. Boorman: When the revered leader of her settlement, a dark, isolated land with merciless winters and puritanical rulers, asks Emmeline for her hand it is a rare opportunity, but not only does she love another man, she cannot ignore dreams that urge her into the dangerous and forbidden woods that took her grandmother’s life and her family’s reputation.

Words and Their Meanings by Kate Bassett: Seventeen-year-old Anna O’Mally is a gifted writer but for the past year, since her beloved uncle Joe died, she has been wrapped in grief that seems impenetrable until a strange email suggests she did not know Joe as well as she thought–and he was not the saint she believed he was.

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  1. All three I’ve read (FALLING INTO PLACE by Amy Zhang, LIES WE TELL OURSELVES by Robin Talley, and RITES OF PASSAGE by Joy N. Hensley) were five-star reads for me. What a freaking amazing month for YA debuts. Cannot wait to read more of them!

September Debut YA Novels

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Written by: Kelly on September 18, 2013.

Ready for this month’s debut YA novels? We’ve been keeping track of debut novels throughout the year, and you can get to past roundups by starting in our August post and working backwards. 

A note about the definition of the word “debut.” I am strict in applying it — these are first-time works by first-time authors, unless otherwise noted. I don’t include first-time YA works by authors who have published in other categories. I don’t include YA authors who have changed their names (I’ve seen a number of lists including books that are by authors who have published in YA previously but who are writing under a pen name or have married and changed their publication name). The books included are debuts in the truest sense of the word.

If I am missing a debut novel by a traditional publisher out in September, let me know in the comments. All descriptions are via WorldCat unless otherwise notes. 

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis: Sixteen-year-old Lynn will do anything to protect her valuable water source, but the arrival of new neighbors forces her to reconsider her attitudes.

Relativity by Cristin Bishara: If Ruby Wright could have her way, her dad would never have met and married her stepmother Willow, her best friend George would be more than a friend, and her mom would still be alive. Then she discovers a tree in the middle of an Ohio cornfield with a wormhole to nine alternative realities. But is there such a thing as a perfect world? What is Ruby willing to give up to find out?

Thin Space by Jody Casella: Consumed by guilt and secrets about his twin brother’s death, Marsh Windsor is looking for a thin space–a place where the barrier between this world and the next is thin enough for a person to cross over–in hopes of setting things right.

Find Me by Romily Bernard: When teen hacker and foster child Wick Tate finds a dead classmate’s diary on her front step, with a note reading “Find me,” she sets off on a perverse game of hide-and-seek to catch the killer.

Project Cain by Geoffrey Girard: Fifteen-year-old Jeff Jacobson learns that not only was he cloned from infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s blood as part of a top-secret government experiment, but there are other clones like him and he is the only one who can track them down before it is too late.

The Paradox of Vertical Flight by Emil Ostrovski: When, on his eighteenth birthday, Jack Polovsky’s almost-suicide is interrupted by his ex-girlfriend Jess’s call saying she is in labor, he impulsively snatches the baby and hits the road with his best friend Tommy and Jess to introduce baby Socrates to Jack’s aging grandmother.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill: Em must travel back in time to prevent a catastrophic time machine from ever being invented, while Marina battles to prevent the murder of the boy she loves. 

Leap of Faith by Jamie Blair: Seventeen-year-old Faith shepherds her neglectful, drug-addicted mother through her pregnancy and then kidnaps the baby, taking on the responsibility of being her baby sister’s parent while hiding from the authorities.

Relic by Renee Collins: After a raging fire consumes her town and kills her parents, Maggie Davis is on her own to protect her younger sister and survive best she can in the Colorado town of Burning Mesa. In Maggie’s world, the bones of long-extinct magical creatures such as dragons and sirens are mined and traded for their residual magical elements, and harnessing these relics’ powers allows the user to wield fire, turn invisible, or heal even the worst of injuries. Working in a local saloon, Maggie befriends the spirited showgirl Adelaide and falls for the roguish cowboy Landon. But when she proves to have a particular skill at harnessing the relics’ powers, Maggie is whisked away to the glamorous hacienda of Álvar Castilla, the wealthy young relic baron who runs Burning Mesa. Though his intentions aren’t always clear, Álvar trains Maggie in the world of relic magic. But when the mysterious fires reappear in their neighboring towns, Maggie must discover who is channeling relic magic for evil before it’s too late. (Description via Goodreads). 

This is How I Find Her by Sara Polsky: High school junior Sophie has always had the burden of taking care of her mother, who has bipolar disorder, but after her mother’s hospitalization she must learn to cope with estranged family and figure out her own life.

A Wounded Name by Dot Hutchison: A reimagining of the world and story of Hamlet–from Ophelia’s perspective and set in an American boarding school.

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