Here’s the full list of young adult SF/F titles heading your way in April!
Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.
April 1
Beasts — Ingvild Bjerkeland, tr. Rosie Hedger (Levine Querido)
The world has been overrun by hitherto unknown beasts. Society has collapsed: the power is gone, cars are abandoned across the highways, and anyone left is hiding from the terrifying creatures—and one another. Thirteen-year-old Abdi and his five-year-old sister Alva are on the run, their last hope to escape through the forest and to the sea. As they recall the strange events that led to the beasts’ arrival, and how the two of them got to where they were, they must ask themselves who they can trust—and what they will do to survive.
Where Shadows Meet — Patrice Caldwell (Wednesday)
Once long ago, a girl named Favre sacrificed her wings for love. Thana, the young goddess she so willingly gave them up for, sacrificed that same love for power. But everything has a cost. Favre never got over the loss of her wings. And Thana’s choices led to a life of eternal night, and later, their destruction. Favre has bided her time ever since, waiting for the chance to resurrect the girl she loves who turned her into the creature she hates. Now, a thousand years later, Leyla, the crown princess of a vampire nation, must travel to Nekros, the island of the dead, when her best friend is captured during an attack on her nation’s capital. But nothing is as it seems. The closer she gets to her goal, the more her body seems to work against her, and the more she risks awakening an ancient evil and destroying everything she holds dear.
Give Up the Night (Moonstruck #2) — P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast (Wednesday)
Since becoming Moonstruck on her eighteenth birthday, Wren Nightingale has found herself thrust into a world filled with deception, danger, and murder. Uncovering that their magick was fractured and limited when the original Moonstruck ritual was broken by Selene, Wren is determined to find a way to restore it. But the Elementals are split into two factions—some want the ritual completed and their freedom—and others are so terrified of change that they’re willing to end Wren before she can reach the center of the island where the ritual Selene ruined can be completed. Between his overbearing father’s arrival, Rottingham delegating him more and more responsibility, and Celeste taking a special interest in him, Lee Young has been struggling to find his own path. As much as Lee wants to take his place in the Moonstruck hierarchy, he knows something’s not right at the Academia de la Luna. He thinks if he can talk some sense into Wren and get her to return to the Academia, that everything will turn out alright. As Wren and Lee both battle for what they believe is right, they’ll have to uncover who their true allies are…and if they’re even on the same side of this magickal fight.
The Hallow Hunt (Revenant Games #2) — Margie Fuston (Margaret K. McElderry)
Bly won the Revenant Games, but she lost everything else. In her desperation to resurrect her sister, Bly betrayed Kerrigan, the vampire who she’d planned to sacrifice to the witches before she fell in love with him—only to find out that Elise was never dead. With nothing left, Bly will do whatever it takes to locate her sister. Her only lead on Elise lies with Kerrigan’s brother, Donovan, who she turned over to the witches in place of Kerrigan. She spends her nights tracking down witch prisons to rescue him. Meanwhile, Kerrigan is also searching for Donovan, but after Bly’s treachery, he refuses her help. But when the vampire queens accuse the two of them of treason, they’re only offered one escape from execution: retrieving a mystical root that only grows on the banks of the Hallow Pool, where legend says that vampires and witches were created. Now Kerrigan and Bly must find a way to work together if they want to keep their lives and save their siblings. But they’re not the only ones hunting in the forest, and as their feelings for each other rekindle, they risk being torn apart once more.
King of the Forgotten Darkness (Raven’s Tale) — Erik Goodwyn (Roundfire Books)
Twenty-four-year-old Liam is a traumatized warrior in a paradise free of war. He works his high-rise job. He is safe, comfortable, and free of suffering. For years, the portals to the brutal and magical world of Erentyr, where Liam came from, have been sealed, civilization protected. All that Liam wants is to live a normal life, to forget about his family’s slaughter in Erentyr before he escaped. But soon he learns that one of his family members is still alive. Flush with terror but clinging to hope, Liam illegally returns to Erentyr’s savage but Fairywild beauty. Once there, however, he finds that much more than fear and hope has awakened in him
The Notorious Virtues — Alwyn Hamilton (Viking Books for Young Readers)
At sixteen, Honora “Nora” Holtzfall is the daughter of the most powerful heiress in all of Walstad. Her family controls all the money—and all the magic—in the entire country. But despite being the center of attention, Nora has always felt like an outsider. When her mother is found dead in an alley, the family throne and fortune are suddenly up for grabs, and Nora will be pitted against her cousins in the Veritaz, the ultimate magical competition for power that determines the one family heir. But there’s a surprise contestant this time: Lotte, the illegitimate daughter of Nora’s aunt. When Lotte’s absent mother retrieves her from the rural convent she’d abandoned her to, Lotte goes from being an orphan to surrounded by family. Unfortunately, most of them want her dead. And soon, Nora discovers that her mother’s death wasn’t random—it was murder. And the only person she can trust to uncover the truth of what happened is a rakish young reporter who despises everything Nora and her family stand for. While the dangers of the Veritaz competition threaten each of the Holtzfall girls, and the stark class differences turns political outrage to terrifing violence—the new cousins must fight to stay alive, no matter what. Incredible tests, impossible choices, and deadly odds await both girls. But there can only be one winner.
The Coven Tendency — Zoe Hana Mikuta (Disney-Hyperion)
Just like her mother and her mother’s mother, 18-year-old Vanity Adams is destined to lead a lavish life under the patronship of the Museum, someday taking her place as its premiere necromantic Spectacle and the centerpiece of their weekly soirees thrown for the City’s elite. But until that day, Vanity (and the other young witches of the Museum) is isolated from the outside world and purged of her magic—magic being particularly unstable for teenagers and often leading to antisocial conduct, mood swings, bloodlust, delusions, and, most concerning, a habitual, violent obsession with one another. To all of this, Vanity thinks: Well, whatever. Better than being confined to the Sanatorium with the less fortunate witches, imprisoned in a chemically induced coma as her blood is harvested to make World, the City’s favorite designer drug. At least she’ll be dead someday, there’s always that. And at least the Museum has Arrogance, Vanity’s twin sister, who just might remember how to do magic, and who just might be where our story begins.
Holy Terrors (Little Thieves #3) — Margaret Owen (Henry Holt & Co)
It’s been nearly two years since Vanja brought down the cult she started, and she’s still paying the price. As the Pfennigeist, she bucks the law in order to help the desperate and haunt the corrupt all across the empire—and no matter what, she works alone. But an impossible killer is tearing through royalty, and leaving Vanja’s signature red penny on every victim. Suddenly the Pfennigeist is no longer a folk hero but a nightmare. When even the Blessed Empress falls, the empire’s seven royal families must gather to elect her successor within a matter of weeks, or risk the collapse of reality itself… even though it puts every house in the killer’s sights. Vanja tells herself she’s wading into the royalty’s vicious games only to save the name she made, and the loved ones also in jeopardy. But the Order of Prefects has also put their sharpest official on the case, the one who swore he’d always find Vanja—until she broke his heart. Journeyman Prefect Emeric Conrad may no longer be the boy Vanja knew, but they’ll have to work together one last time to have any chance of surviving the deadly catastrophe coming for them all. With bloody conspiracy, sinister magic, and old adversaries closing in, it will take everything Vanja has to save not just the people she loves, but the future she’s fought for.
Deadstream — Mar Romasco-Moore (Viking Books for Young Readers)
After surviving a car accident that claimed the life of her best friend, Teresa is now terrified to leave the safety of her bedroom. Since then, her only solace and window to the outside world has been the online community she found through streaming. But one night, the safe world Teresa created starts to break down. A shadowy figure appears in the background of her favorite’s streamer’s video, and his behavior mysteriously changes over the next few days before he dies in front of thousands of viewers. Teresa finds herself at the center of a life-and-death investigation as the world tries to figure out what or who this figure could be… especially as it begins appearing in the other people’s streams, compelling them to “open the door“ and let it in—including Teresa’s own. In order to save herself and the rest of the internet from this relentless entity, Teresa must venture outside of the mental and physical walls she’s created. But will she be able to conquer her fears before anyone else loses their life?
Meet Me at Blue Hour — Sarah Suk (Quill Tree Books)
Seventeen-year-old Yena Bae is spending the summer in Busan, South Korea, working at her mom’s memory-erasing clinic. She feels lost and disconnected from people, something she’s felt ever since her best friend, Lucas, moved away four years ago without a word, leaving her in limbo. Eighteen-year-old Lucas Pak is also in Busan for the summer, visiting his grandpa, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But he isn’t just here for a regular visit—he’s determined to get his beloved grandpa into the new study running at the clinic, a trial program seeking to restore lost memories. When Yena runs into Lucas again, she’s shocked to see him and even more shocked to discover that he doesn’t remember a thing about her. He’s completely erased her from his memories, and she has no idea why. As the two reconnect, they unravel the mystery and heartache of what happened between them all those years ago—and must now reckon with whether they can forge a new beginning together.
April 8
Boys with Sharp Teeth — Jenni Howell (Roaring Brook Press)
Seventeen-year-old Marin James has spent her entire life living in the shadow of the exclusive Huntsworth Academy. And when her cousin’s dead body is found in a creek on school property, Marin knows exactly who’s to blame: Adrian Hargraves and Henry Wu, the enigmatic yet dangerously alluring leaders of the school’s social elite. Swapping her ripped jeans for a crisp prep school skirt, Marin infiltrates Huntsworth to seek justice. But her quest is quickly muddied by a confusing attraction to her new life, and to the two dysfunctional and depraved boys who somehow understand her better than anyone ever has. When Marin uncovers an otherworldly secret the boys are hiding within Huntsworth’s ivied gates, the lines between right and wrong, love and hate, and nightmare and reality begin to crumble—and nothing is as it seems. Welcome to Huntsworth Academy.
Fearless (Powerless #3) — Lauren Roberts (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Paedyn Gray and Kai Azer return to the Kingdom of Ilya… And Paedyn has a life-altering choice to make. Whatever she decides will determine her fate—and the fate of those around her—forever. In the ultimate battle of love and loyalty, who wins?
April 15
Chaos King (Infinity Alchemist #2) — Kacen Callender (Tor Teen)
Ever since he rose up against his father and saved New Anglia from destruction, Ash has been struggling to adapt to his new life. He has nightmares every night, haunted by strange black orbs and his screaming dead mother. Ash is sure she’s trying to warn him that the world is still in danger, and becomes determined to find a way to speak to her again—but communicating with the dead isn’t easy, even for an alchemist as powerful as Ash. It doesn’t help that violent anti-alchemist sentiment is spreading across New Anglia. When Ash is captured by a radical group, inspired by his father’s legacy, he must decide if alchemist rights can be trusted in the hands of the Houses, along with his partners Callum and Ramsay—or if Ash must follow the path his father laid for him, and become the leader of an alchemist revolution. Can Ash keep his relationships together and stop the world from falling apart?
Somadina — Akwaeke Emezi (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Somadina and her twin brother, Jayaike, are practically the same person: they finish each other’s sentences and make each other whole. When the twins come of age, their magical gifts begin to develop, but while Jayaike’s powers enchant, Somadina’s cause fear to ripple through her town. Always an outsider, Somadina now faces blatant—and dangerous—hostility. And things go from bad to worse when her brother—the one person she trusted—vanishes. Somadina knows that no matter the dangers, she must track him down. Even if it means entering the Sacred Forest. Even if it means grueling, otherworldly travel she may not survive. Even if it means finding the hidden places where those closest to the spirit world don’t dare to go. Does Somadina have the strength—within both her body and her soul—for the trying journey ahead.
Hyo the Hellmaker — Mina Ikemoto Ghosh (Scholastic)
Hyo Hakai is a hellmaker, hired to create customized hells and unlucky days for your worst enemies. When a demon destroys her village, Hyo and her brother flee to Onogoro—an island where the gods of their land live among humans. The hellmakers’ hereditary curse, however, won’t allow Hyo to settle in quietly. Hyo is curse-bound to investigate the deaths that come her way and avenge them. As she’s pulled deeper into a tangled web of dark secrets, Hyo must navigate the intricate rules of Onogoro’s gods without becoming their pawn. She’ll quickly realize that murderers and gods have one thing in common—they always think they can get away with it… At least, that was before Hyo arrived.
Watch Me — Tahereh Mafi (Storytide)
James Anderson had a plan. Or half of one. All that matters is that he managed to do what his older brother, the famous Aaron Warner Anderson, never did: infiltrate Ark Island, the last refuge of The Reestablishment. In the past decade no outsider has breached the stronghold of the authoritarian regime, but James is in. In a prison cell, sure, but as far as James is concerned, a win is a win. It’s been ten years since the fall of The Reestablishment. Ten years since the notorious duo—Juliette Ferrars and Aaron Warner Anderson—led a worldwide rebellion and established the New Republic of the West. But after a decade of unsettling quiet, The Reestablishment is ready to make a devastating move, and they have the perfect person for the job. Rosabelle Wolff had a plan. She always has a plan. On Ark Island, where constant surveillance is packaged as security, even emotions must be experienced with caution. A trained assassin, her every movement is monitored by synthetic intelligence—and when she’s given an order to kill, she never hesitates. Brimming with pulse-pounding action and torturous romance, Watch Me is an explosive journey through a dystopian landscape where enemies-to-lovers has never felt more impossible. Step into a beloved and breathtaking world that demands an answer to a desperate question—Who are we when no one is watching?
April 22
Voice of the Ocean — Kelsey Impicciche (Blackstone)
As the youngest daughter of the siren queen, Celeste’s life is tightly controlled. Desperate to prove her worth and escape her destiny—trapped in the palace as a royal figurehead—she intends to join the Chorus, an elite group of siren warriors. With the final test on the horizon, Celeste feels the pressure to finally gain control over her temperamental Song—a magic gifted by the Goddess herself. But when Celeste encounters a seemingly harmless ship in Staria’s waters, helmed by the intriguing Prince Raiden Sharp, her path veers toward forbidden waters. Believing the handsome sailor to be innocent of any wrongdoing, Celeste defies siren law to save Raiden’s life—despite knowing he is the son of a king who has murdered many of her kindred. The penalty for Celeste’s betrayal should be death, but the queen offers her an alternative: right her wrong by assassinating the prince. Determined to first discover the truth behind the prince’s clandestine mission, Celeste agrees to become human. But the human world is nothing like she expected, nor is the prince the charming and noble man she assumed him to be. Disguised among Raiden’s ragtag crew, she searches for the truth. But as Celeste finds her place aboard the ship, friendships—and attraction—begin to grow. Will Celeste be able to do what must be done? Or will her choices unravel a kingdom, devastating sirens and humans alike?
The Summer I Ate the Rich — Maika Moulite, Maritza Moulite (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers)
Brielle Petitfour loves to cook. But with a chronically sick mother and bills to pay, becoming a chef isn’t exactly a realistic career path. When Brielle’s mom suddenly loses her job, Brielle steps in and uses her culinary skills to earn some extra money. The rich families who love her cooking praise her use of unique flavors and textures, which keep everyone guessing what’s in Brielle’s dishes. The secret ingredient? Human flesh. Written by the storytelling duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, The Summer I Ate the Rich is a modern-day fable inspired by Haitian zombie lore that scrutinizes the socioeconomic and racial inequity that is the foundation of our society. Just like Brielle’s clients, it will have you asking: What’s for dinner?
Iron Tongue of Midnight (Forge & Fracture #3) — Brittany N. Williams (Amulet)
Seventeen-year-old Joan Sands must banish the Fae, just as her ancestor did nearly two thousand years ago. But first she’ll have to unravel the mystery behind the original pact that allows the Fae to openly terrorize London while King James hides in the countryside, protected by the children of the Orisha. Armed with a magical sword and the power to manipulate and create metal, Joan gathers allies and enemies in unlikely places as the world she knew slips further away. But the children of the Orisha struggle to wield their magic for war, and Joan clashes with the elders who refuse to trust the fate of the world to a child, regardless of her Orisha blessings. All while her two loves, Nick and Rose, grow closer to each other, a prospect more momentous and alluring than Joan ever could have imagined. When a spirit bent on annihilating all who worship the Orisha is unleashed, Joan discovers the unsettling truth behind the original pact. Faced with the lies of the past, the frightening power of the Fae, and a mortal king whose dangerous whims hold her community hostage, Joan must decide: Is the old world worth saving or is it time to forge something frighteningly new?
The Premonitions Club — Gwendolyn Womack (CamCat)
When Liv Hall and her friends find boxes of letters hidden in her grandfather’s attic, they discover hundreds of psychic predictions addressed to the Premonitions Bureau, a bureau to investigate psychic abilities that mysteriously closed in 1993. As the group reads decades-old premonitions, they stumble on letters from powerful psychics who mailed in their predictions and then disappeared. A post online about the found predictions alerts a black ops group in charge of the military’s paranormal research, who will do anything to get their hands on the letters and the psychics who wrote them. Liv and her friends now know too much, and they’re directly in the crosshairs. To survive, they’re going to have to rely on each other and the unlikely help of psychics who thought they’d left the dangers of the Bureau behind forever.
April 29
What Comes After — Katie Bayerl (Nancy Paulson Books)
Mari never gave much thought to the afterlife before her untimely demise, but she certainly didn’t think it would be an experimental wellness enclave called Paradise Gate—a place where the newly dead go to sort out the unfinished business of their lives. She also didn’t think the biggest problem to plague her in life would follow her into the great beyond: her also recently deceased mother, Faye. Mari quickly realizes Faye is her unfinished business, and in order to move on to whatever’s next, she’ll have to find a way to forgive her dysfunctional mother for being no mother at all. But there’s so much to forgive: never holding down a steady job, never having a stable home, and abandoning Mari in the end. It’s a lot to sort through, but faced with the possibility of being turned out into the abyss, Mari gets to work. She enrolls in the prescribed self- actualization classes (think: journaling, positive self-talk, and lots of Youga™). It all seems pretty hokey, but still, the assignments force Mari to confront difficult truths about her past. When a shocking revelation about Mari’s death captures the attention of the afterlife media, Mari is suddenly in the spotlight, her messy history being judged by the whole realm. She finds escape in an equally troubled boy, who takes Mari to an obscure part of Paradise Gate and introduces her to rebels who show Mari that this “wellness center” is not all it pretends to be. With classmates disappearing and an afterlife revolution brewing, Mari must decide whether to play it safe or break the rules. At stake? Her eternal fate. Literally.
Love at Second Sight — F.T. Lukens (Margaret K. McElderry)
Fifteen-year-old Cam Reynolds wants to spend his sophomore year flying under the radar. That shouldn’t be too hard, considering he’s a human going to school with kids who have paranormal powers, like his best friend and witch, Al, and his longtime werewolf crush, Mateo. Then Cam has a psychic glimpse of the future in front of most of the student body, seeing a gruesomely murdered teen girl from the point of view of the killer. When Cam comes to, he knows two things: someone he goes to school with is a future murderer, and his life is about to change. No longer a mere human but a clairvoyant, one of the rarest of supernatural beings, Cam finds himself at the center of attention for the first time. As the most powerful supernatural factions in the city court Cam and his gift, he’ll have to work with his friends, both old and new, to figure out who he can trust and who might be a werewolf in sheep’s clothing. Because the clock is ticking, and Cam and his friends must identify the girl in the vision, find her potential killer, and prevent the murder from happening. Or the next murder Cam sees might be his own.
The Floating World — Axie Oh (Faiwel + Friends)
Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light. Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded. Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn’t realize she’s the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined
A Dance to Wake a Dragon — Richard Pratt (Earnshaw Books)
Can you save the world with a dance? Can you call dragons with music? And can you do this when no-one believes that such things exist or are possible? The dragons of Tianya guard the balance between the forces of order and randomness, of heaven and earth, and when things are stable, no-one remembers they exist. But any disturbance can create tragedy, and only the mysterious dance to wake the dragon, performed at the ancient site of Zamai, can save the world. And the only person who knows the dance in this new age is Shengli. Shengli lives in a remote village with her friends, her dog companion, and a wise old neighbour who is one of the last in Tianya to understand the ancient ways. She embarks on a dangerous mission, with her friends and the mysterious Renzi, to perform the dance at Zamai and the journey offers trials and tests that demand courage, cunning, and comradeship.
Night Swimming — Aaron Starmer (Penguin Workshop)
Summer, 1994. Trevor can barely wrap his mind around the fact that he and his friends have graduated high school. And yet there’s no rush to get to college. He’s determined to live one night at a time. Riding shotgun from party to party, windows down, music up, his focus is entirely on his crush, the enigmatic girl in the driver’s seat. Will things ever go anywhere with Sarah? Maybe? Because Sarah has proposed a mission: They’re going to swim all the pools in town. Before long, they’re sneaking into backyards every night, splashing, floating, and loving every minute of it. But it’s still not enough for Trevor. He yearns for Sarah, despite her college boyfriend, despite her “not yet”s, despite the way she keeps pulling away the moment it starts to feel truly magical. Things finally change when they learn about a natural pool hidden deep in the woods. It seems like just another spot to check off their summer bucket list. But once they get there, they realize that this place has a curious hold on them, and something very strange is happening
