Most Anticipated Young Adult SFF/H for July & August 2026 - Reactor

(Amulet Books; July 21, 2026) Junie and Jay are as close as sisters can get, despite having polar opposite personalities. A car crash takes Jay’s life and leaves Junie unable to remember what happened. With her mother catatonic with grief, Junie and her only friend Omari have to scrounge to get Jay buried, which is how she ends up in the next town over, Williamsville. Full of racist white people proud of their heritage—aka being related to the founder, a brutal white supremacist and slave holder—Jay’s grave is a site of consternation for Jay. Turns out the denizens are part of a cult and need the sisters for some dark, racist magic. 

(Sarah Barley Books; August 4, 2026) Sylvie’s whole life came crashing down when the FBI raided her father’s home on charges of fraud and embezzlement. Now she’s the pariah of Pine Ridge Hollow, and high school graduation cannot come soon enough. An encounter with the horned god of the West Woods, Illican, offers her a chance to fix things. If she saves Illican from dying, he’ll give her magic to save her hometown, now collapsing into ruin after her father’s crimes left many locals destitute. Her family has a strange connection to the horned god and the history of Pine Ridge Hollow, one Sylvie has only just scratched the surface of.

(Godwin Books; July 21, 2026) Max cannot remember how he died. All he knows is that he’s spent the last 30 years being a sixteen-year-old ghost haunting a dilapidated house he isn’t able to leave. Joaquín wants to see a ghost more than anything, so he and his friends sneak into the house where Max died. An impulsive act opens the door for Max to be able to not only finally leave his tomb but also communicate with Joaquín. The boys look into Max’s death, but the real mysteries are whether Joaquín will be able to work out his feelings for his ex-boyfriend and what Max will do when he finally gets his answer.

(Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; July 28, 2026) Four teens enter a haunted house, and only three exit alive. Jules, James, Georgia, and Circe have been pulling art cons for a while now. Using their ghost hunting YouTube show as cover, they steal art and replace it with forgeries created by Circe. The art is then sold by their patron, Lark. But after Jules is murdered in one of the houses and Georgia, her secret girlfriend, has no memory of it despite waking up covered in Jules’ blood, the group splits up. Lark forces them to finish the job they started, so they head back into De Lys Manor to face their greatest fears.

(G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers; July 28, 2026) Elle used to run a crew of thieves that sneak into the Afterlife to steal magic, back before her parents went missing and her brother Dante died. Just when she thought she was out, Rook pulls her back in. He hires her to steal his sister’s soul from the Afterlife, something that up until now Elle thought was impossible. After all, if she can retrieve Rook’s sister, maybe she can also bring Dante back. She gets the crew back together and hijinks ensue. 

(Viking Books for Young Readers; August 4, 2026) It’s been two years since August’s boyfriend London was killed in a car crash, and he is still overcome with grief. The only bright spot in his lonely, empty life is Cary, a customer at the pizza joint he works at. When August learns that Cary is really a ferrier of souls in the Underworld, he convinces Cary to guide him on a quest to find London’s soul. But the more time the two spend together, the more August starts to feel things for Cary. Does he really want London back or is he really just trying to avoid processing his grief?

(G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers; August 11, 2026) Following her grandmother’s death, Mikaela is named as the next Witch Queen of her New Orleanean coven of Black witches. Then Joelle enters the picture. Mikaela reads Joelle’s fortune and is shocked to discover Joelle is destined to kill her by the next full moon. Complicating matters, a magical disease is running through her coven and a pack of racists are harrying her. Can her blossoming romance with Joelle win out against the threat of death?

(Feiwel & Friends; August 25, 2026) Del—formerly Princess Adeline, heir to the Gilnea throne—wants to live a normal, quiet life as a bard in the neighboring kingdom of Salato. She watched her lover kill her sister in a duel and now she wants nothing more but to play music and stay away from royals. Hiding her identity with magic is easy enough, but staying out of palaces proves trickier when she ends up as a bard for Queen Clara. Clara is new to the throne and out of her depth, and Del takes pity on her and helps her out. Clara’s effervescent sister-in-law Nasca puts Del’s masking magic to the test, as the only way the glamor can be removed is with a kiss from her true love.

(Margaret K. McElderry Books; August 18, 2026) After the death of her beloved grandmother, Gigi, Harper uproots her life and relocates to the school Gigi attended long ago: Black Mountain Academy deep in the Appalachian Mountains. Rumor has it the school is haunted. Also at the school are Lucas, a boy she had a brief fling with last summer, and Malachi, with whom she hasn’t spoken to since their falling out. Harper goes digging into the school’s history and unearths death and mysterious disappearances going back decades. Several chapters are set in 1926.

(The City Beautiful #2 — HarperCollins; August 25, 2026) Chicago, 1893. When we last left Alter Rosen, he had just survived a serial killer and being possessed by the dybbuk of his dead best friend Yakov. Frankie, a former child thief and boxer, and Alter decide to open a detective agency and help their Jewish community since no one else will. Once again, kids are vanishing off the streets, and once again, Alter and Frankie set out to investigate.

(Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; July 14, 2026) New Hampshire, 1921. Four young women arrive at Greystone Manor, an estate owned by an heir to an oil fortune. Vaughn is desperate to shed the stigma of mental illness and regain her place in society; Elspeth has spent her life being condescended to due to her dyslexia and wants to prove herself; Birdie, who uses a cane after a childhood bout with polio, wants to have some fun for once; and Dorothea, a white-passing Black girl is trying to find answers to why her mother disappeared from Greystone years before. The girls get more than they bargained for when the house and the monsters that lurk within turn the competition on its head.

(Wednesday Books; August 4, 2026) Six years ago, losing a game of chess to Midir, the king of the Fae, cost Shea her sister. So when she finally gets access to cross the Iron Veil and enter the Otherworld where Aideen is being held, she takes it. Luckily for her, the chance comes in the form of a once-in-a-lifetime chess tournament. As the competition turns deadly, she teams up with another competitor and Midir’s sister, the infuriating lovely Ciara. 

(King of Dead Things #2 — Atheneum Books for Young Readers; July 7, 2026) The conclusion to this urban fantasy duology is brimming with Afro-Caribbean folklore. Eli still can’t remember anything from his past and is still reeling from Sunny’s big revelation. Malcolm is still stuck with his dangerous death magic, but his connection with Max is growing deeper. Now Eli’s nightmares are leaving marks on him in the waking world, so it’s up to the teens to track down their latest enemy.

(Page Street YA; August 11, 2026) Hollingsworth reimagines the folktale “Kate Crackernuts” from the Orkney Islands, Scotland, with this story about a teen suffering from chronic pain. Kit is always ill while her stepsister Catherine is the life of the party. She yearns for Catherine’s new fiance, Prince Idris, the only person who acknowledges she’s being abused by her stepfather, the king. The book has fae deals gone awry, body swapping, curses, and restitution for the harms caused by their ancestors.

(Random House Books for Young Readers; August 11, 2026) Siblings Lily and Caleb are manananggal, shapeshifting creatures from Filipino folklore who can fly and drink blood to live. In other words: vampires. They keep their true identity secret from everyone but their family, including other supernatural beings. Then a monster hunter, or bayani, shows up and targets Caleb. No one has ever escaped from a bayani before, but Lily will do whatever it takes to protect her brother.

(Groundwood Books; August 4, 2026) Fifteen-year-old Clem is about to be let out from juvenile detention, but his release date is yanked away when he tries to stop some guards from knocking other kids around. This incident lands him in solitary alongside Finn, a newcomer to juvie. The boys bond during their slivers of free time out of their cells, but both are trapped in a system designed to punish them in perpetuity. When Finn mysteriously disappears from his locked cell, the adults all look to Clem, but he has no idea. Finn mentioned a strange phenomenon in his cell, but that was just talk, right? What if you could go back in time and fix your mistakes?