A new month brings some new books and there’s plenty of intriguing YA books coming out this February! From new novels by Tamora Pierce and Rachel Caine, to the final instalment in The Library Jumpers trilogy by Brenda Drake, and to a highly anticipated novel by debut author Dhonielle Clayton.
If you’re after a contemporary, try either A Girl Like That or American Panda! And if you’re after a little fantasy or science fiction, pick up The Traitor’s Game or Ink, Iron and Glass!
Read on to discover our YA picks and tell us in the comments below if you will be reading any!
Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce | Goodreads
Arram Draper is a boy on the path to becoming one of the realm’s most powerful mages. The youngest student in his class at the Imperial University of Carthak, he has a Gift with unlimited potential for greatness–and for attracting danger. At his side are his two best friends: Varice, a clever girl with an often-overlooked talent, and Ozorne, the “leftover prince” with secret ambitions. Together, these three friends forge a bond that will one day shape kingdoms. And as Ozorne gets closer to the throne and Varice gets closer to Arram’s heart, Arram begins to realise that one day soon he will have to decide where his loyalties truly lie.
A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena | Goodreads
Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things, including a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school. So how is it that eighteen-year-old Porus Dumasia has only ever had eyes for her? And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of a highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? When the religious police arrive on the scene, everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is questioned. And as her story is pieced together, told through multiple perspectives, it becomes clear that she was far more than just a girl like that.
Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston | Goodreads
Seventeen-year-old Ana was found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09 and saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. She embarks on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship, but a spoiled Ironblood boy beats her and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them. The pair end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive.
Assassin of Truth by Brenda Drake | Goodreads
The gateways linking the great libraries of the world don’t require a library card, but they do harbor incredible dangers. And it’s not your normal bump-in-the-night kind. The threats Gia Kearns faces are the kind with sharp teeth and knifelike claws. The kind that include an evil wizard hell-bent on taking her down. Gia can end his devious plan, but only if she recovers seven keys hidden throughout the world’s most beautiful libraries. And then figures out exactly what to do with them.
Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine | Goodreads
Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that’s made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead moving with her family to Mars. Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she’s headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan—a race of sentient alien ships—to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson | Goodreads
Sixteen-year-old Elena Mendoza is the product of a virgin birth. This can be scientifically explained (it’s called parthenogenesis), but what can’t be explained is how Elena is able to heal Freddie, the girl she’s had a crush on for years, from a gunshot wound in a Starbucks parking lot. Or why the boy who shot Freddie, David Combs, disappeared from the same parking lot minutes later after getting sucked up into the clouds.
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton | Goodreads
Camellia Beauregard is a Belle and they control Beauty, a commodity coveted above all else. Camellia wants to be the favourite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to tend to the royal family. But once she arrives, it becomes clear that being the favourite is not everything she always dreamed it would be.
Ink, Iron, and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare | Goodreads
A certain pen, a certain book, and a certain person can craft entirely new worlds through a branch of science called scriptology. Elsa comes from one such world that was written into creation by her mother. But when her home is attacked and her mother abducted, Elsa must cross into the real world and use her own scriptology gifts to find her. In an alternative 19th-century Italy, Elsa finds a secret society of pazzerellones—young people with a gift for mechanics, alchemy or scriptology—and meets Leo, a gorgeous mechanist with a smart mouth and a tragic past. She recruits the help of these fellow geniuses just as an assassin arrives on their doorstep.
The Traitor’s Game by Jennifer A. Nielsen | Goodreads
Kestra Dallisor has spent three years in exile in the Lava Fields, but that won’t stop her from being drawn back into her father’s palace politics. He’s the right hand man of the cruel king, Lord Endrick, which makes Kestra a valuable bargaining chip. A group of rebels knows this and they kidnap her. The kidnappers want her to retrieve the lost Olden Blade, the only object that can destroy the immortal king, but Kestra is not the obedient captive they expected.
American Panda by Gloria Chao | Goodreads
At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies. With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth–that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.
The Prince and The Dressmaker by Jen Wang | Goodreads
Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion! Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances―one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend?
The Last To Let Go by Amber Smith | Goodreads
Junior year for Brooke Winters is supposed to be about change. But all of her dreams are shattered one hot summer afternoon when her mother is arrested for killing Brooke’s abusive father. No one really knows what happened that day, if it was premeditated or self-defense, whether it was right or wrong. And now Brooke and her siblings are on their own. In a year of firsts—the first year without parents, first love, first heartbreak, and her first taste of freedom—Brooke must confront the shadow of her family’s violence and dysfunction, as she struggles to embrace her identity, finds her true place in the world, and learns how to let go.
