Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.
We’re about halfway into Latine Heritage Month, and while the mess continues, so does the celebration — and not just because one Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio is bringing sazón to the Super Bowl. I’m so sorry if I startled any of y’all with my screams when the news broke—I heard those seagulls and I blacked out.
But we’re not here to talk (too much) about el conejo malo. We’re here to keep the bookish Latine Heritage Month party going. As promised earlier this month in my adult Latine debut roundup, I’m bringing you some Latine YA debuts to add to your reading lists. And since this is the last edition of Latine Lit during Latine Heritage Month, I also gathered a few links of interest for even more book recs, plus discounts, a personal curriculum, and a big, beautiful list of bookish creators to follow.
Latine Heritage Month Links
- 🎧 Check out these audiobooks by Latine authors from Libro.fm
- 📚 Browse the Latine Heritage Month collection at Bookshop.org and get 20% off your purchase using code LHM25!
- 📖 Build up your Latine library with this LHM personal curriculum, courtesy of Carmen of @TomesAndTextiles
- 📕 Peruse Latinx in Publishing’s 2025 picks for Latine Heritage Month
- 📲 For a whole bola de recomendaciones, check out the #LHMBookstaTour on Instagram. A whopping 59 creators are participating, each offering book recs and personal reflections on their scheduled tour dates. I’ve linked the hub post where you can see the list of participants and tour schedule, and follow the hashtag.
Now let’s get to these YA debuts. From a Zorro remix and romantasy on the high seas to a tarot-inspired coming-of-age story, the authors of these debut YA novels are ones you’ll want to watch.
Latine Lit
A bi-weekly newsletter about all things Latine literature, from news and new releases to recommendations and more!
7 Latine YA Debut Novels to Read in 2025
Build a Girlfriend by Elba Luz
Amelia Hernandez is single again, and it’s all thanks to the family curse: all of the Hernandez women’s relationships are doomed to fail, whether due to heartbreak, scandal, or (yikes) accidental death. Good news, though: Amelia’s sisters and tias have a plan to rid Amelia of the curse. They will put her through a bootcamp of their creation called the Ex Retrospective, a look back at every failed relationship to determine precisely where Amelia went wrong. When “the ex to end all exes” comes back into Amelia’s life, she sees it as an opportunity to put her higher learning to use for a little bit of revenge. But feelings! aren’t! logical! and revenge gives way to something sweeter. I do love a family curse romance!
Camila Núñez’s Year of Disasters by Miriam Zoila Pérez
If you like contemporary stories about family, mental health, living in diaspora, queerness, and coming of age, write this one down. Camila Nuñez is a Cuban American teen trying her very best to cope with her anxieties, but between her first queer love experience, learning to drive, her mom’s constant body shaming, her workaholic dad, and troubles at work, a worrier gon’ worry. For her 16th birthday, Camila’s bestie gifts her a tarot reading that, of course, predicts nothing but disaster. As her year of desmadre unfolds, Camila is forced to confront her fears about the future and how they might be holding her back.
Capitana by Cassandra James
In this swashbuckling duology opener, Ximena Reale has trained for years at La Academia to join an elite group of seafaring pirate hunters known as the Cazadores. But her family’s reputation makes her an outcast: her own parents were pirates who were executed for treason when Ximena and her sister were kids. When a notorious pirate kidnaps the Luzan Empire’s queen, Ximena offers to track down the pirate and bring back the queen in exchange for a spot among the Cazador ranks. One minor complication: there’s only one Cazador cloak available, and she’ll be competing with her very talented–and very nice-looking—rival for the job.
An Embroidery of Souls by Ruby Martinez
I’m as big a fan of a good spell casting as the next girl, but I love it when magic systems take more tactile forms. In this Mexican and German-inspired romantasy, thread speakers’ magic is in their needlework. Jade is a thread speaker in the queendom of Mérecal, where her mother is the master thread speaker and where their unique talent can only be used in service to the crown. When Jade’s mother goes missing, the queen demands that Jade track her down, or else be doomed to a life of servitude.
If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal
This author got a spot in the adult debut list, too: a round of applause for having an adult and YA debut in the same year! If We Were a Movie is a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance set against the backdrop of a historic Black-owned movie theater. The enemies and lovers in question are an overachiever with her sights set on Wharton and her nemesis, who not only works at the theater she just got a job at—she’s her boss. I cannot wait to get to this.
Salvación by Sandra Proudman
I’ve been looking forward to Sandra Proudman’s debut since reading Relit anthology last year, and that was before I knew we were getting a magical Zorro remix! In the town of Coloma in 19th-century Mexico, Lola de La Peña is the ideal of a proper Mexican lady, assisting her mother in caring for the sick and injured using a magical black salt that heals all wounds. Or at least she is by day; by night, she is Salvación, a masked vigilante defending her family and town from a deadly magic threat. Taking down the terrible man who wields this magic through a dangerous red salt is a dangerous pursuit, but Salvacion will stop at nothing to protect her people. If only this Alejandro dude in the bad guy’s company wasn’t so… distracting. If you like swords, smoochin’, and vigilante justice stories, get into some Salvación.
This is the Year by Gloria Muñoz
Climate fiction tends to stress me the @%*# out (I wonder why?), but this YA cli-fi story sounds like a balm for the climate anxious. Julieta Villareal is a writer and self-proclaimed Goth grieving the death of her sister and watching her Florida home be destroyed by climate change. When she’s at her lowest, a private space program called Cometa offers her a life-changing opportunity: they want her to join a group of New American teens in establishing an extraterrestrial settlement. She agrees to join the mission, hoping this will be her chance to do something meaningful with her life and give back to her adopted country. Told in prose and verse with poems from Julieta’s journal entries, this tender story touches on climate justice, grief, the immigrant experience, and the healing power of community.
What other Latine YA debut novels are you looking forward to?
English (US) · 