New YA Book Releases for June 25, 2025

Looking for a ghost story about an abandoned abbey and a boy escaping a dragon? You’ll love this new fantasy from Hartman that’s set in the same world as her beloved Seraphina–but not need to be familiar with that title to enjoy this one.

St. Muckle’s is an out of the way town that is too muddy and wet for dragons to burn. The other thing about St. Muckle’s is that anyone who lives within the town’s walls for a year and a day can completely earn their freedom. That’s why Charl and his mother went there. They were ready to escape their pasts and begin a new.

But then Charl sees a ghost, which unleashes his past and sets before him a series of bad luck, including an accident, a murder, a plague, and a dragon.

Charl escapes to an abandoned abbey just outside the town’s walls. Though it should feel safe, it’s anything but. Charl’s past and St. Muckle’s past collide and now, Charl has to figure out how to fight those demons and ghosts with his own strength and fortitude to save himself and the place he calls home.

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The Serpent King is the ruler of the last free kingdom, and though he comes with monstrous characteristics, he’s the most eligible bachelor around. His future bride will be promised richness and fame, but at the expense of, well, about anything else.

Saphira, 18, was made an orphan by the Empire and she’s tried to slide beneath the radar ever since. Being married to The Serpent King is her absolute nightmare. Saphira has a secret, too: she’s able to harness the magic in gemstones. Until now, she’s kept that a secret and let another jewelsmith take credit.

When the king sends a huntsman to find the best jewelsmith in the empire, her secret may no longer be so secret. She’s now forced to make an impossible decision between letting the Empire capture her or marrying The Serpent King. She’s not so slowly finding herself stuck between The Serpent King’s grasp and the feelings she’s developed for the handsome huntsman.

John Paul Reyes is tired of being pitied since the death of his father. He’s tired, too, of everyone putting expectations on him now that he’s graduated high school. Heading to Majestic Mountain with his wealthy uncle’s family, he decides he’s going to take on a new identity. He’s now JP Abrigo and he comes from wealth.

Mia Malik feels trapped in the town where she lives and works. She’s tired of catering to wealthy, snooty guests as Majestic Mountain. All she wants is to get away from her family and attend a prestigious art school. Too bad it’s unaffordable and feels impossible.

So a staffer proposes to Mia a dare. If she can get a guest to fall in love with her this summer, she’ll get the money to go to school. This kind of dare is completely against the rules at the resort, and Mia’s not sure she wants any of these rich kids to pay attention to her that way at all.

Then she meets JP Abrigo. It’s easy to lie to him, at least at first. Then it gets more challenging, especially as it becomes clear there are real feelings developing between the two that come up, despite the lies both are telling.

Veronique’s parents died when she was young, so her whole life has been spent with her MawMaw on a rural Louisiana farm. Veronique has a secret, and it’s one that her grandmother has warned her to be cautious of. Veronique can control the wind.

So when MawMaw becomes sick and Veronique is sent to live with family in New Orleans, she sees a life she never knew was possible to have. There’s school. There’s friends. There’s a crush or two. It’s exciting . . . until that little secret becomes too difficult to control and everything Veronique’s grandmother warned her about might uproot her life in ways she could never have prepared for.

This is one for thriller readers who like the books American Street and Barely Missing Everything, too. It follows Deja, whose parents moved abroad and ship her clothes and food back to Jamaica (a “barrel girl”). Gabriel is in a gang and wants out. When Gabriel and Deja meet at a party, Gabriel begins to wonder if he could be part of her life and escape what he doesn’t like about his own.

While out fishing, Deja runs into a stalled boat, and the injured man inside hands her a bag. He asks her to deliver it to its intended destination but not to say a word. She makes the promise—and she promises to get the man help—not realizing that the bag is stuffed with half a million dollars. That kind of money is precisely what the gang Gabriel is in wants to get their hands on, and the two of them are now stuck in a precarious position. Can they save themselves and each other?

The year is 2460 and 18-year-old Liv wants out of her lower class life in the Metro. She’s making money as a Proxy. The work involves using a neurochip in her brain to sell wealthy clients memories. She may do some of it illegally, but money is money, especially when you’re desperate. When a client offers Liv a huge sum of money to take her work into a dangerous area, she jumps at the chance, even if it is going to require legit survival.

Adrian is a Forceman and is a big believer in Law and Order. When he catches wind of a Proxy messing with the brain chemistry of citizens, he’s going to take care of the problem. But when he encounters Liv, there’s a huge problem: all of her memories are gone.

Now Adrian has a dilemma. Does he go after her for crimes she has no recollection of? And more, what if he’s starting to catch some feelings?

Isabeau and five other girls are best friends and they all share the same birthday. But as they’ve gotten older, their friendships have shifted and splintered. Iz is still close with Reuel, however, and on the night of their 16th birthday, after Iz heads home, Reuel goes missing. She returns two days later with no memory of what happened and she’s become incredibly sick. Now all six birthday-sharing former besties are getting back together to figure out what happened.

Then another one of them goes missing. There is something more than their birthdays tying them together. There’s someone or something out there taking them out one at a time. But who? Why?