New YA Book Releases This Week, January 8, 2025

Amber Crane died seven years ago, but she’s come back home to see everything that used to be her life—an annoying little sister, happily married parents, a loving boyfriend, an unshakable best friend—has completely changed. When she arrives, her little sister is so much older and wiser; her mom and her dad have seen their entire relationship change; and both her former boyfriend and former best friend are not the people she thought that they were.

Forman’s latest book is a tautly written story of grief, as well as a thoughtful treatise on what constitutes death and the afterlife. This is one for readers who love strong contemporary reads that are emotionally driven.

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Releasing in both hardcover and paperback simultaneously, Parker’s latest novel is a bounty-hunter thriller. Tru lives in a world where Talents are varied, but there’s one talent that no one trusts—the bastion, whose skin and muscles and bones are indestructible, and, thereby, they themselves are too powerful. Tru is a bastion, and she’s had to keep her identity and truth undercover for life. But even in hiding, Tru was unable to keep her parents alive.

So when a normal babysitting job she takes via an app is interrupted by assassins, Tru flees with a one-year-old strapped to her back to get to the bottom of who she is, what the truth of being a bastion looks like, what happened to her parents, and whether or not it is okay to have a mad crush on her best friend’s sister.

The first in a new series, this story of a warrior working to save his kingdom and his family will keep you flipping those pages.

Jun is determined to show off his skills as a warrior in the Guardian’s Tournament. The Tournament is held every six years and ensures that one of the most precious goods in the kingdom, the magical Scroll of Heaven, will always be protected.

But more than that, for Jun, this showcase is an opportunity to regain his father’s pride. As it stands, he and his father are currently banished from their home, Jun’s mom, and Jun’s twin brother. Unfortunately for Jun, his father doesn’t think it’s smart or right for him to participate, especially because Jun does not have the dragon scales or special skills of the breathmarked. His twin does, but he does not.

Undeterred, Jun stows away to the competition to prove his mettle. As the Tournament unfolds, though, Jun realizes there is so much more at stake than his own skill and the future of his family.

This one is described as being perfect for teen fans of Fourth Wing and Babel (i.e., it’s an alternate history with dragons with commentary on class and language).

Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried about the dragons above her not the protests in the street. She knows that in order to keep her future internship studying dragon languages and keep her sister protected from falling into the Third Class, all she has to do is free a single dragon. Unfortunately, trying to do so means that Vivien has started an entire civil war.

Her parents and cousin are immediately arrested while her sister goes missing, and Vivien is now taken to Bletchley Park, where she must work as a codebreaker. If she’s good at it, everyone she cares about will be freed. If she fails, well, so will everyone and everything she cares about.

Viv begins to unravel a secret dragon language, but in the process, she finds out how close to falling apart both the human and dragon worlds truly are.

When the Storm hit, Liz holed up in the now-abandoned bookstore where she’d worked. In it, she trades books for supplies, hoping to survive.

But as a second Storm brews, Maeve barges into the bookstore hoping for safety. Immediately, she and Liz are at odds until they realize that each holds a special skill that can help them survive.

The girls grow closer as they weather the Storm, but will the secrets, worries, fears—and quickly devolving world around them—keep them from truly seeing and loving one another? Can they survive not only the Storm but each other?

A sapphic dystopian climate change novel? Count. Me. In.

If you’re looking for a feminist retelling of Medusa steeped in Indian mythology, welcome to A Drop of Venom.

Manisha has been running from monsters her whole life. She is part of the naga, a regularly-targeted group by the kingdom. She might be a priestess of the floating temples now, but that doesn’t keep the monsters at bay.

Pratyush, on the other hand, is a monster slayer. He’s the King’s prized possession. Every time Pratyush slays a monster, he gets another year added to his life. It should be a sweet gig, but Pratyush is so sick of being directed by the King.

When Manisha and Pratyush meet, the two see that it is possible to help one another chart a whole new course. Unfortunately, that won’t be easy—nor will it happen in any immediate future. Manish is sexually assaulted by a visitor and falls into a pit of vipers, while Pratyush is sent on yet another dangerous mission from the King. It’s one that, if Pratyush is successful, will grant him his freedom but it’s also as likely to kill him in the process.

Manisha isn’t dead though. She rises from the pit stronger than ever. As it turns out, she is the monster whom Pratyush has been sent to take down.

Jude is a cupid. They think they’re good at it, too, even if they’ve made some mistakes. Even if they’re on probation for doing a not-great thing. But Jude is ready to prove themself once again.

Their assignment isn’t to set up two adults, though. It’s to set up two high schoolers—people Jude’s own age—who are meant to be more than the best friends they were before they had a big fight.

Jude feels confident in the assignment…until they’re thrown for a curve.

Out in paperback, this first book in a series follows Faron Vincent, who has incredible god-like powers. She used those powers to free her island from powerful enemies five years ago, but now, the power is coursing through her and she needs to do something with it.

That something is unexpectedly needing to release her sister from a bond with an enemy dragon, at a peace summit, no less. As the gods tell Faron, she’ll need to kill her sister to end the bond, but Faron knows there has to be another way.