PW2021 YA #37: SUMMER AT CECE’S (#OwnVoices Sapphic Rom-Com)

When 16-year-old Marie's dad sends her to live with her Guy Fieri-obsessed aunt for the summer, her recipe for keeping to herself goes up in flames — just like everything she's baked since her twin brother's death. The last thing she expects is to fall for Riv.

Riv's trust issues could fuel an album's worth of songs. As her grandpa's health declines and the medical bills grow, her focus should be on beating her ex-BFF in the county fair talent show for the prize money. But Marie is a welcome distraction.

As Marie and Riv bond over music and baked goods, they'll both have to decide if love is worth the risk.

GILMORE GIRLS meets SECOND CHANCE SUMMER, but gay.

PW2021 YA #38: PANIC ATTACKS FOR GOD (LGBTQ Historical)

It’s 2005 in Portland and seventeen-year-old Sarah Flanders, a loyal Christian servant of Jehovah God, finds herself questioning faith, sexuality, and gender in the wake of her blossoming closeness with a genderweird actor. As her religious family and friends question Sarah’s association with such a “worldly” individual, Sarah realizes she must choose between the only community she’s ever known and the only love that’s ever felt real. HERETICS ANONYMOUS meets ORPHEUS GIRL.

PW2021 YA #39: HASHTAG WITNESS (Contemporary/Based on a True Story)

As a small-town preacher’s kid, Mindy suffocates under the weight of intrusive church members' constant judgments—which only escalates after she’s subpoenaed as a defense witness for a neighbor accused of killing teenage girls. 

Sucked into the vortex of his high-profile trial, Mindy is targeted by viral hashtags, bullies, and swarming media. She retreats into the safety of her dreamy new boyfriend, fantasizing about a full-life reboot with him after graduation. But with her eyes pinned on the killer she knows, Mindy isn’t ready for the beautiful betrayer lurking at her back.

BURN BABY BURN x THE SERPENT KING

PW2021 YA #40: LAMPLIGHT AND LIARS (Fantasy: LGBTQ+)

VICIOUS meets DANGEROUS REMEDY

Ilari can see the ‘invisible’ monsters that emerge from fresh corpses—though admitting it would earn him a trip to the gallows. To escape the law (and the deadly creatures), he’s hunting for a cure. But when an unexplainable disappearance devastates his close-knit crew, Ilari’s boyfriend is accused of murder. Wading through lies, Ilari must make his choice—help his crew kill the boy he loves or fight beside him, feeding their world to the monsters.

PW2021 YA #41: THE WIRE EATERS (Queer Horror)

RULES FOR VANISHING x SAWKILL GIRLS

18-year-old Willow has a knack for wire, just like the father that abandoned her. After returning to Scotland to find him, Willow begins to unearth sculptures– wire figures she doesn't remember making. Suspecting they relate to local legend, Willow fears her father has become trapped within an extinct forest. As her sculptures assume monstrous lives of their own, the forest threatens the search for her father, her budding romance, and Willow’s reality itself.

PW2021 YA #42: NO BIGGER STAGE (Contemporary)

Myles Bennett hopes his punk band will be his ticket out of an abusive home, but a viral video of him and Mal, the band's lead singer, puts a spotlight on his deepest insecurities and breeds jealousy among the band. When the buzz lands them a spot at a major music festival, it should make all of Myles's dreams come true, but the stage may prove too big for him to save everything—and everyone—he loves.

PW2021 YA #43: MY TOUR OF GREAT AMERICAN TRAGEDIES (Contemporary, Bi MC, Neurodivergence)

Elle will survive this summer teen tour the same way that she's survived most of high school. She’ll ignore everyone, build a photography portfolio for college, and hide her generalized anxiety disorder, including her obsession with Worst Possible Outcomes: icebreakers, bed bugs, myopic bus driver, lost meds, Mary Todd Lincoln’s ghost, anxiety attack on the National Mall.

What she doesn’t predict is making friends, or falling for the cute girl across the bus aisle. When her new friendships and artistic goals collide, Elle must choose between staying behind the camera or leaning into the vulnerability that comes with true friendship.

PW2021 YA #44: AISHA AND THE STICKY NOTE MANIFESTO (Contemporary)

Aisha didn’t know why her childhood crush, Brian, asked her to homecoming—they haven’t spoken in years. Still, she puts on the dress, abandoning her plans to focus on her Stanford application for one night, and sets out for the dance. But when Brian stands her up, Aisha decides she’s done playing it safe—jumping into the first car she sees. After Aisha confides in the car’s driver, Quentin, they strike a deal. If Aisha helps Quentin pass math, he’ll help Aisha complete her wishlist of things that’ll make senior year soar—and maybe even get to the bottom of why she was stand-upable. Between adventures with Quentin, pursuing Brian, and applying to Stanford, Aisha feels unstoppable. That is, until she realizes that her wishlist might be full of all the wrong things…

PW2021 YA #45: ASHES TO ASHES (Young Adult Fantasy – LGBTQA+ Characters)

As a trans man Neri's been struggling to win his mother's approval, and failing the necromancer academy test and doing pet resurrections for scraps don’t help. So when the ghost of a murdered girl asks him to find her body, he jumps at the opportunity. But as Neri teams up with the ghost, and an alchemist detective, one tiny problem arises: the guy they’re up against might just be the greatest—and prettiest?—necromancer of all time, tempting Neri to join him; to have everything, or lose it all.

PW2021 YA #46: ALL WE HUNGER FOR (Romantic Fantasy)

CARAVAL x THE BELLES x BAKE OFF

Considering Elara’s truth-telling tarts and dream-inducing cakes make her the best baker in Anespérer, you’d think she’d have better taste in men. After her last relationship ruined her career, she eagerly accepts an offer from a mysterious—and handsome—patron to enter a competition to become the city’s new head chef. Winning should be a piece of cake. Until Elara learns the last winner—a girl from the slums like herself—was murdered. And she was also enticed by a mysterious—and handsome—patron.

PW2021 YA #47: I FEED HER TO THE BEAST AND THE BEAST IS ME (Contemporary Fantasy with Horror Elements – #BlackVoicesMatter)

HOUSE OF HOLLOW + TINY PRETTY THINGS

For years, perfectionist Laure has danced on broken, bloody toes in service to one god: the ballet. But when her chance to take her rightful place among the company’s elite is suddenly uncertain, she calls upon the darkness–bathing in the blood of an eldritch god and seizing a power too wild for Palais Garnier’s gilded stage. 

The ballet has long made monsters out of girls, and this one–the hungriest of them all–may be its undoing.