Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021

Posted September 14, 2021 by Kaity in Bookish Memes, New to the Queue / 3 Comments

Happy Tuesday! New to the Queue is a bookish feature on Kait Plus Books where I talk about books I’ve recently added to my never ending #tbr!

Divider

One of my favorite book bloggers, Kat, recently moved from Novels & Waffles to The Bibliosmile and shared an absolutely AMAZING spreadsheet of 2022 releases. Seriously, this spreadsheet is WONDERFUL. The only downside is that I added THIRTY-TWO books to my tbr that don’t publish until 2022! The upside is that I can now share some of those books with you and you can share in my excitement and despair at the thought that there are all of these FANTASTIC books coming out… in 2022.

Yay?

And now without any further ado, here are TWENTY-FIVE of the books I’ve recently added to my queue! (the rest don’t have covers yet, but I’ll celebrate them soon!)

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Cinder & Glass by Melissa de la Cruz
Published on April 26, 2022 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Genres: Fantasy, Retellings, Romance, YA
Pages: 336
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram, Tumblr

For this princess, winning the crown is no fairytale.
1682. The king sends out an invitation to all the maidens in France: their presence is requested at a number of balls and events that will be held in honor of the dashing Prince Louis, who must choose a bride.
- - -
Cendrillon de Louvois has more grace, beauty, and charm than anyone else in France. While she was once the darling child of the king's favorite adviser, her father's death has turned her into the servant of her stepmother and cruel stepsisters--and at her own chateau, too!
Cendrillon--now called Cinder--manages to evade her stepmother and attend the ball, where she catches the eye of the handsome Prince Louis and his younger brother Auguste.
Even though Cendrillon has an immediate aversion to Louis, and a connection with Auguste, the only way to escape her stepmother is to compete with the other women at court for the Prince's hand.
Soon, as Cendrillon glows closer to Auguste and dislikes the prince more and more, she will have to decide if she can bear losing the boy she loves in order to leave a life she hates.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester
Published on May 10, 2022 by Clarion Books
Genres: Contemporary, YA
Pages: 336
Add to Goodreads

Verónica, a Peruvian‑American teen, must deal with both her painful hip dysplasia and her overprotective immigrant parents, all while chasing her dream to become a professional mermaid in this gorgeously written, authentic novel about secrets and finding your wings (or tail).
Verónica has had many surgeries to manage her disability. The best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool, but not just to strengthen her body. Her Florida town is home to Mermaid Cove, a kitschy underwater attraction where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks . . . and Verónica wants to audition. But her conservative Peruvian parents would never go for it. And they definitely would never let her be with Alex, her cute new neighbor. She decides it’s time to seize control of her life, but her plans come crashing down when she learns her parents have been hiding the truth from her—the truth about her own body.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021A Show for Two by Tashie Bhuiyan
Published on May 10, 2022 by Inkyard Press
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, YA
Pages: 432
Add to Goodreads

Mina Rahman has a plan for her future:
Finally win the Golden Ivy student film competition
Get into her dream school across the country
Leave New York City behind once and for all
Mina’s ticket to winning the competition falls into her lap when indie film star—and known heartbreaker—Emmitt Ramos enrolls in her high school under a secret identity to research his next role. When Mina sets out to persuade Emmitt to join her cause, he offers her a deal instead: he'll be in her short film…if she acts as a tour guide to help him with a photography contest.
As Mina ventures across the five boroughs with Emmitt by her side, the city she grew up in starts to look different and more like home than it ever has before. With the competition deadline looming, Mina's dreams—which once seemed impenetrable—begin to crumble, and she’s forced to ask herself: Is winning worth losing everything?

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Epically Earnest by Molly Horan
Published on June 21, 2022 by Clarion Books
Genres: Contemporary, Retellings, YA
Pages: 208
Add to Goodreads

In this delightfully romantic LGBTQ+ comedy-of-errors inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, a high school senior works up the courage to ask her long-time crush to prom all while deciding if she should look for her bio family.

Jane Grady’s claim to fame is that she was one first viral internet sensations, dubbed #bagbaby—discovered as a one-year-old in an oversized Gucci bag by her adopted father in a Poughkeepsie train station. Now in her senior year of high school, Jane is questioning whether she wants to look for her bio family due to a loving, but deeply misguided push from her best friend Algie, while also navigating an all-consuming crush on his cousin, the beautiful, way-out-of-her-league Gwen Fairfax.

And while Janey's never thought of herself as the earnest type, she needs to be honest with her parents, Algie, Gwen, but mostly herself if she wants to make her life truly epic. With a wink toward Oscar Wilde's beloved play, Epically Earnest explores the complexity of identity, the many forms family can take, and the importance of being . . . yourself.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Long Story Short by Serena Kaylor
Published on July 26, 2022 by Wednesday Books
Genres: Contemporary, YA
Pages: 320
Add to Goodreads

Beatrice Quinn has spent sixteen very serious years studying to get into Oxford University. Homeschooled and a whiz at statistics, Beatrice knows that she belongs at Oxford, where she will finally find people who understand her. She thought the hardest part would be getting in, not convincing her parents to let her go. They’ve put a halt to her plans until she can prove she’s able to make friends with people her own age and function in social situations. Their solution: Shakespearean theater camp and a detailed list of teenage milestones to check off. She has six weeks to show her parents she can pull off the role of “normal” teenager and won’t spend the rest of her life hiding in a library.
Unfortunately, hearts and hormones don’t follow any rules, and there is no textbook for teenage interactions. When she’s adopted by a group of eclectic theater kids, and immediately makes an enemy of the gorgeous popular son of the camp founders, she realizes that relationships are trickier than calculus. As the summer draws to an end, and with Oxford on the line, this girl genius stumbles through illicit parties, double dog dares, and more than your fair share of Shakespeare. But before the final curtain falls, will Beatrice still feel like Oxford alone is enough?

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Kiss & Tell by Adib Khorram
Published on March 22, 2022 by Dial Books for Young Readers
Genres: Contemporary, Queer, Romance, YA
Add to Goodreads

Hunter never expected to be a boy band star, but, well, here he is. He and his band Kiss & Tell are on their first major tour of North America, playing arenas all over the United States and Canada (and getting covered by the gossipy press all over North America as well). Hunter is the only gay member of the band, and he just had a very painful breakup with his first boyfriend–leaked sexts, public heartbreak, and all–and now everyone expects him to play the perfect queer role model for teens.
But Hunter isn’t really sure what being the perfect queer kid even means. Does it mean dressing up in whatever The Label tells him to wear for photo shoots and pretending never to have sex? (Unfortunately, yes.) Does it mean finding community among the queer kids at the meet-and-greets after K&T’s shows? (Fortunately, yes.) Does it include a new relationship with Kaivan, the star of the band opening for K&T on tour? (He hopes so.) But when The Label finds out about Hunter and Kaivan, it spells trouble—for their relationship, for the perfect gay boy Hunter plays for the cameras, and, most importantly, for Hunter himself.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Dig Two Graves by Gretchen McNeil
Published on March 29, 2022 by Disney Hyperion
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller, YA
Pages: 352
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram

I did my part, BFF. Now it’s your turn.
Seventeen-year-old film noir fan Neve Lanier is a girl who just wants to be seen, but doesn’t really fit in anywhere. When Neve is betrayed by her best friend, Yasmin, at the end of the school year, she heads off to a girl’s empowerment camp feeling like no one will ever love her again. So when she grabs the attention of the beautiful, charismatic Diane, she falls right under her spell, and may accidentally promise to murder Diane’s predatory step-brother, Javier, in exchange for Diane murdering Yasmin. But that was just a joke…right?
Wrong. When Yasmin turns up dead, Diane comes calling, attempting to blackmail Neve into murdering Javier. Stalling for time, Neve pretends to go along with Diane’s plan until she can find a way out that doesn't involve homicide. But as she gets to know Javier – and falls for him – she realizes that everything Diane told her is a lie. Even worse, she discovers that Yasmin probably wasn't Diane's first victim. And unless Neve can stop her, she won't be the last.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Does My Body Offend You? by Mayra Cuevas, Marie Marquardt
Published on April 5, 2022 by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Genres: Contemporary, YA
Pages: 432
Add to Goodreads

Malena Rosario is starting to believe that catastrophes come in threes. First, Hurricane Maria destroyed her home, taking her unbreakable spirit with it. Second, she and her mother are now stuck in Florida, which is nothing like her beloved Puerto Rico. And third, when she goes to school bra-less after a bad sunburn and is humiliated by the school administration into covering up, she feels like she has no choice but to comply.
Ruby McAllister has a reputation as her school's outspoken feminist rebel. But back in Seattle, she lived under her sister's shadow. Now her sister is teaching in underprivileged communities, and she's in a Florida high school, unsure of what to do with her future, or if she's even capable making a difference in the world. So when Ruby notices the new girl is being forced to cover up her chest, she is not willing to keep quiet about it.
Neither Malena nor Ruby expected to be the leaders of the school's dress code rebellion. But the girls will have to face their own insecurities, biases, and privileges, and the ups and downs in their newfound friendship, if they want to stand up for their ideals and--ultimately--for themselves.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor
Published on April 5, 2022 by Razorbill
Genres: Fantasy, Multiverse, Thriller, YA
Pages: 400
Add to Goodreads

All her life, Jani has dreamed of Elsewhere. Just barely scraping by with her job at a tannery, she’s resigned to a dreary life in the port town of Durc, caring for her younger sister Zosa. That is, until the Hotel Magnifique comes to town.
The hotel is legendary not only for its whimsical enchantments, but also for its ability to travel—appearing in a different destination every morning. While Jani and Zosa can’t afford the exorbitant costs of a guest’s stay, they can interview to join the staff, and are soon whisked away on the greatest adventure of their lives. But once inside, Jani quickly discovers their contracts are unbreakable and that beneath the marvelous glamour, the hotel is hiding dangerous secrets.
With the vexingly handsome doorman Bel as her only ally, Jani embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of the magic at the heart of the hotel and free Zosa—and the other staff—from the cruelty of the ruthless maître d’hôtel. To succeed, she’ll have to risk everything she loves, but failure would mean a fate far worse than never returning home.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021This Golden State by Marit Weisenberg
Published on March 1, 2022 by Flatiron Books
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller, YA
Pages: 400
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram

The Winslow family lives by five principles:
1. No one can know your real name.
2. Don’t stay in one place too long.
3. If you sense anything is wrong, go immediately to the meeting spot.
4. Keeping our family together is everything.
5. We wish we could tell you who we are, but we can’t. Please—do not ask.
Poppy doesn’t know why her family has been running her whole life, but she does know that there are dire consequences if they’re ever caught. Still, her curiosity grows each year, as does her desire for real friends and the chance to build on something, instead of leaving behind school projects, teams, and crushes at a moment’s notice.
When a move to California exposes a crack in her parents’ airtight planning, Poppy realizes how fragile her world is. Determined to find out the truth, she mails in a home DNA test. Just as she starts to settle into her new life and even begins opening up to a boy in her math class, the forgotten test results bring her crashing back to reality.
Unraveling the shocking truth of her parents’ real identities, Poppy realizes that the DNA test has undone decades of careful work to keep her family anonymous—and the past is dangerously close to catching up to them. Determined to protect her family but desperate for more, Poppy must ask: How much of herself does she owe her family? And is it a betrayal to find her own place in the world?

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021The Rumor Game by Dhonielle Clayton, Sona Charaipotra
Published on March 1, 2022 by Disney
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller, YA
Pages: 480
Add to Goodreads

All it takes is one spark to start a blaze.
At Foxham Prep, a posh private school for the children of DC’s elite, a single rumor has the power to ruin a life.
Nobody knows that better than Bryn. She used to have it all—the perfect boyfriend, a bright future in politics, and even popularity, thanks to her best friend, cheer captain Cora. Then one mistake sparked a scandal that burned it all to the ground.
Now it’s the start of a new school year and the spotlight has shifted: It’s geeky Georgie, newly hot after a summer makeover, whose name is on everyone’s lips. When a rumor ignites, Georgie rockets up the school’s social hierarchy, pitting her and Cora against each other. It grants her Foxham stardom . . . but it also makes her a target.
As the rumors grow and morph, blazing like wildfire through the school’s social media, all three girls’ lives begin to unravel. But one person close to the drama has the power to stop the gossip in its tracks. The question is—do they even want to?

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021League of Liars by Astrid Scholte
Published on February 22, 2022 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Genres: Fantasy, Thriller, YA
Pages: 464
Add to Goodreads

Ever since his mother was killed, seventeen-year-old Cayder Broduck has had one goal--to see illegal users of magic brought to justice. People who carelessly use extradimensional magic for their own self-interest, without a care to the damage it does to society or those around them, deserve the worst kind of punishment as far as Cayder is concerned. Because magic always has a price. So when Cayder lands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apprentice under a premier public defender, he takes it. If he can learn all the tricks of public defense, the better he'll be able to dismantle defense arguments when he's a prosecutor. Then he'll finally be able to punish the guilty without mercy.
But when he meets the three criminals he's supposed to defend, it no longer seems so black and white. They're teenagers, like him, and their stories are . . . complicated, like his. Vardean, the prison where Cayder's new clients are incarcerated, also happens to be at the very heart of the horrible tear in the veil between their world and another dimension--where all magic comes from.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021All the Right Reasons by Bethany Mangle
Published on February 15, 2022 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, YA
Pages: 304
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram

Cara Hawn’s life fell apart after her father cheated on her mother and got remarried to a woman Cara can’t stand. When Cara accidentally posts a rant about her father online, it goes viral—and catches the attention of the TV producers behind a new reality dating show for single parent families.
The next thing Cara and her mother know, they’ve been cast as leads on the show and are whisked away to sunny Key West where they’re asked to narrow a field of suitors and their kids down to one winning pair. All of this is outside of Cara’s comfort zone, from the meddling producers to the camera-hungry contestants, especially as Cara and her mother begin to clash on which suitors are worth keeping around. And then comes Connor.
As the son of a contestant, Connor is decidedly off-limits. Except that he doesn’t fit in with the cutthroat atmosphere in all the same ways as Cara, and she can’t get him out of her head. Now Cara must juggle her growing feelings while dodging the cameras and helping her mom pick a bachelor they both love, or else risk fracturing their family even more for the sake of ratings. Maybe there’s a reason most people don’t date on TV.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams
Published on February 8, 2022 by Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Thriller, YA
Pages: 320
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia.
Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie's beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to ;Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.
The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Castles in their Bones by Laura Sebastian
Series: Castles in their Bones #1
Published on February 1, 2022 by Delacorte Press
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Pages: 528
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram

The plot: overthrow a kingdom. The goal: world domination. The plan: marriage.
Trained for from birth in espionage and seduction, the triplet princesses of Bessemia must travel to three distant lands to marry three princes and enact their Queen mother's plan to rule from sea to sea. But when they arrive, each sister discovers her task is not so simple, and their mother's motives may not be what they seem.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder
Series: The Bone Spindle #1
Published on January 11, 2022 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Genres: Fantasy, Retellings, Romance, Thriller, YA
Pages: 416
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram

Fi is a bookish treasure hunter with a knack for ruins and riddles, who definitely doesn't believe in true love.
Shane is a tough-as-dirt girl warrior from the north who likes cracking skulls, pretty girls, and doing things her own way.
Briar Rose is a prince under a sleeping curse, who's been waiting a hundred years for the kiss that will wake him.
Cursed princes are nothing but ancient history to Fi--until she pricks her finger on a bone spindle while exploring a long-lost ruin. Now she's stuck with the spirit of Briar Rose until she and Shane can break the century-old curse on his kingdom.
Dark magic, Witch Hunters, and bad exes all stand in her way--not to mention a mysterious witch who might wind up stealing Shane's heart, along with whatever else she's after. But nothing scares Fi more than the possibility of falling in love with Briar Rose.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Echoes and Empires by Morgan Rhodes
Series: Echoes and Empires #1
Published on January 4, 2022 by Razorbill
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Pages: 400
Add to Goodreads

Josslyn Drake knows only three things about magic: it’s rare, illegal, and always deadly. So when she’s caught up in a robbery gone wrong at the Queen’s Gala and infected by a dangerous piece of magic—one that allows her to step into the memories of an infamously evil warlock—she finds herself living her worst nightmare. Joss needs the magic removed before it corrupts her soul and kills her. But in Ironport, the cost of doing magic is death, and seeking help might mean scheduling her own execution. There’s nobody she can trust.
Nobody, that is, except wanted criminal Jericho Nox, who offers her a deal: his help extracting the magic in exchange for the magic itself. And though she’s not thrilled to be working with a thief, especially one as infuriating (and infuriatingly handsome) as Jericho, Joss is desperate enough to accept.
But Jericho is nothing like Joss expects. The closer she grows with Jericho and the more she sees of the world outside her pampered life in the city, the more Joss begins to question the beliefs she’s always taken for granted—beliefs about right and wrong, about power and magic, and even about herself.
In an empire built on lies, the truth may be her greatest weapon.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Remember Me Gone by Stacy Stokes
Published on March 22, 2022 by Viking Books for Young Readers
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller, YA
Pages: 368
Add to Goodreads

People come from everywhere to forget. At the Memory House, in Tumble Tree, Texas, Lucy's father can literally erase folks' heartache and tragic memories. Lucy can't wait to learn the family trade and help alleviate others' pain, and now, at sixteen, she finally can. But everything is not as it seems.
When Lucy practices memory-taking on her dad, his memory won't come loose, and in the bit that Lucy sees, there's a flash of Mama on the day she died, tinged red with guilt. Then Lucy wakes up the next morning with a bruised knee, a pocketful of desert sand, and no memory of what happened. She has no choice but to listen to Marco Warman--a local boy she's always wondered about, who seems to know more than he should.
As Lucy and Marco realize there are gaps in their own memories, they team up to fill in the missing pieces--to figure out what's really going on in their town, and to uncover their own stolen history along the way. But as the mysteries pile up one thing becomes certain: There are some secrets people will do anything to keep.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021What We Harvest by Ann Fraistat
Published on March 22, 2022 by Delacorte
Genres: Contemporary, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller, YA
Pages: 336
Add to Goodreads

Wren owes everything she has to her home, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old, picture perfect American town. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family farm. Until five months ago.
That’s when the quicksilver mercury blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops--thick, silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals. Infected livestock and wild creatures alike staggered off into the woods by day—only to return at night, their eyes, fogged white, leering from the trees.
Then, the blight came for the neighbors.
Wren is among the last locals standing. And the blight has finally come for her, too. Now, the only one she can turn to is the last person she wants to call: her ex, Derek. They haven’t spoken in months, but Wren and Derek still have one thing in common—Hollow’s End means everything to them. Only there’s much they don’t know about their hometown and its renowned miracle crops. And they’re about to discover that miracles aren’t free.
Their ancestors have an awful lot to pay for, and Wren and Derek are the only ones left to settle old debts.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Message Not Found by Dante Medema
Published on March 29, 2022 by Quill Tree Books
Genres: Contemporary, YA
Pages: 300
Add to Goodreads

Bailey and Vanessa shared everything: laughter, secrets, and packets of Pop Rocks to ward off bad days. But that all changed the night Vanessa left Bailey’s, headed for home, and ended up swerving off a cliff nowhere near her house. Now Bailey, who thought she knew Vanessa better than anyone in the world, is left with a million unanswered questions, and the only person with answers is gone.
To help grieve her loss, Bailey creates a chat bot of Vanessa using years’ worth of their shared text messages and emails. The more data she uploads to the bot, the more it feels like she’s really talking to her best friend. That is, until the bot starts dropping hints that there was more going on with Vanessa than Bailey realized—a secret so big, it may have contributed to Vanessa’s death.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Waking Romeo by Kathryn Barker
Published on January 4, 2022 by Flatiron Books
Genres: Dystopian, Futuristic, Retellings, Romance, Science Fiction, Time Travel, YA
Pages: 384
Add to Goodreads

Year: 2083. Location: London. Mission: Wake Romeo.
It’s the end of the world. Literally. Time travel is possible, but only forward. And only a handful of families choose to remain in the “now,” living off of the scraps left behind.
Among them are eighteen-year-old Juliet and the love of her life, Romeo. But things are far from rosy for Jules. Romeo lies in a coma and Jules is estranged from her friends and family, dealing with the very real fallout of their wild romance.
Then a mysterious time traveler, Ellis, impossibly arrives from the future with a mission that makes Juliet question everything she knows about life and love.
Can Jules wake Romeo—and rewrite her future?

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Love Somebody by Rachel Roasek
Published on January 11, 2022 by Farrar Straus and Giroux
Genres: Contemporary, Queer, Romance, YA
Pages: 368
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, TikTok

Sam Dickson is a charismatic actress, ambitious and popular with big plans for her future. Ros Shew is one of the smartest people in school--but she's a loner, and prefers to keep it that way. Then there's Christian Powell, the darling of the high school soccer team. He's not the best with communication, which is why he and Sam broke up after dating for six months; but he makes up for it by being genuine, effusive, and kind, which is why they're still best friends.
When Christian falls for Ros on first sight, their first interaction is a disaster, so he enlists Sam's help to get through to her. Sam, with motives of her own, agrees to coach Christian from the sidelines on how to soften Ros's notorious walls. But as Ros starts to suspect Christian is acting differently, and Sam starts to realize the complexity of her own feelings, their fragile relationships threaten to fall apart.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021The Storyteller by Kathryn Williams
Published on January 11, 2022 by HarperTeen
Genres: Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Retellings, YA
Pages: 368
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram

It’s not every day you discover you might be related to Anastasia…or that the tragic princess actually survived her assassination attempt and has been living as the woman you know as Aunt Anna.
For Jess Morgan, who is growing tired of living her life to please everyone else, discovering her late aunt’s diaries shows her she’s not the only one struggling to hide who she really is. But was her aunt truly a Romanov princess? Or is this some elaborate hoax?
With the help of a supremely dorky, but undeniably cute, local college student named Evan, Jess digs into the century-old mystery.
But soon Jess realizes there’s another, bigger truth waiting to be revealed: Jess Morgan. Because if she’s learned anything from Aunt Anna, it’s that only you can write your own story.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Hopepunk by Preston Norton
Published on January 11, 2022 by Jimmy Patterson Books
Genres: Contemporary, Queer, YA
Pages: 432
Add to Goodreads

Growing up in a conservative Christian household isn’t easy for rock-obsessed Hope Cassidy. She's spent her whole life being told that the devil speaks through Led Zeppelin, but it’s even worse for her sister, Faith, who feels like she can’t be honest about dating the record shop cashier, Mavis. That is, until their youngest sister hears word of their "sinful" utopia and outs Faith to their parents. Now there’s nowhere for Faith to go but the Change Through Grace conversion center…or running away.
Following Faith’s disappearance, their family is suddenly broken. Hope feels a need to rebel. She gets a tattoo and tries singing through the hurt with her Janis Joplin-style voice. But when her long-time crush Danny comes out and is subsequently kicked out of his house, Hope can’t stand by and let history repeat itself. Now living in Faith’s room, Danny and Hope strike up a friendship...and a band. And their music just might be the answer to dethroning Alt-Rite, Danny’s twin brother's new hate-fueled band.

Divider

New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021Why Would I Lie? by Adi Rule
Published on February 1, 2022 by Scholastic Press
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller, YA
Pages: 336
Add to Goodreads

Bitter. Angry. Paranoid.
It doesn’t matter how you label Viveca North. Her focus is on academic excellence, not popularity. She’s always tried her best to be perfect, and now that she’s a senior, it’s time for all her hard work to pay off. The early-morning runs. The constant studying. The peer tutoring. It will all be worth it when she’s named valedictorian and finally granted admission to her dream school, the elite Everett College. Too bad Jamison Sharpe is trying to steal it from her….
Or is he? Jamison doesn’t need to try to be perfect. Everything seems to come so easily to him. He’s charming, funny, and has the ability to make anyone feel special. He has his pick of glowing college recommendations and his grades are flawless. Obviously Viveca is just jealous, right?
Viveca knows something is off about Jamison. But as she investigates his past, she seems to find a web of lies and deceit that she struggles even to fathom. The further she goes in her quest for the truth, the more impossible her own dreams become.
Will Viveca be able to take down her school’s golden boy and reveal him as a fraud? Or will she—and what she believes—be silenced by labels?

Divider

Did you add any of these books to your tbr? Let me know in the comments below and have a splendiferous week!

Tags: , , ,

3 responses to “New to the Queue! | September 14, 2021

Leave a Reply to Elyse Cancel reply

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.