Kimberly Giarratano

By day, Catherine works in a print shop. At night, her boss sends her to the cemetery to raise the dead and give families a final hour with their loved ones—but each raising takes an hour off her life. It’s an unfortunate bargain, but Catherine is at the mercy of her employer, who can toss her out on the street at any moment—and he does when Catherine and her friend Guy, a watchmaker, fail to unearth a magical timepiece buried in a boy’s coffin. Instead, they inexplicably revive the boy permanently. Though he can’t remember anything about his life, the boy is their only link to the timepiece, and finding it is the only way they can save Catherine’s livelihood.

Set in an alternate Victorian England, Magic Dark and Strange combines mystery, magic and a touch of the macabre while underscoring the harsh conditions of the working class. Catherine depends on her employer for income and lodging, and her quest for the timepiece gains urgency from her fear of destitution. Guy and his father struggle to keep their shop afloat, and the revived boy must find an apprenticeship or risk the poorhouse.

A lack of rules to govern the magical elements of this story may frustrate detail-oriented fantasy fans. Nonetheless, the novel’s moody, gothic atmosphere, appealing romance and brisk mystery plot will satisfy readers who enjoy storytelling that blends genre conventions with ease.

Tanaz Bhathena’s Hunted by the Sky, set in a medieval India-inspired fantasy world, begins with a murder. Gul watches, helpless, as her parents are slaughtered by the king’s warrior, Major Shayla, who has been assigned to hunt down girls born with star-shaped birthmarks—like Gul’s. It’s been prophesied that one of these girls will grow up to kill the king.

Gul is rescued by an underground sisterhood that trains her to wield magic, and she swears she will take revenge against Shayla and the king. Then Gul meets Cavas, an ordinary boy who works in the palace stables and helps Gul pose as a member of the queen’s staff. Gul’s vengeance might bring down a king, but it could also destroy the kingdom and everyone she has come to care about.

Bhathena, the critically acclaimed author of The Beauty of the Moment, creates a vibrant fantasy kingdom that is equal parts beautiful and brutal. Her prose is as lush as the world she has imagined, immersing readers in colorful bazaars and extravagant palaces. Despite the gorgeous scenery, the book thrums with an undercurrent of violence.

In many ways, Gul’s story is a typical hero’s journey. Naive and impulsive, Gul must reconcile her thirst for revenge with her newfound desire for Cavas. She must go up against evil forces far stronger than she is. But in Bhathena’s skilled hands, Hunted by the Sky feels fresh and feminist. It’s a story about women who are both prey and predator, and an exciting start to a series that’s just beginning to stretch its legs.

Halle Leavitt, whose parents are filmmakers, has bounced from town to town so many times that she’s never invested in IRL friendships. All her friends are online, where they know her as Kels, a successful blogger who showcases cupcakes she’s baked to accompany book reviews. Frequent among her DMs is Nash, a cute web comic artist who’s never seen Halle’s face.

While her parents film a documentary in Israel, Halle moves in with her recently widowed grandfather. When she runs into Nash at the library in her new town, she’s too shocked to tell him they already know each other. Then “Kels” is offered a publishing opportunity that could guarantee Halle’s spot at her dream college—but could also expose her ruse and cost her the only friend who matters.

Debut author Marisa Kanter, who has worked in book sales and publicity, peppers What I Like About You with publishing in-jokes, which are counterbalanced by Halle’s earnest championing of the books she loves. Snippets of DMs and texts also add personality and levity.

The book’s emotional landscape is deepened by its exploration of Halle’s and her grandfather’s grief at the death of Halle’s grandmother, with whom Halle shared a strong bond. It’s a powerful reminder that everyone processes loss in different ways. Jewish American teens and their families are still uncommon in YA novels with contemporary settings, so What I Like About You contributes welcome diversity to the category. It all adds up to a charming, witty story about authenticity in the social media age, told with a wink and a string of heart-eyes emojis.

This review was updated in January 2022 to more precisely contextualize the novel within the landscape of contemporary Jewish young adult fiction.

It’s been a year since a stranger killed four people in Camera Cove, a small town on the Northeastern seaboard. Labeled the Catalog Killer, the murderer poisoned the victims before posing them and pinning vintage catalog art to their bodies.

One of those victims was Connor Williams, a popular high school kid. No one idolized him more than his best friend and neighbor, Mac Bell. And while the rest of the town is trying to return to normalcy, Mac can’t. On graduation day, he finds a note in a stack of comics that he and Connor would trade—a note that suggests Connor uncovered the Catalog Killer’s identity and wanted Mac’s help. Mac is devastated that he didn’t find this note earlier, so under false pretenses, he begins his own investigation to uncover what the police haven’t. Unfortunately, his snooping rips open old wounds for the victims’ families, who are desperate to move forward. Mac is forcing the townsfolk to relive the trauma so he can untangle his own complicated feelings for Connor, but can a person ever get past losing someone they loved?

Tom Ryan’s Keep This to Yourself is a gripping murder mystery on the surface, but underneath, it is an exploration of identity and grief. Each of the victims had a secret life that the killer used to their advantage, including Connor, which further muddies Mac’s ability to piece together the puzzle. Throw in some romance and an unexpected twist ending, and readers will plow through Keep This to Yourself in one sitting.

The cleverly plotted, page-turning sequel to Maureen Johnson’s hit bestseller Truly Devious (2018) manages to outshine its predecessor as true crime aficionado Stevie Bell returns to posh private school Ellingham Academy and unearths even more confounding clues in her investigation of a classmate’s mysterious disappearance.

Stevie promised school officials and her parents that she would refrain from inserting herself into any more real-life murder investigations and decades-old cold cases. But when she gets an internship with the wacky Dr. Fenton—who wrote the book on the 1936 unsolved kidnappings of Academy founder Albert Ellingham’s wife and daughter—she makes a gruesome discovery that rattles the school once more.

To further complicate matters, Stevie has made a deal with corrupt Senator Edward King to keep tabs on his son, David, the boy with whom she shares a burgeoning romance. And then there’s Dr. Fenton’s handsome nephew, who has some revelations of his own for Stevie. It’s not just several murders that Stevie is trying to puzzle out, but her social life as well. All the adults keep warning her away from investigating, but Stevie can’t resist a good mystery, and her murder obsession might get her killed.

Suspense and intrigue abound in The Vanishing Stair as Johnson illuminates suspects and teases out clues that will flummox even the most adept murder mystery aficionado. Like the humorous and intellectually curious Stevie, Johnson is a true crime lover, and she dedicates this sequel “to all the murderinos” (fans of the popular “My Favorite Murder” podcast).

Savvy sleuths will devour this sequel in one gulp, but they’ll have to wait until 2020 for the next installment.

This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In M.K. England’s The Disasters, the Ellis Station Academy is an elite training program for Earth’s next generation of intergalactic pilots, programmers and politicians. Unfortunately for four students, their studies are over before they even begin.

Nasir “Nax” Hall is a Muslim farm boy, wannabe pilot and self-proclaimed screw-up. After a disastrous first day at the academy, he is unceremoniously kicked out along with three other students: Case, a straight-laced genius; Zee, a Kazak footballer with medical training; and Rion, a snarky Brit with a keen sense for diplomacy. But before the teens can be shuttled back to Earth, the academy is attacked and the foursome must make a daring escape.

Forced to crash land on a colonial planet called al-Rihla, they discover that they’re being framed for the devastating terror attack. If the four are caught, they’ll surely be executed. With help from a colonial girl, this ragtag group of academy rejects must hide from the authorities while simultaneously trying to prove their innocence. If Nax and his new friends can’t clear their names, then they’re going to die trying.

England has created a fast-paced sci-fi adventure story with a diverse cast of likable but flawed teenage heroes. Told through Nax’s point of view, the action is heart-pounding and immediate as these wayward heroes run from one disaster to the next—but there’s also a dash of romance as Nax takes time to consider his attractions to both Case and Rion.

Although the most ardent science-fiction fans might balk at the novel’s world building, which resembles Earth a little too closely, readers seeking humor, heart and good storytelling will find it within the pages of The Disasters.

This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.