Dash is perusing the 18 miles of books at New York City’s legendary Strand bookstore when a flash of red catches his eye. It’s a Moleskine notebook with “DO YOU DARE?” scrawled on the cover, and a series of clues encoded inside. Will he take the bait, even if it means approaching the counter to ask for a novel called Fat Hoochie Prom Queen?

Lucky for us, the answer is “Yes.” Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares is the third collaboration between Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, and the magic they create together is not just holding but getting stronger. Dash and Lily are each spending the winter holidays without their parents, and they begin sending each other on more ridiculous and risky missions, abetted by friends, family, a custom-designed Muppet and the iconic red notebook. Along the way a department-store Santa is inappropriately groped, a baby is catapulted through the air in Washington Square Park, and information is extorted under the threat of a spontaneous recitation from the works of James Patterson. Did I mention the 2 a.m. Christmas/Hanukkah mosh pit?

Somehow all these antics (and more!) combine to create a surprisingly chaste and tender love story. Lily’s sweet optimism might soften the “snarly” side of Dash that everyone sees, and he lures her out of a comfort zone that’s concealing a fear of life. So here’s my list for the next several Christmases: more intelligent, heartfelt hilarity from these two talented authors.

Law Walker comes from a home of wealth and prestige. His father is a prominent black Harvard professor who preaches in favor of reparations for slavery. Law’s mother, an architectural historian (and a white woman), is desperately trying to save Pinebank, a Boston landmark and the center of much controversy, from demolition. A child of mixed race, Law struggles with his identity: “I feel less black than Eminem,” he says.

Living in a very different world is Law’s high school classmate Katie Mullens, an orphan who has been grieving the death of her mother for the past year. Labeled crazy by her peers, she sees ghosts and draws deeply disturbing images of death. She is almost swallowed up in her grief until she and Law begin a life-saving relationship. Unfortunately, Law’s parents don’t approve of Katie. Not only is she poor, and from a broken home, but she’s also white—a fact not lost on Law either. For a guy struggling with being black, having a white girlfriend isn’t easy.

The two couldn’t be less alike, and yet they are drawn together by a centuries-old mystery surrounding the decrepit Pinebank and the ghosts who reside there. For Law and his mother, Pinebank is an irreplaceable historical gem, even if Law’s father condemns the house for the crimes committed by its slave-owning proprietor. For Katie, the key to freeing herself from the spirits who haunt her is buried somewhere in that house.

In her first novel for teens, Sarah Smith tells Law’s and Katie’s stories in alternating chapters, masterfully weaving in the very real and detailed history of Pinebank. The result is a haunting, emotional tale about a teenage girl’s unraveling, and a boy whose very identity feels entwined in a house condemned for demolition. The Other Side of Dark is no ordinary ghost story, but rather a meticulously researched and poignant tale about grief, identity and the dark pasts that can define us.

Jane Moore hasn’t been handed any breaks in her 19 years. Although she’s the third child of well-to-do suburbanites, she’s always been treated as the unwanted “extra” child. When her parents die suddenly, her portion of the inheritance amounts to basically nothing, and she’s forced to drop out of college and take a job as a nanny at Thornfield Park, the home of bigger-than-life rock star Nico Rathburn.

Jane finds herself—quite reluctantly—drawn to Nico. After a great deal of heartache and self-doubt, she learns that Nico is just as enamored of her, and they embark upon a steamy love affair. It is, in fact, so steamy that mothers previewing the novel to decide whether or not to allow their daughters to read it might find themselves blushing as Jane discovers her hidden desires under the very capable tutelage of the brooding and sensual Nico. Yet the sex scenes are not at all gratuitous, and readers shocked by the romance between Jane and the much older Nico would do well to read (or re-read) Jane Eyre—the quintessential story of a May-December romance between employer and employee.

April Lindner’s Jane is a novel of mystery and romance, and the story is painstakingly true to its inspiration. In fact, Jane is not merely inspired by Jane Eyre, it is a retelling in its truest sense. Lindner, a professor of English, certainly knows her subject, and her affection for Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece is clear on every page. She masterfully weaves the 19th-century tale into an edgy, modern love story that revolves around secrets and their consequences, and in the process, she creates a story that can stand alone as a well-written and engaging page-turner for readers of many ages.

Vera Dietz would rather be ignored by her classmates than have them know the truth about her mother. Vera’s father would rather she ignored everything but school and her full-time pizza delivery job, including the abuse taking place in her best friend Charlie’s house. But ignoring things doesn’t make them go away. When Charlie dies in dark circumstances and Vera knows more about it than anyone, she has the opportunity to come forward and clear his name . . . or the option to pretend that nothing happened.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz is a gritty account of one young woman’s reckoning with grief. Vera is not the only narrator, though. Her dad gets to share a few stories and flowcharts, which bring needed humor to the subplot about Vera’s burgeoning alcoholism: “I wish she’d look beyond herself once in a while. But that’s a side effect of alcohol, isn’t it? Stopping to think about other people is not on the bar menu.” Charlie Kahn also weighs in with a few notes from “The Dead Kid,” when he’s not haunting Vera with messages in steamy mirrors or appearing in droves to help her find the clues to his death, and there are very funny comments from the town’s defunct landmark, the Pagoda, which read as entirely normal in this surreal universe.

The story moves back and forth in time, tracing Charlie and Vera’s friendship and its dissolution, then his death and the crime that happened the same night, weaving shared history together with the clues Vera uncovers. When all is revealed at the end, the book ends abruptly, with not much attention given to the criminal case that would inevitably follow, and little in the way of comeuppance for the truly nasty villain, Jenny Flick. But that’s a minor quibble for a book that balances intense subject matter with humor and a touch of the supernatural, and makes it all flow naturally. Ignore this book at your peril; it’s a keeper.

Perhaps one of the highest compliments a reader can pay an author is the immediate desire to be best friends with a book’s main character. Such is the case with Violet Tunis, the 16-year-old protagonist of Leila Sales’ witty debut novel, Mostly Good Girls, which portrays Violet’s everyday shenanigans at a swanky all-girls prep school in Boston.

Of course, Violet already has a best friend, Katie, whose wealth, beauty and perfect score on the PSATs don’t even make Violet jealous—that much. While Katie has many envious natural talents, Violet must pride herself on the little victories. For example, when Violet’s safari theme is chosen for the junior yearbook, her parents beam with pride. Violet notes, “My parents are proud of me no matter what I do, be it suggesting a yearbook theme or getting a B on a math test. They have incredibly low standards.” At other times, it is about the small battles fought but not won, such as trying to steer the school’s literary magazine staff away from really bad eating-disorder poetry. (“Hunger is a sin / As bad for you as a shark fin.”) But if not for Katie, Violet wouldn’t have nearly as much fun as she does, like when the two friends try to make a fortune selling Harry Potter tours to the younger students.

Unfortunately, when Katie meets Martin, her new boyfriend-having status creates a rift in the girls’ friendship. As Violet says, “Out of all the reasons I might envy Katie, in a list of things she had that I constantly worked for, Martin did not even rank. I wasn’t jealous of Katie for having Martin. If anything, I was jealous of Martin for having Katie.” Suddenly, Violet and Katie’s long-standing friendship is tested, and Violet wonders about her own identity without her best friend.

Told in first-person point of view, each chapter is like a short story unto itself, infused with a sharp wit and wry humor. Anyone who has ever been one half of a best-friend pair will easily identify with Violet’s typical high school drama, and Sales’ laugh-out-loud portrayal of life at an all-girls school makes this tale about friendship incredibly fresh and lighthearted.

Phoebe is the youngest in a long line of Rothschilds, the eminent Jewish family that, over the course of more than 200 years, has attained wealth, power and a degree of protection even as the world has been in turmoil around them. Everyone agrees that the Rothschilds are an extraordinary family, filled with those, like Phoebe’s mother Catherine, who hold positions of power and prestige.

But what if Phoebe is nothing special? Just ordinary? Would she still be worthy of her family’s name? These questions haunt her, especially once she meets Mallory, an odd new girl at school who seems desperately in need of Phoebe’s friendship and support. By the time the girls are juniors in high school, they are more like sisters than friends. Phoebe is sure nothing could separate them—that is, until Mallory’s aloof, alluring brother Ryland moves to town. Phoebe falls under his spell, and Mallory must stand by, helpless, as Ryland not only drives the best friends apart but does his best to destroy Phoebe’s self-confidence.

For Mallory, too, is complicit in Ryland’s devious plans, as the otherworldly siblings intend to use Phoebe to fulfill a longstanding debt owed to the inhabitants of Faerie by one of Phoebe’s Rothschild ancestors. When faced with a horrific choice, will Phoebe prove herself extraordinary? And can the girls’ friendship endure through the lies and betrayal?

With Extraordinary, Nancy Werlin, long known for her Edgar Award-winning suspense novels, returns to the faerie realm she first began to explore in her last novel, Impossible. Both books stand alone but share thematic interests in human responsibility, loyalty and the persistence of history. Werlin adeptly explores the interconnections between the realms of humans and faeries, creating not only a rich fantasy world but also an examination of family, religious heritage and friendship that transcends genre. Werlin’s faerie novels are haunting, suspenseful and provocative; readers are sure to hope for another opportunity to venture with her into the faerie realm.

What kid wouldn’t love to whack some zombies? Slaughter some bumbling, disintegrating bodies with gnashing teeth? Kill them before they kill you?

Benny Imura has absolutely no interest. But in his post-apocalyptic Californian community, Benny will lose half his rations if he does not find a job by the time he turns 15, so he has no choice but to become an apprentice to his lame zom-slaughtering brother Tom and to follow him into the Rot & Ruin—the world outside the fences. The zombie-covered fields of America reveal to Benny a world without morality and without humanity, even among the living.

Jonathan Maberry’s Rot & Ruin melds the entertainment of a zombie thriller with an examination of the roots of anger and the value of human life. When the dead rise, it is easy to find sport in whacking a former mailman or two. But Benny quickly discovers that the living dead were once simply living, and there are things far more evil in the world than a shuffling mob of zoms.

Along the way, Rot & Ruin ordains the younger generations with a sense of purpose and power, and a new understanding of what a hero really is: “Often it was the most unlikely of people who found within themselves a spark of something greater. It was probably always there, but most people are never tested, and they go through their whole lives without ever knowing that when things are at their worst, they are at their best.”

When Griffin slips into the Cadillac Escalade, its keys left in the ignition at the mall parking lot, he only means to steal it as a gift for his father. Within seconds he realizes that he’s stolen a girl too. In April Henry’s suspenseful and well-researched Girl, Stolen, 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder, resting in the backseat while her stepmother runs into the pharmacy to pick up her prescription, is not only suffering from pneumonia, but has been blind for the last three years. Is escape even possible for her?

The spine-tingling chapters alternate between the teens’ perspectives as Griffin delivers both the vehicle and the girl to his cruel father, Roy. While Cheyenne plots to outwit her captors, flee Roy’s home in a remote wooded area and gather as much information as possible to turn over to police when (or if) she’s rescued, readers learn more about the accident that took Cheyenne’s mother and sight. And as Griffin, a high-school dropout with a troubled background and grief of his own, begins to see his surroundings in a whole new light, he wonders if he’s as much a bad guy as Roy and his accomplices, who are busy plotting how to use and dispose of Cheyenne. Perhaps Cheyenne is not the only victim in this escalating dilemma.

Reminiscent of Gail Giles’ thrillers and tension-filled to the last sentence, Girl, Stolen will resonate with readers long after the cover is closed. With a thoughtful and eye-opening look at disabilities, it highlights Cheyenne and Griffin’s resourcefulness and resiliency as they save themselves—and possibly each other.

Andi Alpers is desperately sad—or perhaps just desperate. Ever since the death of her little brother, she’s been adrift. Her mother has come unhinged, her dad has left his damaged old family for a new life, and Andi is barely holding it together. Only when she’s playing her guitar does she feel sane. When she’s warned that without a stellar senior thesis, she’ll be expelled from her exclusive Brooklyn prep school, her father whisks her away to Paris, where he’s investigating a 200-year-old genetic mystery.

Andi’s ostensibly there to do her own research on a remarkably prescient 18th-century composer and his musical heirs. But almost as soon as she arrives in Paris, she becomes far more invested in the city’s history than she could have imagined. In an antique guitar case, she discovers an ancient diary written by a young woman very much like herself. Alexandrine Paradis was a performer, too, one who got swept up in revolution—and love—despite herself. As Andi reads Alexandrine’s diary, she becomes more and more immersed in the drama of a dead girl and the little boy for whom she sacrificed everything.

As in her previous novel for young adults, the award-winning A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly combines impeccable historical research with lively, fully fashioned characters to create an indelible narrative. Revolution is a complex story, moving back and forth in time and including allusions not only to historical events but also to literature (especially Dante’s Divine Comedy) and to music from Handel to Wagner to Radiohead. Yet this undeniably cerebral book is also simultaneously wise and achingly poignant. Alexandrine writes in her diary, “After all the blood and death, we woke as if from a nightmare only to find that the ugly still are not beautiful and the dull still do not sparkle.” Just as Alexandrine comes to terms with her country’s dashed hopes, Andi must find a place where hope—and love—can flourish despite disillusion and despair.

Anyone who has ever loved a series feels equal parts anticipation and worry when cracking the cover of the latest installment. Can the adventures of the characters you’ve been dreaming about for the past year live up to the ones you’ve imagined for them yourself? I don’t think it gives too much away to say that Mockingjay meets readers’ expectations, and then some. This is a fearless finale that brings the big question of the Hunger Games Trilogy—the ethics of using force, be it political, physical or psychological—to the forefront as Katniss and her allies attempt to overthrow President Snow and create a new Panem.

Mockingjay opens in the ruins of District 12, where heroine Katniss Everdeen stands on the ashes of most of her neighbors. Torn with guilt over the destruction of her home and worry over the fate of Peeta, who is still in the hands of President Snow, Katniss knows only a burning desire for revenge. Her family and the rest of the District 12 survivors are safe, if a bit bored, in the well-regulated underground world of District 13, where President Coin has a plan to present Katniss as the face of rebellion: the Mockingjay.

It’s a bleak beginning, but then, a revolution isn’t pretty business, and anyone who has followed Katniss’ adventures so far knows that Suzanne Collins doesn’t spare her characters. This is a series where, just like real life, anything can happen. While readers can trust Collins for an honest resolution to the story, they can’t be sure that their favorite characters will be there to see it. That sense of suspense, along with the innovative plot twists that Collins throws in just when you thought you knew where things were going, keeps the pages turning.

Well, that, and the Gale/Peeta conflict. Who does Katniss choose? No spoilers here, but rest assured that Collins makes the outcome seem both inevitable and right, because it is based on Katniss’ own discoveries about herself.

Those discoveries, like the other victories in Mockingjay, come at a high price. Collins, like Katniss, is a realist above all: The effects of war on civilians and conspirators alike are unflinchingly documented, and the grim tone established in the opening pages dominates. But the book is not without its moments of grace, and the powerful conclusion should leave readers with a better taste in their mouths than the much-maligned endings of other popular series. Haunting and meditative, Mockingjay is a wrenching finale to a trilogy that will be read and discussed for years to come.

In 1878, 16-year-old orphan Tessa Gray sails for England to reunite with her older brother. Before she even sees him, she is kidnapped by the Dark Sisters, members of the dangerous underworld society called the Pandemonium Club. The sisters, who brutally tap into Tessa’s ability to transform into other people, are grooming her for an even greater evil. As Tessa attempts a daring escape, she is rescued by a group of Shadowhunters, descendants of angels who combat demons. They welcome Tessa into their home and offer her protection; in turn, she must her use shape-shifting talents to help them destroy an android army and save her brother. As Tessa desperately comes to grips with her otherworldly identity, she must also unravel her very earthly feelings for William Herondale, a brooding Shadowhunter with demons of his own.

Cassandra Clare, beloved author of the Mortal Instruments series, has scored another hit with this much-anticipated prequel set in a sexy, steampunk Victorian England. The characters’ clothing, language and mannerisms and the era-appropriate poetry that precedes each chapter all draw the reader into this fascinating historical era. But what would the Age of Innocence be without the passion of first love? Everything from the late-19th-century clothing with its long hemlines and drab colors to the strict societal norms dictating courtship intensify Will and Tessa’s feelings. Will’s quick wit and bad-boy behavior make him Clare’s hottest hero yet.

Clockwork Angel certainly stands alone, but be forewarned: Once readers dive into this first book in the Infernal Devices series, they won’t be able to wait for the sequel.

In Erin Bow’s first novel, Plain Kate, an enthralling fantasy set in a time and place much like medieval Europe, it’s the skara rok, or hungry time, and the folk of Samilae are eager to blame anyone a little odd for the town’s diminishing supplies and growing illnesses. With “one eye the color of river mud and one eye the color of the river” and a gift for carving popular talismans that surpasses her teenage years, orphan Plain Kate Carver knows she’ll be accused of witchcraft soon.

When a “witch-white” stranger offers to grant Plain Kate her heart’s secret wish in exchange for her shadow, the lonely girl begrudgingly accepts the bargain as a way to flee the town. Feeling as if she’s lost a part of her soul, she secretly departs the only home she’s ever known with Taggle, a talking cat, as her companion. Plain Kate is soon taken in by the Roamers, a traveling, Romani-like clan, and befriended by Drina, whose mother, a healer and a witch, was sentenced to death for her practices.

This elaborate story takes on more twists and turns as Drina begins to teach her the rules of magic and the friends conspire to reclaim Plain Kate’s shadow. But things don’t always go according to plan when Plain Kate discovers the witch-white stranger’s true identity and his diabolical plot.

Plain Kate’s natural talents and bravery will endear her to teen readers. Her cat Taggle, who’s willing to claw any man or beast to save his beloved owner, also adds light humor to this tale of dark magic. As the pair travels together, finding friendship and saving their small world in the process, the novel’s fantastical elements come together to create a spellbinding ending.