NOVL Newsblast: Upcoming Books to Make Room on Your Shelf For
It’s time, once again, for me to wax poetic on some new gorgeous, glorious covers! And trust me, these are all books you are NOT going to want to miss! Prep your TBR, my friend, because your want-to-read list just got a bit longer!
Immortal Dark
by Tigest Girma
The Cruel Prince meets Ninth House in this dangerously romantic dark academia debut, where a lost heiress must infiltrate an arcane society and live with the vampire she suspects killed her family and kidnapped her sister.
Hidden in our world, a society of vampires originating in Africa, can only feed from select human bloodlines. Each bloodline represents a House more cutthroat than the last. To ensure peaceful co-existence and inherit their legacy, human children of these families must study at an elite university before choosing a vampire companion.
Lost Heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from Uxlay University. She is obsessively protective, mildly nihilistic, and willing to do anything to save her loved ones. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her—the same vampire bound to her own House, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad.
To stay in Uxlay, Kidan must study an arcane philosophy, work with four enigmatic students, and survive living with Susenyos–even as he does everything to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’ violence speaks to her own and tempts Kidan to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill him at all costs.
When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. Here, she discovers a centuries-old threat. And June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break underneath the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love—and the blood it requires.
Ida, in Love and in Trouble
Before she became a warrior, Ida B. Wells was an incomparable flirt with a quick wit and a dream of becoming a renowned writer. The first child of newly freed parents who thrived in a community that pulsated with hope and possibility after the Civil War, Ida had a big heart, big ambitions, and even bigger questions: How to be a good big sister when her beloved parents perish in a yellow fever epidemic? How to launch her career as a teacher? How to make and keep friends in a society that seems to have no place for a woman who speaks her own mind? And – always top of mind for Ida – how to find a love that will let her be the woman she dreams of becoming?
Ahead of her time by decades, Ida B. Wells pioneered the field of investigative journalism with her powerful reporting on violence against African Americans. Her name became synonymous with courage and an unflinching demand for racial and gender equality. But there were so many facets to Ida Bell and critically acclaimed writer Veronica Chamber unspools her full and colorful life as Ida comes of age in the rapidly changing South, filled with lavish society dances and parties, swoon-worthy gentleman callers, and a world ripe for the taking.
Everything Glittered
by Robin Talley
It’s 1927 and the strict laws of prohibition have done little to temper the roaring 20s nightlife, even in the nation’s capitol. Everyone knows the booze has never stopped flowing, especially amongst the rich and powerful, and seventeen-year-old Gertrude and her best friends Clara and Milly are determined to get a taste of freedom and liquor, propriety be damned.
But after sneaking out of the Washington Female Seminary to visit a speakeasy, they return to discover that their controversial young headmistress, Mrs. Rose, has been murdered.
Reeling from the death of her beloved mentor, Gertrude enlists her friends in her quest to clear Mrs. Rose’s reputation, while trying to keep her own intact. But in Prohibition Washington, it’s difficult to sidestep grifters, bootleggers, and shady federal agents when investigating a murder. And with all the secrets being uncovered, Gertrude is finding it harder and harder to keep her attraction to her best friends hidden.
A proper, upscale life is all Gertrude has ever known, but murder sure makes a gal wonder: is all that glitters really gold?
Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote
by Michael Eric Dyson & Marc Favreau
Read about the electrifying and continuing fight for voting rights—and discover your place in it—in this dramatic exploration of American democracy, from renowned thought leader Michael Eric Dyson and widely celebrated author Marc Favreau.
One of the most important and least understood true stories of our nation, the fight for representation is an ongoing and epic quest to build the democracy sketched out in the Constitution but unfinished in the twenty-first century. With impeccable research and exhilarating prose, Represent tells the story of voting rights in the United States from the American Revolution up to the present day.
Each chapter takes on a new battle between the forces of people power and forces opposed to it. Readers will meet champions of freedom, including formerly enslaved revolutionaries, a Chinese American teenager, a Lakota Sioux activist, Black World War II veterans, a Mexican American student, and others who fought for their right to vote.
Drawing clear lines from then to now, Represent weaves this important struggle into a single American drama that will help readers understand our past, present, and future.
The Wild Huntress
Dive into a lush, standalone fantasy, set in the same world as The Drowned Woods and The Bone Houses, about a deadly competition—perfect for fans of Holly Black and Erin A. Craig.
Every five years, two kingdoms take part in a Wild Hunt. Joining is a bloody risk and even the most qualified hunters can suffer the deadliest fates. Still, hundreds gamble their lives to participate—all vying for the Hunt’s life-changing prize: a magical wish granted by the Otherking.
BRANWEN possesses a gift no other human has: the ability to see and slay monsters. She’s desperate to cure her mother’s sickness, and the Wild Hunt is her only option.
GWYDION is the least impressive of his magically-talented family, but with his ability to control plants and his sleight of hand, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep his cruel older brother from becoming a tyrant.
PRYDERI is prince-born and monster-raised. Deep down, the royal crown doesn’t interest him—all he wants is to know is where he belongs.
If they band together against the monstrous creatures within the woods, they have a chance to win. But, then again, nothing is guaranteed when all is fair in love and the Hunt.
I Was Told There Would Be Romance
by Marie Arnold
For fans of Never Have I Ever and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before comes a hilarious and heartfelt YA contemporary about a young Haitian girl navigating high school, friendship, and crushes.
Fifteen-year-old Fancy Augustine is a Haitian-American girl with simple desires: she’d like to trade in her floppy, oversized boobs for pretty, perky ones. She would like a boyfriend. And like every year, she’s desperate for an invite to the biggest event in school: Imani Park’s birthday party. When Fancy learns her BFF has been invited and discovers that she has also has a boyfriend she’s been keeping secret from her, Fancy is completely devastated.
When a rumor is spread around school that Fancy can perform voodoo, she is highly irritated because, of course she can’t do voodoo (even though she’s Haitian thank you very much). But when her crush Rahim asks if she can use her voodoo to help him get a loved one to return, she tells him she will, if he acts as her fake boyfriend so she can nab an invite to Imani’s party.
Thus ensues a rom-comedy of errors and bad decisions as Fancy tries to climb up the social ladder and get the boy!
Halfway There: A Graphic Memoir of Self-Discovery
A poignant graphic memoir from rising star Christine Mari, following her college year abroad in Japan, as she struggles to reconcile both sides of her mixed-race identity.
Christine has always felt she is just half…Half American, half Japanese. Half dad, half mom. As a biracial Japanese American who was born in Tokyo but raised in the US, she knows all too well what it’s like to be a part of two different worlds but never feeling as though you belong to either.
Now on the brink of adulthood, Christine decides it’s time to return to the place she once called home. So she sets forth on a year abroad in Tokyo, believing that this is where she truly belongs. After years of feeling like an outsider, now she will finally be complete.
Except…Tokyo isn’t the answer she thought it would be. Instead of fitting in, Christine finds herself a fish out of water, as being half of two cultures isolates her in ways she’d never imagined. All she can do is try to stay afloat for the rest of the year—still figuring out who she is, what she wants in life, and whether she’ll ever truly be more than halfway there.
Author-illustrator Christine Mari explores what it means to lose and find yourself in this moving narrative of belonging and home.
Mismatched
by Anne Camline, Illustrated by Isadora Zeferino
A teen social media star learns he can’t control everything in this delicious modern-day adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma.
Evan Horowitz is obsessed with three things in life: makeup, social media, and matchmaking! When he’s not influencing his Instagram followers or ruling over his school’s Genders & Sexualities Alliance, he loves to poke his nose into his friends’ romantic relationships, as he’s confident he knows what’s best for them.
And why shouldn’t he be? Ever since he predicted the pairing of not one but TWO couples close to him, he’s sure he has the magic touch. So when shy transfer student Natalia shuffles into GSA one day, Evan can’t help but get his hands messy! Who better than him to give her a push in the right direction? With so many matches to choose from and Natalia hopelessly clueless when it comes to love, it’s not long before Evan sets his plan into motion (much against the better judgment of his best friend, Davi).
But he takes things too far, creating a web of drama that spirals out of his control. Can he learn to put the people closest to him before his misguided ambition? Or will he lose them, and his chance at romance, too?
