The 13 Best New YA Books Coming Out in 2016
1/152015 was a great year in books, but we have a feeling 2016 will be even better. Why? Because all of our favorites like Kami Garcia, Maggie Steifvater, and Cassandra Clare are back to tie up bestselling series and debut new ones, while fresh voices like Evelyn Skye are sure to wow us with their first books. Check out some of the projects we’re eagerly awaiting this year!
2/15Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
Release date: January 5th, 2016
Alexandra Bracken’s Passenger debuted as a #1 New York Times-bestseller. It follows Etta, a young violin prodigy who accidentally discovers she can travel through time. After she finds herself on a ship in 1776, she and a mysterious privateer named Nicholas embark on a quest to find a coveted object before a secret society does. What’s perhaps most compelling about this book is that it features an interracial relationship as its main romance, showing how prejudices evolve throughout multiple time-periods.
3/15The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman
Release date: January 26th, 2016
18-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall is on the eve of her debut presentation at the royal court of George III. Her life should revolve around gowns, dancing, and securing a suitable marriage. Instead, when one of her family’s maids disappears, she is drawn into the shadows of Regency London, where she’s roped into a terrifying demon-hunting conspiracy.
4/15Salt to the Sea by Ruth Sepetys
Release date: February 2nd, 2016
With her latest novel, Ruth Sepetys once again delves into a little-known corner of history: the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. A shockingly unsung casualty of World War II, this is the single greatest maritime disaster in history — far deadlier than the tragedies of the Titanic and the Lusitania combined — but remains largely unfamiliar in our collective consciousness. Oh, and there's a love story, so it's like the YA book version of Titanic.
5/15Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard
Release date: February 9th, 2016
In her long-awaited sequel to last year’s #1 New York Times-bestselling Red Queen, 26-year-old author Victoria Aveyard gives us the next chapter of Mare’s story as she recruits an army of Red-and-Silver fighters. Check our interview with Victoria here and be sure to pick up a copy of Glass Sword, because if it’s anything like Red Queen, it’s going to be life-changing.
6/15Map of Fates by Maggie Hall
Release date: March 8th, 2016
In this follow-up to The Conspiracy of Us, Avery gets drawn into a world of warring secret societies. With the help of her (sort-of) boyfriend, Jack, and her (sort-of) crush, Stellan, she travels from the canals of Venice to the Cannes Film Festival's red carpet, desperate to find the tomb before her family's mortal enemies find it.
7/15Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Release date: March 8th, 2016
Lady Midnight picks up five years after the Shadowhunters series left off. Emma Carstairs is on a mission to avenge her parents’ deaths, and when Los Angeles plays host to a string of murders shockingly similar to those of her parents, it’s up to her to catch the killers. But there’s a twist: the Fair Folk are involved, and if Emma and her sidekick, Julian, don’t find the serial killer in two weeks, the faeries will wage war on the Shadowhunters.
8/15Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
Release date: March 22nd, 2016
In a novel drawing major comparisons to E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars, Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl with wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond and beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee...and bully. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.
9/15The Raven King by Maggie Steifvater
Release date: April 26th, 2016
The conclusion to the Raven Boys series has been under wraps for a while now, but in April, we’ll finally know how this awesome series ends! All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore. In a starred review for Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Kirkus Reviews declared: "Expect this truly one-of-a-kind series to come to a thundering close."
10/15The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood
Release date: May 3rd, 2016
Harriet Reuter Hapgood’s debut novel is described as “a contemporary YA romance with a time-travel twist.” It’s been anticipated since last March, when eight (!) publishers fought over the manuscript, which follows a physics prodigy trying to make sense of her life as her past, present, and future collide when her seaside town plays host to a cluster of black holes.
11/15Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley
Release date: May 10th, 2016
John Corey Whaley, of Noggin fame, is back with Highly Illogical Behavior — a highly anticipated book we’ve been waiting for since the day we finished Noggin. It follows a 16-year-old named Solomon, whose crippling anxiety and agoraphobia have kept him from leaving his house for three years, and Lisa, an ambitious former classmate who decides to befriend Solomon in the hopes of helping him back out into the world. But Lisa has ulterior motives, and by the time she realizes her mistake, it may be too late.
12/15The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye
Release date: May 17th, 2016
Evelyn Skye’s debut is set in a magical reimagining of Imperial Russia, and follows Vika and Nicolai, two young enchanters who are pitted against each other in competition to become the tsar’s Imperial Enchanter. Raised on tiny Ovchinin Island her whole life, Vika is eager for the chance to show off her talent in the grand capital of Saint Petersburg. But can she kill another enchanter...even when his magic calls to her like nothing else ever has? For Nikolai, an orphan, the Crown’s Game is the chance of a lifetime. But his deadly opponent is a force to be reckoned with — beautiful, whip smart, imaginative — and he can’t stop thinking about her.
13/15The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia
Release date: October 4th, 2016
1 New York Times-bestselling author Kami Garcia makes the jump from fantasy to contemporary romance in The Lovely Reckless, which is pitched as The Fast and the Furious meets Romeo and Juliet. In it, Frankie, a privileged teenager, moves to the Downs to live with her father, and undercover cop. She finds herself drawn to champion street racer Marco Leone, whose dangerous lifestyle could have devastating consequences for them both.
14/15Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Release date: November 8th, 2016
It’s going to be a big year for Marissa Meyer. She’s following up her bestselling conclusion to The Lunar Chronicles series with Stars Above — a Lunar short story collection in February. But her new novel, Heartless, hits the shelves in November. A prequel to Alice in Wonderland, the story follows Catherine, the future Queen of Hearts, as she embarks on a forbidden romance with a joker named Jest.
