We’ve got a ton of new books coming out this week and a lovely mix bag from a stirring memoir to a fun rom-com to another exciting mystery from everyone’s fave Anna-Marie McLemore and so much more.
Hurdles in the Dark: My Story of Survival, Resilience, and Triumph by Elvira K. Gonzalez
Roaring Brook Press
Twenty-four hours: that’s how long fourteen-year-old Elvira Gonzalez is given to come up with the $40,000 she needs to save her kidnapped mother from a drug cartel. It’s 2006 and Elvira’s hometown of Laredo, Texas, has become engulfed by the Mexican Drug War. Elvira’s life is unraveling around her—setting her on a harrowing path that leads her to being locked up in one of South Texas’s worst juvenile detention centers.
After Elvira’s released from juvie, she’s resolved to never go back. That’s when her unexpected salvation arrives in the form of 33-inch-high plastic hurdles. Determined to win a track scholarship out of Laredo, Elvira begins breaking into the school, alone, at 5:30 in the morning to practice hurdling. Soon, she catches the attention of a renowned high school coach, an adult man in his 30s. As they train, their coach-student relationship begins to change, becoming sexual. At just seventeen years old, Elvira experiences the dangers many young athletes face, especially those who are marginalized. In spite of these towering obstacles, Elvira eventually propels herself to become one of the top ranked hurdlers in the USA and the first in her family to go to college.
This inspiring true story of grit, tenacity, and hope traces Elvira’s path as she overcomes impossible hurdles in her race to freedom.
Flawless Girls by Anna-Marie McLemore
Feiwel & Friends
The Soler sisters are infamous in polite society—brazen, rebellious, and raised by their fashionable grandmother who couldn’t care less about which fork goes where. But their grandmother also knows the standards that two Latina young ladies will be held to, so she secures them two coveted places at the Alarie House, a prominent finishing school that turns out first ladies, princesses, and socialites.
Younger sister Isla is back home within a day. She refuses to become one of the eerily sweet Alarie girls in their prim white dresses. Older sister Renata stays. When she returns months later, she’s unfailingly pleasant, unnervingly polite, and, Isla discovers, possibly murderous. And the same night she returns home, she vanishes.
As their grandmother uses every connection she has to find Renata, Isla re-enrolls, intent on finding out what happened to her sister. But the Alarie House is as exacting as it is opulent. It won’t give up its secrets easily, and neither will a mysterious, conniving girl who’s either controlling the house, or carrying out its deadly orders.
The Quince Project by Jessica Parra
Wednesday Books
Castillo Torres, Student Body Association event chair and serial planner, could use a fairy godmother. After a disastrous mishap at her sister’s quinceañera, all of Cas’s plans are crumbling. So when a local lifestyle-guru-slash-party-planner opens up applications for the internship of her dreams, Cas sees it as the perfect opportunity to learn every trick in the book so that things never go wrong again.
The only catch is that she needs more party planning experience before she can apply. When she books a quinceañera for a teen Disneyland vlogger, Cas thinks her plan is taking off…until she finds that real life is more complicated than a fairy tale. Cas soon discovers that the party is just a publicity stunt, and she catches feelings for the chambelán. It’s clear that her agenda is about to go way off-script.
But maybe Happily Ever Afters aren’t just for the movies. Can Cas go from planner to participant in her own life? Or will this would-be princess turn into a pumpkin at the end of the ball?
Twelfth Knight Alexene Farol Follmuth
Tor Teen
Viola Reyes is annoyed.
Her painstakingly crafted tabletop game campaign was shot down, her best friend is suggesting she try being more “likable,” and school running back Jack Orsino is the most lackadaisical Student Body President she’s ever seen, which makes her job as VP that much harder. Vi’s favorite escape from the world is the MMORPG Twelfth Knight, but online spaces aren’t exactly kind to girls like her―girls who are extremely competent and have the swagger to prove it. So Vi creates a masculine alter ego, choosing to play as a knight named Cesario to create a safe haven for herself.
But when a football injury leads Jack Orsino to the world of Twelfth Knight, Vi is alarmed to discover their online alter egos―Cesario and Duke Orsino―are surprisingly well-matched.
As the long nights of game-play turn into discussions about life and love, Vi and Jack soon realise they’ve become more than just weapon-wielding characters in an online game. But Vi has been concealing her true identity from Jack, and Jack might just be falling for her offline…
The Books of Clash Vol. 3: Legendary Legends of Legendarious Achievery by Gene Luen Yang, Kendall Goode & Alison Acton illustrators
First Second
Based on the global hit Clash of Clans and penned by superstar graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, this third volume of a new action-packed series brings the characters from everyone’s favorite mobile gaming sensation to life!
Sonny the golem is tired of being stepped on by his teammates―literally! His Royale team, the JazzyPickleton Cucumbers, has a new move that leaves him with footprints on his face! And when he needs backup, Sonny is left to fend for himself…and literally gets split into TWO Golems! Can his best friend, the Cucumbers’ star wizard, help him now? And does he even want the help of his so-called friend?
Continuing the epic graphic novel series set in the world of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale , Gene Luen Yang pens an offbeat and action-packed tale that turns the fantasy-adventure genre on its head!
If You Knew My Name: A Novel in Verse by Lisa Roberts Carter
Central Avenue Teen
His mother was a BLM activist. Mason Tyndall was an aspiring rap artist. She saw fatal officer-involved shootings as senseless tragedies. He viewed them as trending hashtags — that is, until he almost became one.
Mason Zy’Aire Tyndall has big dreams. Dreams of sick beats, epic mic-drops, sold out stadiums. Mason’s going to be a rap star—and you don’t become a rap star by hitting up BLM protests with your mom or sitting at a desk. Mason wants to get out there and make a name for himself, but he’ll have to graduate high school first. And he can’t do that if he fails his senior year.
Convinced his poetry class is a waste of time, Mason’s teacher helps him see just how valuable a couplet and a rhyme can be. But when an unarmed Black man is killed by the police in his city, tensions start to rise—among the cops, the community, and even Mason’s peers.
Caught in the middle of increasingly violent conflicts, Mason will have to find a way to use his voice for change…and fast.