New Releases

New & Recent Releases

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Here are three books we are watching for this week and a few that we missed earlier this month.

April 21st

Book cover of Until We Meet Again by Lily Kim Qian. A young woman is looking out an airplane window. The clouds are green and blue cartoonish things with yellow and pink outlines. The young woman has a bit of a frown and a bright light is glinting on the lower part of the window.

Until We Meet Again by Lily Kim Qian
First Second

Lily isn’t sure where home is anymore. Her family is constantly on the move, resettling in different towns across Canada and, eventually, in Shanghai, China. Her father plays the role of primary caregiver while her mother is absent for long periods of time. When she reappears, her strange behavior turns Lily’s life upside down. As Lily enters her college years, she strives to better understand her family and her place in the world. But can she escape the inherited trauma passed down by her immigrant parents?

Cover of Gods & Comics by Kat Cho. A young woman with flowing black hair is reaching toward a large screen. On the screen is a person wearing a headdress and reaching a hand out to her. There are also two more panels one with a young woman and another with a couple standing by lockers. Gods & Comics by Kat Cho
Nancy Paulsen Books

Seventeen-year-old junior class vice president Grace Bak has her entire future all mapped out with plans to become a doctor like her parents. But the weight of Grace’s own daunting expectations leads to debilitating panic attacks that have made her a virtual outcast at school, even to her longtime friend and crush. To make matters worse, her grandmother and only real support system has just died. Halmeoni was the glue that kept Grace’s little family together, especially after she and her dad lost her mother to cancer when Grace was too little to have many memories of her. To cope with the grief of another loss, Grace starts a webcomic inspired by the Korean myths her halmeoni used to tell her as a child.

In Sun God, Grace spins the tale of Korean god Haemosu and his love Yuhwa, but with a twist—the two gods are trapped in the bodies of teenagers and, worst of all, cursed to attend high school. Grace never expected her comic to go viral, but it has, and the new fandom has somehow conjured the real Haemosu. Now it’s up to Grace to get him back home. But when she starts to fall for Hae, sending him home is the last thing she wants to do. More troubling, Hae isn’t the only god to suddenly reappear. Hae’s sworn enemy—also brought back to the mortal realm by Grace’s comic—is set on destroying Hae, all while infecting humanity with a deadly disease.

As an epic battle between gods looms, Hae is without his powers, so it may fall to Grace to fight back against a vengeful god hell-bent on punishing anyone who gets in his way.

Book cover of Morbid Curiosities by S. Hati. The title is written largely in shades of orange. The first word is at the top and the second is at the bottom. The layer behind it is a huge hare or rabbit that has four eyes. It is sort of gray with a white underbelly. Behind it there is darkness and a bolt of lightning to the right. There are also light hexagons outlines with dots at the corners. Some are large and some are small.Morbid Curiosities by S. Hati
Feiwel & Friends

When the Institute’s invitation arrived at my doorstep, it felt like it had been inked in my blood, sweat, and tears.

Aarya’s life plan has been set for as long as she can remember: finish high school with a bang, attend the best college she can get into, then land a prestigious biology research job. Her ticket to this dream is a one-year program at the Elizabethan Institute, the preeminent organization for life sciences in the United States, currently on the cusp of revealing a major project that could transform the worlds of biology and medicine.

But as Aarya tries to settle in to a school with sky-high academic expectations and research cloaked in mystery, it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want her there. As the scholarship student surrounded by rich, cutthroat peers who seem all too willing to torment her, she never expected to make friends, but the notes warning her to run rattle her to her core. She finds an ally in Sofia, a mysterious girl who claims to be the subject of closed-door experiments at the Institute and begs for Aarya’s help in figuring out what the Institute is really working on.

As rumors of mutated flora and fauna in the nearby city circulate and a murder investigation rocks the Institute, Aarya will have to navigate Sofia’s growing paranoia and her own increasingly unreliable memory to determine which classmates she can trust—and which would rather see her dead.

A Few We Missed Earlier This Month–

Cover of Seyoon and Dean, Unscripted by Sujin Witherspoon. A young woman with long black hair and a young man with blonde hair are hanging on a rope that is down the center of the book. There are evergreen trees behind and on each side of them. The word and in the title is on one of those little black things that people smack closed when they are filming something to show that it is time to begin. Their names are in very large capital letters and the word unscripted is in thinner blue cursive letters.The young people are smiling at each other and are both wearing athletic clothing and sneakers.Seyoon and Dean by Sujin Weatherspoon
Hachette (April 7)

Winning is Seyoon Shin’s middle name. Okay, it’s not, but she is a winner—despite what her critical dad says. Dean Parker, on the other hand, isn’t beating anyone to the finish line. His strengths are more brain, less brawn.

When Evergreen Expedition—a wilderness game show with an eccentric host and a cult following—announces a reboot, they both jump at the chance to win the prize. Seyoon’s competitiveness fuels a fire in Dean he’s never felt before, and his hunger to prove himself rivals hers.

To get to the finals, they realize they need each other. Seyoon and Dean form an alliance, which the opportunistic producers are quick to frame as romantic. The rivals-to-lovers angle is good for views and intimidating the competition, but their chemistry is just for show . . . right?

As the lines blur between friendship and romance, reality and reality TV, Seyoon and Dean can’t ignore that the finale is fast approaching—and that only one of them can win.

cover of when it's your turn for midnight by Blessing Musariri. It seems to be cloth as a background that is mostly green with some red edges. The design on the cloth is some red and light green tropical flowers.
Screenshot

When It’s Your Turn for Midnight by Blessing Musariri

Head Of Zeus – Zehpyr (April 7)

When her Mama drops a bombshell, Chiante’s world shatters. In Zimbabwe, bloodlines matter, so when Chiante discovers her Baba is not the man she thought he was, she flees. Seeking refuge in a secluded corner of Mutare with her feisty, stylish grandmother, Chiante finds solace in a sisterhood forged by bonds of war. This close-knit community of elders and ex-combatants are living their best lives: singing, dancing, drinking and running a successful fashion-upcycling business. But at the heart of their carefully-built world are secrets no one can give voice to.

As Chiante pieces together the puzzle of her family’s past, she wrestles with how sorrow seeps down the generations, and how hope survives all, obliging us to step up and live life to the full.
Cover of The Afterlands by Akemi Dawn Bowman. The cover is dark with stars in the background, but also what seems to be glowing eyes in the sky. Two people are at the center. The young woman has one long dark braid. She is holding a jagged knife behind her back and is staring into the eyes of the young man who is slightly taller than she is. He is wearing a thin thorny crown of twigs and a long heavy coat with fur lapels. She has a tank top on and what seems to be leather or ribbon wrapped around the lower part of her arms. Afterlands by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (April 14)

Infinity has changed. Victory and Famine lie in ruins, while Ozias—previously the leader of the fight against the AI Residents who subjugated humans—has overthrown Death. And the boy that Nami unreservedly gave her heart to has been dragged back to the Capital to have his memory erased. In a shifting landscape of alliances, Nami doesn’t know who she can trust—she only knows it’s her mistakes that have driven them to today.

With few allies and even fewer friends, Nami sets off one final time to prove that a bridge between humans and Residents really is possible…before the shadows of the past destroy any chance of a better future.