It’s another great release day for June 2025. We have five books that we’ve been watching for this week.
This Side of Falling by Eunice Chan
Soho Teen
Not real. The mantra seventeen-year-old Nina repeats to herself the morning after her almost-boyfriend, Ethan Travvers, jumped onto the tracks in front of a freight train. The two words that keep the truth just far enough away so the loss can’t touch her, grief can’t break her. After all, there is the family image to uphold, especially when her dad’s startup begins to flounder. Maintaining the illusion of wholeness and success is everything to Nina’s mom and grandma.
The pretense is working—until Nina’s all-star older sister, Carmen, is dismissed from college and abruptly returns home. Carmen’s arrival and strange behavior dig up buried memories, leading Nina to wonder if there is more to the story of Ethan than even she knew. The truth is not what she wants to believe: about Carmen, about Ethan, but mostly, about herself.
Emotionally layered and unflinchingly honest, this novel will resonate with readers who love deeply affecting stories that tackle teen heartache in the vein of Kathleen Glasgow and Laura Nowlin.
You’ve Awoken Her by Ann Davila Cardinal
HarperCollins
Gabi should be thrilled to be visiting his best friend for the summer. But with its mansions, country clubs, and Ruth’s terrible new boyfriend, Frost Thurston, the Hamptons is the last place he wants to be. And then Gabi witnesses a woman being dragged under the ocean by what looks like a tentacle . . .
When no one—not the police or anyone else—seems to care, Gabi starts to wonder if maybe the beachside town’s bad vibes are more real than he thought. As the number of “accidental” deaths begins to climb, the Thurston family name keeps rising to the top. And what’s worse is that all the signs point to something lurking beneath the water—something with a hunger for blood.
Can Gabi figure out how the two are intertwined and put an end to the string of deaths . . . before becoming the water’s next victim?
The Blood Phoenix (Fall of the Dragon #2) by Amber Chen
Viking Books for Young Readers
Two years after Ying leaves the Engineer’s Guild and the ghost of her father’s unjust death behind, life seems to regain a semblance of normalcy. But the winds of unrest continue to stir within the Nine Isles, and the aftermath of a horrific pirate attack by the mysterious Blood Phoenix fleet forces Ying back into the tense political world of the new High Commander, Ye-yang. And soon, Ying, Ye-yang and her former friends from the guild must work together to find a way to outsmart the cunning pirates who terrorize the straits—and the elusive mastermind who’s controlling them.
Meanwhile, Ying’s sister, Nian, now lives in the capital, awaiting the day she will finally marry the High Commander. While her relationship with Ye-yang remains distant, she finds company in her friendship with the fourteenth prince, Ye-kan, and discovers her unexpected affinity for governance and strategy. But the capital is more dangerous than she expects, and when a dark conspiracy arises, Nian and Ye-kan must unravel the mystery in time to prevent the High Command from collapsing from within.
New dangers arise at every moment, threatening to tear the Nine Isles apart. In order to sail through this storm, Ying and her loved ones must make difficult choices amidst terrible betrayals. With the world on the brink of destruction, will they find a way to defeat their enemies and survive? And will it be worth the cost?
The Tournament by Rebecca Barrow
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Gardner isn’t like other boarding schools. They take in those who’ve been rejected everywhere else, they offer a survival skills class that has students killing and gutting animals, and then there’s the Tournament.
A competition available only to seven elite seniors, the Tournament is revered by the entire student body. They’d do almost anything—including completing a series of grueling physical challenges—to win the champion’s cup.
And this year, three seniors make the Tournament more cutthroat than ever.
Max, the ruthless scholarship student who can’t afford any distractions, not even her ex best friend Nora’s stupid confession of love at the end of last year that ruined everything between them.
Nora, who always put herself on the sidelines so Max could have everything she wanted, but might just be ready for center stage now that Max has brutally excised herself from Nora’s life.
And Teddy, the transfer who’s on her last chance and will chase any high that can pull her back from the gaping, dark void inside herself that’s always threatening to pull her in.
If one of them wants to win, then they can’t let anything—or anybody—get in their way.
Goodbye, My Princess by Fei Wo Si Cun translated by Tianshu
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
There is no room for love in an empire.
Qu Xiaofeng has been living in Shangjing for three years now. A naïve, happy-go-lucky treaty bride from the desert kingdom of Xiliang, she has everything she could ever want as the crown princess of the Li Empire—everything except the crown prince’s heart.
Because Li Chengyin is a heartless boy. Cruel, jealous, and ruthless, he has given his adolescence to the cutthroat contention for the throne and, now that he is the heir presumptive, largely ignores his bride in favor of the girl he seems to really love.
Xiaofeng doesn’t mind…much. It leaves her more time to sneak out of the manor to go drinking and riding in the streets, living just the way she wants to. But one day another boy shows up, claiming to be a sweetheart from a life she can’t remember having lived. As Xiaofeng puzzles out the tangled threads of her past and her complicated feelings about the enigmatic, distant husband she loves and hates in equal measure, what she doesn’t realize is that she’s setting a course straight to tragedy.
Because the only place more dangerous than the palace is the crown prince’s court, the only thing harder to be than a king is his heir, and the path to the throne is paved with blood. Power will always have its price—the only question is if Xiaofeng will survive long enough to pay.