Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsI believe in a thing called love, Maurene Good

A disaster in romance, high school senior Desi Lee decides to tackle her flirting failures by watching Korean television dramas, where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. It’s a simple formula, and Desi is a quick study. She goes after moody artist Luca Drakos– utilizing boat rescues, love triangles, and staged car crashes. But when the fun and games turn to true feels, Desi finds out that real love is about way more than just drama. (Publisher summary)

First lines: When I was seven, I thought I moved a pencil with my mind. I heard this story about a man who taught himself how to see through objects so that he could cheat at card games. The idea was that if he reached a state of complete concentration and focus, he could do things with his mind that normal humans were incapable of, like levitate, walk on coals, and move objects. All of which he learned to do.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsAfter the fall, Kate Hart

Raychel relies on the support of her overachieving best friend Matt while secretly sleeping with his slacker brother Andrew. Matt tries to play hero and hide how much he loves her. He helps her deal with a sexual assault at a party, and her fading dream of attending college. But when Andrew dies in a fall when the three go out hiking, Matt and Raychel must deal with the gossip and the guilt. (Publisher summary)

First lines: It’s entirely possible Matt can see up my shorts. I don’t really care-my best friend has never shown any interest whatsoever in my underwear – but the only ones clean this morning were black and lacy. Not ideal for rock climbing, and not ideal for a photo shoot, especially one for his school assignment. I shift my position on the cliff face, trying to cover up.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsInto white, Randi Pink

Stuck in a mostly white high school in Montgomery, Alabama, bullied by black students who should be her allies, Toya Williams prays to Jesus one night to be white. Lo and behold, she wakes up “white as a Bing Crosby Christmas,” though the change is invisible to her family. Blond, blue-eyed Toya (posing as an exchange student) is befriended by the white alpha girls and lusted after by the quarterback. It’s great until she realizes that being white means starving herself (size six is fat in her new world), hearing casual racial slurs, being expected to be available to popular guys, and betraying her beloved older brother. (Publisher summary)

First lines: On the way to first period, the cheap plastic strap on my book bag broke. The single pink thread that held on for the first six months of school had finally freed itself, dropping hefty textbooks onto Deante’s spanking-new Air Jordan basketball sneakers. With only a handful of black kids at 96 percent-white Edgewood High School, God let my textbooks fall at the feet of the cruellest one.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsMask of shadows, Linsey Miller

Gender fluid Sallot Lean is a thief who wants nothing more than to escape the drudgery of life as a highway robber and get closer to the upper-class, and the nobles who destroyed their home. Sal auditions to become a member of The Left Hand, the Queen’s personal assassins, named after the rings she wears, in order to infiltrate the court and get revenge. But the audition is a fight to the death filled with clever circus acrobats, lethal apothecaries, and vicious ex-soldiers. A childhood as a common criminal hardly prepared Sal for the trials. And as Sal succeeds in the competition, and wins the heart of Elise, an intriguing scribe at court, they start to dream of a new life and a different future, but one that Sal can have only if they survive. (Publisher summary)

First lines: The thick, briny scent of sweat-soaked leather seeped through my cloth mask. A guarded carriage rattled down the road upwind of me. I leaned out of my tree and caught a flicker of light from a carriage lamp. The carriage’s blue paint shone, gilded and mud-splattered.
I groaned. “Nobles.”

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsWonder Woman: Warbringer, Leigh Bardugo

Diana, Princess of the Amazons, longs to prove herself to her warrior sisters. When the opportunity comes, she throws away her chance at glory and breaks Amazon law to save a mere mortal. Alia Keralis just wanted to escape her overprotective brother with a semester at sea. When a bomb detonates aboard her ship, Alia is rescued and forced to confront a horrible truth: Alia is a Warbringer– a direct descendant of the infamous Helen of Troy, fated to bring about an age of bloodshed and misery. If they have any hope of saving both their worlds, Diana and Alia will have to stand side by side against the tide of war. (Publisher summary)

First lines:You do not enter a race to lose.
Diana bounced lightly on her toes at the starting line, her calves as taut as bowstrings, her mother’s words reverberating in her ears. A noisy crowd had gathered for the wrestling matches and javelin throws that would mark the start of the Nemeseian Games, but the real event was the footrace, and now the stands were buzzing with word that the queen’s daughter had entered the competition.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsBreaking, Danielle Rollins

Charlotte has always been content in the shadow of her two best friends at the prestigious Weston Preparatory Institute. Ariel is daring and mysterious. Devon is beautiful and brilliant. Although Charlotte never lived up to the standards of the school–or her demanding mother, Dr. Gruen–her two best friends became the family she never had. When Ariel and Devon suddenly commit suicide within a month of each other, Charlotte refuses to accept it as a coincidence. But as the clues point to a dangerous secret about Weston Prep, Charlotte is suddenly in over her head. There’s a reason the students of Weston are so exceptional, and the people responsible are willing to kill to protect the truth…(Publisher summary)

First lines: I still think about the blocks.
Their smell seeps into my head – the smell of swadust and chemicals and paint. They used to give me headaches, until, finally, Mother scrubbed them down with bleach and dish soap and left them to dry in the sun. I can feel their weight in my hands. I hear clicks of wood hitting wood as Mother stacked them into their precise, angular tower.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsThe dazzling heights, Katharine McGee

New York, 2118. Leda is haunted by memories of what happened on the worst night of her life. Watt wants to put everything behind him– until Leda forces him to start hacking again. Rylin wins a scholarship to an upper-floor school, but being there means seeing the boy who broke her heart. Avery is tormented by her love for the one person in the world she can never have. Calliope arrives determined to cause a stir.– and knows exactly where to begin. But someone is watching their every move, someone with revenge in mind. (Publisher summary)

First lines: It would be several hours before the girl’s body was found. It was late now; so late that it could once again be called early- that surreal, enchanted, twilight hour between the end of a party and the unfurling of a new day. The hours when reality grows dim and hazy at the edges, when nearly anything seems possible.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsStalking Jack the Ripper, Kerri Maniscalco

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord’s daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life. Against her stern father’s wishes and society’s expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle’s laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

First lines: I placed my thumb and forefinger on the icy flesh, spreading it taut and Uncle has showed me. Getting the preliminary incision correct was imperative. I took my time eye the placement of metal on skin, ensuring proper angling for the cleanest cut. I felt Uncle hovering behind me, studying my every move, but had my view set entirely on the blade in my hand.

Book cover courtesy of SyndeticsThe language of thorns, Leigh Bardugo

Travel to Grishnaverse, a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid’s voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy’s bidding but only for a terrible price. Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love. (Publisher summary)