Today I want to talk about some sophmore releases I’m excited for in 2020. These are an author’s second book and they deserve just as much love as debuts!
Spellhacker – Jan 21st
Found family, standing up when others would stay silent, and all the queer magic, Spellhacker is a story that celebrates resistance and love. Featuring a queer MC, nonbinary love interest, bi side character and some other smaller but adorable queer characters, Spellhacker is a story of choosing with whom we will take a stand. The world building in Spellhacker is magical, colorful, and detailed. Even though I would probably be an awful magic user, there’s something infectious about the power, the color, and the tension.
I read England’s debut, The Disasters and loved it!
Girl, Serpent, Thorn – May 12th
I fell in love with Girl, Serpent, Thorn from the very beginning. Girl, Serpent, Thorn is a story about possibility, power, and responsibility. It’s a story about stories themselves, the danger and bravery of hope, and the possibility in each word. Soraya tugged at each of my heart strings. Faced with the pain of wanting something we cannot have, Soraya feels the ache and the fleeting whisper of touch. She has imagined dreams that end in isolation.
Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a must read.
Parachutes – May 26th
Speak enters the world of Gossip Girl in this modern immigrant story from New York Times bestselling author Kelly Yang about two girls navigating wealth, power, friendship, and trauma.
They’re called parachutes: teenagers dropped off to live in private homes and study in the US while their wealthy parents remain in Asia. Claire Wang never thought she’d be one of them, until her parents pluck her from her privileged life in Shanghai and enroll her at a high school in California. Suddenly she finds herself living in a stranger’s house, with no one to tell her what to do for the first time in her life. She soon embraces her newfound freedom, especially when the hottest and most eligible parachute, Jay, asks her out.
A Song Below Water – June 2nd
Tavia is already at odds with the world, forced to keep her siren identity under wraps in a society that wants to keep her kind under lock and key. Nevermind she’s also stuck in Portland, Oregon, a city with only a handful of black folk and even fewer of those with magical powers. At least she has her bestie Effie by her side as they tackle high school drama, family secrets, and unrequited crushes.
But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation; the girls’ favorite Internet fashion icon reveals she’s also a siren, and the news rips through their community. Tensions escalate when Effie starts being haunted by demons from her past, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice during a police stop. No secret seems safe anymore—soon Portland won’t be either.
Half Life – June 9th
Teens will be on the edge of their seats reading this story about a girl who enrolls in an experimental clone study.
There aren’t enough hours in the day for Lucille, a perfectionist and overachiever, to do everything she needs to do, and there certainly aren’t enough hours to hang out with friends, fall in love, get in trouble — all the teenage things she wants to do. So when she sees an ad for Life2: Do more. Be more, she’s intrigued.
The company is looking for beta testers to enroll in an experimental clone program, and Lucille is feeling reckless enough to jump in. At first, it’s perfect: her clone, Lucy, is exactly what Lucille needs to have time for a social life. But it doesn’t take long for Lucy to take on a life of her own . . .
HALF LIFE is a fast paced, near-future adventure that will appeal to fans of both contemporary YA and science fiction.
I adored Clark’s debut, Immoral Code. Talk about heists and contemporary settings!
Burn Our Bodies Down – July 7th
Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.
But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.
Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there?
The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.
Wilder Girls has to be one of my favorite reads of 2019 and so you know I need Power’s second novel.
The cover for Burn Our Bodies Down is so cool!
I LOVE the colors – SO FALL!
Thank you for this list! Spellhacker was already on my TBR but the others weren’t prominently on my radar. Just going to add them all to my growing TBR pile.
YAY! I know…the pile is going to bury me one day