What authors received YA book deals this month?
Contemporary
Zara Lisbon’s Fake Plastic Girl and an untitled sequel sold to Henry Holt to winter 2019. Inspired by The Great Gatsby, the novels are set in the 21st-century world of the Rich Kids of Instagram, Hollywood style.
Maxine Kaplan’s noir The Accidental Bad Girl sold to Abrams for publication in spring 2018. Good girl Kendall discovers her bad side after getting caught “in the act” with her best friend’s boyfriend by the senior class before finding herself at the center of a shady drug line, and with more than just her reputation on the line.
Marci Curtis’s The Leading Edge of Now sold to KCP Loft for publication in fall 2018. A 17-year-old girl returns to a small coastal town and is confronted by her former best friend, an ex-boyfriend, and a tragic secret in a story where the truth unfolds and decisions could destroy the people she loves.
Nancy Richardson Fischer’s Fly sold to Harlequin Teen for publication in fall 2018. A teenage girl whose struggle with her mother’s mental health is brought into focus when an internship forces her to consider the fate of a baby elephant rejected by its mother.
Alex Villasante’s The Grief Keeper sold to Puntam for publication in spring 2019. Sisters Marisol and Gabriella Morales who make it across the Mexican border only to learn their request for asylum is being denied, unless Marisol participates in a human study for a cutting-edge PTSD treatment.
Alisha Sevigny’s Summer Constellations sold to KCP Loft for publication in spring 2018. A young woman trying to keep developers from buying her family’s cherished summer campground, and who is dealing with her summer love showing up with a new girlfriend, finds distraction in a handsome boy – whose father is the developer.
Natasha Sinel’s Soulstruck for publication in spring 2018. A teenage girl struggles to navigate her relationships with her best friend, her family, and boys.
Historical
Kester “Kit” Grant’s A Court Of Miracles trilogy sold to Knopf for publication in fall 2018. A young thief named Eponine goes head-to-head with the nobility and Paris’s criminal underground to save the life of her sister Cosette in a story pitched as Les Miserables meets The Jungle Book.
Matt Boren’s Folded Notes from High School for publication in spring 2018. Set in the ’90s, a status-obsessed senior unexpectedly falls for a freshman because of his Danny Zuko audition for their high school production of Grease.
Jennifer A. Nielsen’s Resistance sold to Scholastic for publication in fall 2018. Resistance follows Jewish teenagers who pioneer new ways to fight Nazis in WWII Poland.
Sci-Fi
Emma Burquist’s Devils Unto Dust for publication in spring 2018. A girl overcomes a deadly virus that has infected thousands for the survival of her family – and maybe the world – in this alternative history of the West.
Fantasy
John Schoffstall’s Half-Witch sold to Small Beer Press for publication in summer 2018. A girl must cross mountains in order to save her charming fraudster father with her only hope for survival being a young witch who hates every one and whose magic is infectious.
Sally Green’s The Smoke Thieves, the first in a new series, sold to Viking for publication for 2018. It’s a fantasy series set against a backdrop of warring kingdoms and mysterious magic.
Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell’s A Sky Without Stars and Between Burning Worlds, the first two books in the System Divine series, sold to Simon Pulse for publication in spring 2019 and spring 2020. Les Miserables meets The Lunar Chronicles in a story following three teens from different backgrounds amid revolution on the French planet-colony of Laterre.
Tianxia Banchang’s The City of Sand sold to Delacorte Press for publication in fall 2017. The first in his bestselling Ghost Candle series, it follows a teenage boy and his best friend as they lead a group of archeologists into China’s Taklimakan Desert in search of the lost city of Jingjue.
Natasha Ngan’s Girls of Paper and Fire sold to Little Brown’s Jimmy Patterson imprint for publication in spring 2018. Inspired by Asian mythology, Lei is taken from a remote village to serve in the Demon King’s court, but falling in love with another servant puts both of their lives in jeopardy.
Jeff Vandermerr’s Jonathan Lambshead and the Golden Sphere with no set publication date, though two more books will follow in the planned trilogy. A boy inherits grandfather’s masnion, uncovering strange doors that provide evidence his grandfather did not die of natural causes – and that an alternate Europe immersed in a war fought with dark magic exists.
Django Wexler’s Deepwalker for publication in winter 2019. A teenage girl trained in the art of combat magic is blackmailed into stealing a legendary ghost ship.
Natalie C. Parker’s Seafire sold to Razorbill for publication in fall 2018. An all-female ship decides to take down a corrupt warlord’s powerful fleet.
Adrienne Young’s The Sky in the Deep sold to Wednesday Books for publication in spring 2018. This Viking Age-inspired fantasy explores a young warrior’s journey after her brother commits an act of betrayal.
Kiersten White will pen a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series for Simon Pulse, the first to be published in fall 2018. The Slayer series will feature “a new slayer from the group of potentials what Willow used her Wicca skills to awaken in the show’s final episode.”
Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone sold to Henry Holt for publication in early 2018; a movie deal was penned at the same time. This fantasy pulls from African culture to tackle issues of race and power.
Genre Unspecified
Tara Wilson Redd’s The Museum of Us sold to Random House’s Wendy Lamb Books imprint for publication in summer 2018. Sadie survives an accident but finds her world forever changed when it reveals her secret life and the mysterious boy at the center of it
Nonfiction
The anthology Nevertheless, We Persisted sold to Knopf for publication in fall 2018. The collection of essays will feature politicians, activists, athletes, business leaders and more talking about their teen years when they were held back due to their race, gender, sexual orientation or other reasons.
Our Stories, Our Voices sold to Simon Pulse for publication in summer 2018. Edited by Amy Reed, the anthology will highlight YA authors exploring experiences of injustice, empowerment, and growing up as a woman in America.
Steve Hofstetter’s True Stories of a High School Dork for publication in spring 2018. The essay collection will highlight the YouTube comedian’s tragicomic high school years.
Melba Patillo Beals’ March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine sold to HMH for publication in January 2018. The prequel to her adult memoir highlights her childhood and personal struggles to combat unjust laws.
