Young Realistic Fiction

Juliette doesn't hate Priya Pendley. At least, not in the way teen movies say she should hate the hot popular girl. They don't do cat fights, love triangles, or betrayal. To survive their intertwined small town lives, they’ve agreed to a truce. They complete group projects without fighting, never gossip to mutual friends, and stand on opposite sides of photos so it’s easy to crop each other out. Priya seems to have everything during the school year—social media stardom, the handsome track captain boyfriend, and millions of adoring fans—and Juliette is at peace with that.

Everyone knows the Ivies: the most coveted universities in the United States. Far more important are the Ivies. The Ivies at Claflin Academy, that is. Five girls with the same mission: to get into the Ivy League by any means necessary. I would know. I'm one of them. We disrupt class ranks, club leaderships, and academic competitions...among other things. We improve our own odds by decreasing the fortunes of others. Because hyper-elite competitive college admissions is serious business. And in some cases, it's deadly.

Atlas has lost her way. In a last-ditch effort to pull her life together, she’s working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. The only plus is that the days are so exhausting that Atlas might just be tired enough to forget that this was one of her dad’s favorite places in the world. Before cancer stole him from her life, that is. Using real names is forbidden on the trail. So Atlas becomes Maps, and with her team—Books, Sugar, Junior, and King—she heads into the wilderness.

Evil is running rampant, and sweet Anna Whitt is its target. Nobody knows when or how the Dukes will strike, but Anna and her Nephilim allies will do anything necessary to rid the earth of the demons and their oppressive ways. The stakes are higher than ever, and Anna is determined that the love she feels will be her strength, not a liability. But trying to protect the ones she loves while running for her life and battling demonic forces proves to be perilous - especially as faces are changing and trust is fleeting.

Charlotte Kraus would follow Angelika Haas anywhere. Which is how she finds herself in an underground club one Friday night the summer before World War II, dancing to contraband American jazz and swing music, suddenly feeling that anything might be possible. Unable to resist the allure of sharing this secret with Geli, Charlie returns to the club again and again, despite the dangers of breaking the Nazi Party’s rules. Soon, terrified by the tightening vise of Hitler’s power, Charlie and the other Swingjugend are drawn to larger and larger acts of rebellion.

Queer actor Lily Ashton has found fame playing lesbian warrior Morgantha on the hit TV show Galaxy Spark. Lily knows how little representation queer girls have, so when the showrunners reveal that Morgantha’s on-screen love interest, Alietta, is going to be killed off, Lily orchestrates an elaborate fake-dating scheme with the standoffish actress who plays her, to generate press and ensure a happy ending for the #Morganetta ship.

Scoring an invitation for membership to the exclusive Legacy Club in New York City is more than an honor. It gives you a lifetime of access to power and wealth beyond any prep school doors and guaranteed safety and security. So it’s not surprising when Excelsior Prep seniors Bernie Kaplan, Isobel Rothcroft, and Skyler Hawkins are nominated as Legacies; their family pedigrees have assured their membership since birth—even if they're all keeping secrets that could destroy their reputations. But scholarship kid from Queens Tori Tasso? She’s a surprise nominee.

Berlin, 1961. Rudi Möser-Fleischmann is an aspiring photographer with dreams of greatness, but he can't hold a candle to his talented, charismatic twin brother Peter, an ambitious actor. With the sudden divorce of their parents, the brothers find themselves living in different sectors of a divided Berlin; the postwar partition strangely mirroring their broken family.

You don't know who you are. But they do. You wake up on the subway tracks in Los Angeles with no memory of who you are. A backpack is at your feet. Inside is a fresh set of clothes, $1,000 in cash, a phone number, and the instructions "Do not call the police." As you try to figure out your identity, the questions swirl. What is your name? How did you get here? What is the meaning of the tattoo on your wrist of a blackbird and the code FNV02198? There is only one thing you know for sure: People are trying to kill you.

Lucy Clark has had it. After being bullied one too many times, Lucy retaliates. But when the fallout is far worse than she meant it to be, she gets sent to Manhattan to serve as a full-time companion to the eccentric Edith Fox. Edith is glamorous and mysterious - nothing like Lucy expected. Though Edith’s world of hidden gardens and afternoon teas is beguiling, there’s one other thing about her that makes her unlike anyone Lucy has ever met...she thinks someone is trying to kill her.

Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, a book woven from her true story of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee and fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Shannon was given at birth, a child raised by a white, closeted lesbian.

Rhiannon is devastated after the breakup with her boyfriend and wants him back. Nicole's ex is still pining for her, but she can't help having a new crush. And then there is James, hopelessly in love with Rhiannon, who can't see that their friendship can be so much more. Just when things couldn't get more complicated, the school's resident mean girl decides she is intent on ruining everyone's life. James, Nicole, and Rhiannon are not going to let this slide, but will their desire to take down the mean girl bring these three friends exactly what they want?

Over the past five years, Mitra Esfahani has known two constants: her best friend Bea Ortega and The Book—a dogeared moleskin she and Bea have been filling with the stanzas of an epic, never-ending poem since they were 13. For introverted Mitra, The Book is one of the few places she can open herself completely and where she gets to see all sides of brilliant and ebullient Bea. There, they can share everything—Mitra’s complicated feelings about her absent mother, Bea’s heartache over her most recent breakup—nothing too messy or complicated for The Book.

In the room beneath a stage's trapdoor, Shakespeare’s dead teenage girls compare their experiences and retell the stories of their lives, their loves, and their fates in their own words. Bestselling author Joy McCullough offers a brilliant testament to how young women can support each other and reclaim their stories in the aftermath of trauma.

Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school’s breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat’s best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh.

With 128 athletes competing in dozens of matches for millions in prize money, you expect drama. You expect blistering serves, smashed returns, and sliced shots that kiss the line. You do not expect kidnapping.

It’s eighteen-year-old Gita Desai’s first year at Stanford, and the fact that she’s here and not already married off by her traditional Gujarati parents is a miracle. She’s determined to death-grip her good-girl, model student rep all the way to med school. Should be easy: If there’s one thing she’s learned from her family, it’s how to chup-re—to “shut up,” fade into the background. But when childhood memories of her aunt’s desertion and her then-uncle’s best friend resurface, Gita ends up ditching the books night after night in favor of partying and hooking up with strangers.

When high school football star Theo Claverback breaks his leg just weeks after a devastating break-up, he’s forced to call an audible on his summer plans and put his college ones on hold. He soon finds himself in the most unlikely of places for a jock on crutches: the kitchen of an upscale French restaurant, where he’ll work as a prep cook while his heart and leg heal. But it’s in the kitchen where Theo finds new purpose and a new romance. As he becomes a trusted employee to Chef and is welcomed into his inner circle, Theo begins to discover the true costs of running a restaurant.

Before: One year ago, best friends Nora and Julia were starting their senior year of high school, with plans to apply to the same university so they wouldn't be separated. When Dillan Fletcher comes back to town, life as Nora knows it begins to unravel. And then, the unthinkable happens. After: Months after surviving the accident that killed her best friend, Nora Radford is stagnating. Dillan has remained by her side, but he and other friends are starting university, while Nora is still trying to unravel the lies that Julia told, lies disguised as friendship.

Meet the Beacon Street Girls...They're real, they're fun-they're just like you! Who will be the next seventh grade class president at Abigail Adams Junior High? Mr. Popular, Dillon Johnson, is running, and making a lot of promises that are sure to get votes. The Yurtmeister’s in the race, too, but his campaign is a joke, right? Class president seems like a good place for Avery to start her political career. The trouble is, Katani’s in the race, too. Can the Beacon Street Girls survive the growing tension between these two super competitive friends?