Young Adult Fiction

Inspired by historical Florence, Italy, and based on legends of the Renaissance-era Medici family, The Seller of Secrets is a YA romantasy novel with a sensory and elemental–based magic system.

On the mystical island of Bardia, Bell Asbury’s sister is dying. A girl with an extraordinary but volatile gift for fusing magical elixirs, Bell was eleven when she accidentally struck her sister, Roza, with a magic that left her with an incurable illness. Six years later, she overhears her sister’s fiancé buying illicit ingredients for a brainwashing elixir. Alarmed and infuriated, Bell tries to end the engagement, but Roza's fiancé is from a noble house, the sisters’ father is in debt, and their mother is eager to have a connection to a powerful family.

Desperate to find a cure for Roza’s disease and an antidote to the brainwashing elixir, Bell uncovers a tangled web of secrets that leads to a man called the Seller of Secrets and his plot to use the brainwashing elixir to force the entire island to obey him. Bell alone can create an antidote, but her experiments risk the sanity of those she loves.

Rian, an infuriatingly handsome spy, offers to help her defeat the Seller of Secrets. Although she knows Rian is a master of deception, Bell can’t stop herself from falling for him. But with so many things changing in her life, Bell doesn’t know who she can trust and who is working to control her gift.

Inspired by historical Florence, Italy, and based on legends of the Renaissance-era Medici family, The Seller of Secrets is a YA romantasy novel with a sensory and elemental–based magic system.

On the mystical island of Bardia, Bell Asbury’s sister is dying. A girl with an extraordinary but volatile gift for fusing magical elixirs, Bell was eleven when she accidentally struck her sister, Roza, with a magic that left her with an incurable illness. Six years later, she overhears her sister’s fiancé buying illicit ingredients for a brainwashing elixir. Alarmed and infuriated, Bell tries to end the engagement, but Roza's fiancé is from a noble house, the sisters’ father is in debt, and their mother is eager to have a connection to a powerful family.

Desperate to find a cure for Roza’s disease and an antidote to the brainwashing elixir, Bell uncovers a tangled web of secrets that leads to a man called the Seller of Secrets and his plot to use the brainwashing elixir to force the entire island to obey him. Bell alone can create an antidote, but her experiments risk the sanity of those she loves.

Rian, an infuriatingly handsome spy, offers to help her defeat the Seller of Secrets. Although she knows Rian is a master of deception, Bell can’t stop herself from falling for him. But with so many things changing in her life, Bell doesn’t know who she can trust and who is working to control her gift.

Fair is foul and foul is fair in a country ravaged by the lies of its monarchy. To claim the crown, Adelina, Seba, and Jasibin must learn to be a little wicked…even if it means betraying each other.

All hail Malves, who shall wear crowns.
On the night of her brother’s murder, Adelina Malves holds him as he dies, inheriting both his title and the prophecy that spelled out his doom. If she’s to avenge him and avoid a similar death, she must claim the crown of Jumaral by ruthlessly cutting down every family member ahead of her in the line of succession and uncover the secret that got her brother killed.

Hail! Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
Ghost-whispering Jasibin holds the key to Adelina’s plan to contact her dead brother—if only his strange magic wasn’t killing him slowly. To fulfill his own prophecy and protect his brother Seba, he must discover the source of his magic before he’s lost to the land of the dead.

All hail, Sebastião, that shall be king hereafter.
Seba is desperate for a way out of Jumaral and the substantial financial debt his dead mother left him. When a witch sees the riches of a king in his future, Adelina’s offer of coin in exchange for help feels like fate, pulling Seba into a fake dating plot with Adelina that hides their sinister plans.

In this stunning, innovative retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in a Portugal-inspired country, three teenagers will stop at nothing to fulfill their destinies.

Fair is foul and foul is fair in a country ravaged by the lies of its monarchy. To claim the crown, Adelina, Seba, and Jasibin must learn to be a little wicked…even if it means betraying each other.

All hail Malves, who shall wear crowns.
On the night of her brother’s murder, Adelina Malves holds him as he dies, inheriting both his title and the prophecy that spelled out his doom. If she’s to avenge him and avoid a similar death, she must claim the crown of Jumaral by ruthlessly cutting down every family member ahead of her in the line of succession and uncover the secret that got her brother killed.

Hail! Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
Ghost-whispering Jasibin holds the key to Adelina’s plan to contact her dead brother—if only his strange magic wasn’t killing him slowly. To fulfill his own prophecy and protect his brother Seba, he must discover the source of his magic before he’s lost to the land of the dead.

All hail, Sebastião, that shall be king hereafter.
Seba is desperate for a way out of Jumaral and the substantial financial debt his dead mother left him. When a witch sees the riches of a king in his future, Adelina’s offer of coin in exchange for help feels like fate, pulling Seba into a fake dating plot with Adelina that hides their sinister plans.

In this stunning, innovative retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in a Portugal-inspired country, three teenagers will stop at nothing to fulfill their destinies.

For fans of Chloe Gong comes a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy in which a young Shanghai woman must work with her ex, the London prince, to save their rival courts—if she doesn't kill him or fall back in love with him first.

It’s been nine years since the accords were established and centuries of war between the Midnight and Dawn Courts settled into a cold peace. But when poison created to eliminate the Dawn Court royal bloodline is stolen, all signs point to the Midnight Court and that tentative peace threatens to break. To prevent war, the Emperor tasks Anna Liang, daughter of the Midnight Court's deputy, with working with Paris, the youngest prince of the Dawn Court, to find out who was responsible and prove Shanghai’s innocence.

But underneath it, the real assignment: infiltrate the Dawn Court’s school for espionage, win Paris’s trust, gain intel, and then kill him—Paris, her first love and heartbreak.

Despite this complication, Anna is determined to complete her mission. But as her bond with Paris deepens and the true culprit is revealed, Anna must decide what she's willing to sacrifice to fulfill her duty, and if she even wants to. 

For fans of Chloe Gong comes a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy in which a young Shanghai woman must work with her ex, the London prince, to save their rival courts—if she doesn't kill him or fall back in love with him first.

It’s been nine years since the accords were established and centuries of war between the Midnight and Dawn Courts settled into a cold peace. But when poison created to eliminate the Dawn Court royal bloodline is stolen, all signs point to the Midnight Court and that tentative peace threatens to break. To prevent war, the Emperor tasks Anna Liang, daughter of the Midnight Court's deputy, with working with Paris, the youngest prince of the Dawn Court, to find out who was responsible and prove Shanghai’s innocence.

But underneath it, the real assignment: infiltrate the Dawn Court’s school for espionage, win Paris’s trust, gain intel, and then kill him—Paris, her first love and heartbreak.

Despite this complication, Anna is determined to complete her mission. But as her bond with Paris deepens and the true culprit is revealed, Anna must decide what she's willing to sacrifice to fulfill her duty, and if she even wants to. 

From the author of Pest—a Washington Post Noteworthy Book—comes a hilarious new novel that showcases the author’s talents at their best.Fifteen-year-old Caitlin Davies’s life is challenging enough. She’s short. She’s scrawny. She prefers Evernote to SnapChat. She’s two years younger than everyone else in her grade. And now her parents are taking the family to the British Virgin Islands (BVI)—for a year—to live on a derelict sailboat, bought sight-unseen from navigationally-impaired cigar smugglers. So when her best—and only—friend suggests she use the move as a chance to reinvent herself, Caitlin has nothing to lose.And it works. People (plural!) in the BVI actually like her, and not only because of the interesting stuff she found beneath her new home’s splintery floorboards. Even Tristan, the cutest guy on the island, is beguiled by her easygoing air and artfully padded bikini top. She just can’t help wondering, though, if New Caitlin and the real Caitlin have anything in common. And when the sailboat’s former owners come looking for their forgotten contraband, she wonders if she’ll ever get the chance to find out.With a fresh style and perspective, and bursting with humor and charm, Boat Girl is a quirky and fast-paced YA coming-of-age story that will have you laughing out loud.

High school senior Hallie Mayhew spends her days traipsing from one lavish Montecito estate to the next . . . spraying ant poison.

Between her dad’s pest control company, her mom’s pond cleaning service and her side gig at Caddysnack (Santa Barbara’s premier small plates and minigolf destination) Hal puts the “work” in working class. But Hal has qualms about gassing gophers. She’s tired of ditching friends to skim dead fish from fountains. And she’s freaking weary of divorced-parent politics. So Hal has a plan: win the prestigious Verhaag Scholarship, go to an east coast school, never come back.

But the Verhaag Scholarship has a proud history of nepotism and a last-minute contender just crawled out of the woodwork. Hal’s parking lot nemesis usurps Yearbook Committee, depriving Hal of her only extracurricular credit. Her Montecito clients are in a defensive frenzy over a rash of estate burglaries and, if her jobs keep making her tardy, she may not even graduate. To salvage her scholarship, Hal needs the help of Spencer Salazar, the dim, infuriating (and kinda hot) rich kid next door. To save her college prospects, she must restore the natural order of Yearbook Committee. To preserve her graduation eligibility, she needs a happy first period history teacher. And, ideally, she’ll avoid death by doberman. Now, in her non-existent spare time, Hal is adding private eye, matchmaker, and rat commando to her list of side gigs and wondering—maybe too late—if she misjudged the boy next door.

“Like The Breakfast Club set during a New England summer...One Stupid Thing captures the nuances of power and self-doubt that shape the lives of today’s text-obsessed youth." —Foreword Reviews

It was just one stupid thing that happened…

Summer on Nantucket island. Three high school friends drinking warm beer on a rooftop. Everything is cool, until a seemingly innocent game takes a sinister turn, and the course of their lives is changed forever.

For a year, they keep it a secret, until the following summer when they meet a mysterious girl with her own dark past who may have the answers they are looking for.

A story about friendship, mistakes, and the quest for redemption, One Stupid Thing follows Jamie, Sophia, Trevor and Violet as they contend with the consequences of their choices, navigate the drama in their individual lives and try to uncover what really happened on that fateful night.

“Like The Breakfast Club set during a New England summer...One Stupid Thing captures the nuances of power and self-doubt that shape the lives of today’s text-obsessed youth." —Foreword Reviews

It was just one stupid thing that happened…

Summer on Nantucket island. Three high school friends drinking warm beer on a rooftop. Everything is cool, until a seemingly innocent game takes a sinister turn, and the course of their lives are changed forever.

For a year, they keep it a secret, until the following summer when they meet a mysterious girl with her own dark past who may have the answers they are looking for.

A story about friendship, mistakes, and the quest for redemption, One Stupid Thing follows Jamie, Sophia, Trevor and Violet as they contend with the consequences of their choices, navigate the drama in their individual lives and try to uncover what really happened on that fateful night.

High school senior Hallie Mayhew spends her days traipsing from one lavish Montecito estate to the next . . . spraying ant poison.

Between her dad’s pest control company, her mom’s pond cleaning service, and her side gig at a tourist hotspot in Santa Barbara, Hal puts the “work” in working class. But Hal has qualms about gassing gophers. She’s tired of ditching friends to skim dead fish from fountains, and she’s weary of divorced-parent politics. So Hal has a plan: win the prestigious Verhaag Scholarship, go to an east coast school, and never come back.

But the Verhaag Scholarship has a proud history of nepotism and a last-minute contender just crawled out of the woodwork. Hal’s parking lot nemesis has usurped the Yearbook Committee, depriving her of her only extracurricular credit. To make matters worse, her Montecito clients are in a defensive frenzy over a rash of estate burglaries, and if her jobs keep making her tardy, she may not even graduate.

With her college plans rapidly derailing, Hal is forced to enlist the help of Spencer Salazar: the dim, infuriating (and kinda hot) rich kid next door. Hal’s willing to do anything to win the scholarship, but her side gigs are creating a tangled web that might keep her stuck in Santa Barbara forever, and now she’s wondering—maybe too late—if she misjudged the boy next door.

From the author of Pest—a Washington Post Noteworthy Book—comes a hilarious new novel that showcases the author’s talents at their best.Fifteen-year-old Caitlin Davies’s life is challenging enough. She’s short. She’s scrawny. She prefers Evernote to SnapChat. She’s two years younger than everyone else in her grade. And now her parents are taking the family to the British Virgin Islands (BVI)—for a year—to live on a derelict sailboat, bought sight-unseen from navigationally-impaired cigar smugglers. So when her best—and only—friend suggests she use the move as a chance to reinvent herself, Caitlin has nothing to lose.
And it works. People (plural!) in the BVI actually like her, and not only because of the interesting stuff she found beneath her new home’s splintery floorboards. Even Tristan, the cutest guy on the island, is beguiled by her easygoing air and artfully padded bikini top. She just can’t help wondering, though, if New Caitlin and the real Caitlin have anything in common. And when the sailboat’s former owners come looking for their forgotten contraband, she wonders if she’ll ever get the chance to find out.With a fresh style and perspective, and bursting with humor and charm, Boat Girl is a quirky and fast-paced YA coming-of-age story that will have you laughing out loud.