Young Adult Fiction

When your best friend is moving a continent away, the last hurrah has to be epic. Rufus and Xandr are sneaking away during the holidays but as crazy as their plan is, it won’t ever approach the reality that is about to hit them.

“What does the end look like? Like that black and orange cloud on the horizon coming closer each day? What I do know, however, without a shadow of doubt, is that this whole thing was a bad idea. Stuck in the middle of freaking nowhere without any means of transport, enough food, or the faintest idea of what’s going on.”

Rufus and Xandr have known each other forever. To call them best friends is an understatement. However, Rufus’s dad decided that his family must emigrate. As these two best friends prepare to wave each other farewell, they plan one last adventure together . . .

Venice, Florida isn’t cool. The vibe in Venice, California is.

It’s 1968 and Jack Walsh has just graduated from high school. A surfer in Venice, Florida, Jack’s dream is to hitchhike across the United States to Venice, California, in search of the perfect wave. Along the way, the naive teenage surfer-wannabe encounters mysterious, beautiful, and terrible strangers, highlighting the social norms and cultural realities of America of the late 60s, transforming the young man into the adult he desires to be. 

In the chaos of disaster, finding other people may bring salvation or a new set of dangers where menace, death, friendship, and love are found in the surprising fissures of a drowning world. 

18-year-old Jack wakes from a blackout to find an apocalyptic landscape, the earth split open and a violent flood engulfing the farming valley where he lives. Orphaned and homeless, Jack begins searching for signs of life. But someone, or something, is stalking him. Through flooded farmlands and mountain terrain, survival rests on a razor-thin edge, the loss or discovery of food and tools the difference between life and death. Jack struggles through a transformed world and into a new life, haunted by the demons and scars of the old.

Set in the near future, Ship in the Sky is a coming-of-age literary work of fiction. Cormac McCarthy's The Road for young adults.

Nestled in the shadow of the majestic Drakensberg Mountains lies Woodwright Manor, a magnificent family estate. Yet beneath Woodwright’s faded grandeur, mystery—and danger—lurks.

When sixteen-year-old Peter Brewer’s unconventional great-aunt Patricia—one of the last heirs to the once-wealthy Woodwright family—passes away at the age of 105, Peter’s family travels to Patricia’s mansion for her funeral. Thrown into the hothouse of old feuds and eccentric characters, Peter finds himself drawn into the web of family secrets surrounding Patricia’s inheritance. Rumors swirl of a hidden fortune, and Peter’s curiosity grows with each obscure conversation he overhears. When Peter and his new friend Larissa find Patricia’s cryptic love letters to a young man, written decades before, they set out to uncover the hidden truths about Patricia's legacy—and how her secrets may still haunt the Woodwright family. 

Falling for Larissa, Peter can't help wondering if he is doomed to torpedo this relationship because of his own foibles. As Peter is pulled deeper into Patricia’s long-buried past, he starts to realize that others at the funeral might have their own hidden agendas ... and seeking to uncover the truth may put him and Larissa in danger of getting in their way.

Mason O’Connor’s suspenseful Manor of Buried Secrets is a gripping journey of mystery, friendship, passion, and the search for buried treasure.

The last installment of the top selling Fiery Spiral Trilogy.

In a dystopian future Cape Town, Teenager Ebba Den Eeden is desperate to restore ecological and social harmony to an Earth torn apart by the warring Gods Theia and her brother Prospiroh.To end the divine conflict, Ebba must guard and return the necklace of four amulets to Theia. Forced to search the utopian planet of Celestia, which is populated by people who died on Earth, Ebba is guided by a magical map and Lucas Poladion- who died in Cape Town saving Ebba's life-, and their annoyance at one another laced with complications... and maybe something deeper.

As Ebba crosses time and landscapes, the God Prospiroh stalks her and will do anything to get his hands on the necklace.The further Ebba journeys, the more difficult the choices she faces become. She searches for strength, guided by spiritual encounters with her female ancestors, all the while grappling with the burden of her hunt and the betrayal of Micah, her ex-boyfriend.

The Fiery Spiral combines mysticism, magic, and time travel in a tale of impossible decisions and the great sacrifices that can come with destiny. A mythical dystopian fantasy that plays out on the shore of South Africa, for lovers of Akata Witch and Children of Blood and Bone.

Bokang’s life is falling apart as his family spirals into poverty and conflict over his father's gambling and alcohol addiction.  

Bokang Damane is a talented outsider, a dreamer, at his prestigious school. His problems mount after writing an essay – not even a controversial essay – on racial or political issues. Just a short paper on suicide. Really? Talk about drama. Now life is just a slog of unsolvable problems. Problem #1: Not black enough for the black kids and too black for the white kids. Yep, that’s what happens when you attend a pompous all boys’ school and live in the suburbs. Problem #2: Family finances are a joke – they can’t even afford Bokang’s initiation as a Xhosa. How can he function without respect, respect that only a Xhosa man commands after the weeks-long initiation ordeal in the countryside? Problem #3: An alcoholic, gambling attorney for a father who expects the world to bend to his will or fist.

Bokang just wants to rap, sketch, and be left alone. Everyone keeps talking about Bokang reaching his true potential, but everyone also keeps getting in the way. So what happens? Boy meets girl – a beautiful girl, Nokwanda. It wouldn’t be a story otherwise. But she comes with her own set of issues. Most of all, Napoleon, her hulking on again, off again boyfriend who has been known to assuage his jealousies with a good old-fashioned beat-down.

It’s a fight to find the flow – a spark to rise above the raging seas of family strife and school pressure and discover a path, though fraught with danger, into the future.

A Booklist Starred Review 

A big-hearted coming-of-age debut about a tiger, a Russian, a model airplane, unexplainable disaster, and a bewildered twelve-year-old boy just trying to find his place in the world.

It’s 1981 in Texarkana, Texas, and Noah Ellis is trying hard to remember. Still reeling from the loss of his father in a suspicious tragedy, Noah is in a tragedy of his own—one that results in another inexplicable death, this time leaving Noah to suffer from severe amnesia. 

After that day, everything changes. Noah becomes an unwitting star in a highly publicized trial. Girls start to notice him, and kids who once bullied him now allow him to run with their pack—at a cost. Standing as always in his big brother’s shadow, Noah also has a little sister he must look out for. But Noah’s still stuck on that day and the accident he can’t remember. As town secrets come to light and summer draws to a close, Noah must find a way to salvage all that he’s lost, and to learn what is truly precious.

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING ANIMATION TEAM BEHIND THE FILMS KHUMBA, ZAMBEZIA, AND SEAL TEAM

2024 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens

2023 ALA Best Graphic Novels for Children

Pearl has always felt more comfortable in the sea than surrounded by the people in her sleepy South African town who always seem to let her down. But when a new friend from below the surface is taken by poachers, Pearl may need a little help after all.

Since her mother left, Pearl has spent more and more time in the ocean, fishing to help her father pay the bills. But when she gets mixed up with a group of illegal abalone poachers and starts diving near a restricted wreck, Pearl meets an ancient sea monster named Otto—who isn’t quite as monstrous as she thought. And when Otto’s enemies come back to finish what they started, Pearl is the only one who can save him, but only if she has the courage to let go of her past and open up to others—including the girl from class she’s got a crush on. 

With her one-eyed pup sidekick and a whole lot of nerve, Pearl may just be able to save Otto and finally tell the truth to her father… and, more importantly, to herself. With vibrant full-color illustrations, Pearl of the Sea is a South African adventure story exploring how we are both bound to and freed by nature, seen through the eyes of a tough teen-aged heroine determined to live life by her own rules. 

On the brink of execution, 16 year old Ebba den Eeden is unexpectedly elevated from the bunker deep in South Africa's Table Mountain where she has lived all her life, believing--as do all the other teenagers who toil daily to make their food and power the bunker--that the world "Above" is uninhabitable due to a nuclear holocaust. Instead, she is heiress to a massive fortune—one that everyone wants to control. While dealing with the machinations of the High Priest, his handsome son Hal, and the rules and regulations of a society and religion she doesn't understand, she must also try to save her three friends, still stuck in the bunker and facing execution any day.

Sixteen-year-old Ebba den Eeden is dealing with all the typical teenage things: first boyfriends, mean girls, overbearing aunts – and, of course, navigating the political schemes of a murderous dictator, running a farm to feed an entire city, preventing the genocide of 2,000 teenagers trapped inside South Africa’s famous Table Mountain, and saving the world from another apocalypse by reuniting four ancient amulets with the help of her ghostly ancestors. Just another day for a den Eeden! In The Thousand Steps, we met Ebba, a red-headed mixed-race teen with a mysterious birthmark who spent sixteen years underground when nuclear war caused massive sea level rise and flooded her home city of Cape Town. Now a second apocalypse is on the way, and according to an old family prophecy, Ebba is the only one with power to stop it. With Hal imprisoned, the Colony running out of food, Micah off leading the Resistance with a gorgeous new sidekick, and the Second “Calamity” only days away, Ebba must listen to her instincts, even if it means destroying the things she holds most dear. Who can she trust to help take down General de Groot and find the missing amulets – and who will betray her? In the second installment of Helen Brain’s Fiery Spiral trilogy, Ebba will learn the impossible decisions – and great sacrifice – that sometimes come with destiny. A dystopian fantasy that plays out on the shores of South Africa, for lovers of Akata Witch and Children of Blood and Bone.

PRAISE FOR THE FIERY SPIRAL BOOK ONE

“This novel will draw readers in with its high stakes and well-developed characters. […] A strong, character-driven work recommended for readers looking for dystopian fantasy with a social justice bent.” - School Library Journal

“A deftly crafted, impressively original, and inherently entertaining novel […]. The Thousand Steps will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to any high school or community library YA Fiction collection.” - Midwest Book Review

“Mixing mythology with real historical atrocities like apartheid, this is a solid tale featuring diverse characters who reflect the real-world communities of South Africa” —Kirkus Reviews

Shaka has fought his brother to the death for rulership of the Zulu. Now king of the southern chiefdoms, Shaka seeks to uplift his people, consolidate alliances, and expand the reach of his power. But challenges both external and internal threaten his rule. A rogue military unit exacts revenge on its enemies. Land-hungry Europeans arrive and ingratiate themselves with Shaka, even while plotting their own path to power. And closer to home, Shaka’s own brothers conspire in secret.

A 2024 IBBY Honour List Selection 

A CBC Spring 2024 Showcase Selection

In the final years of South Africa’s Apartheid era, an unlikely trio—a sheltered white rugby player, a black farmworker’s son, and an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—discover the consequences of knowing the truth and having the courage to speak it. Halley’s Comet is the coming-of-age story of Pete de Lange, a white 16-year-old schoolboy, set in small-town South Africa in 1986. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby— until one January night changes everything. Thrust together with two complete strangers—Petrus, a black farmworker’s son and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—the trio find themselves running for their lives from the vicious Rudie, whose actions will ripple far beyond that fateful night. This era-defying friendship—sparked by a shared secret— challenges everything Pete thought he knew and believed. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever. Halley’s Comet is a story of friendship, love, change, taking chances, hope, a comet, and some pretty cool 80s music.