In my opinion, A Winter’s Promise is absolutely perfect. It follows Ophelia, a quiet girl with the ability to travel, at will, through mirrors and read an object’s history just by touching it. Ophelia lives quietly as the curator of a museum on an Ark, a fragmented piece of land, floating above the abyss. When Ophelia, against her will, is forced to marry a man from a distant and dangerous Ark, she must uproot her entire life and leave behind everything she has ever known.
One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus is a gripping young adult mystery novel that unfolds after five high school students enter detention, but only four come out alive. Simon, the creator of a notorious gossip app, dies during the detention, and the remaining four students become suspects in his murder. The story delves into the secrets and complexities of each character as they navigate the investigation, revealing hidden truths, personal struggles, and unexpected connections.
Romeo and Juliet, a classic for the ages. The “pair of star-crossed lovers” fall in love, but unfortunately their families are enemies. The lovers immediately want to get married after meeting, and they plan to get married the morning after they meet. The marriage does happen, but not without challenges happening before and after the wedding. In this classic, there are many instances of bad judgment, leading to the Shakespearean tragedy ending that we know.
Charlie is a girl who has been through it. She has a terrible past and deals with it by harming herself. This self-harm got to a point where she was found wrapped in a sheet, suffering and she had to be put in a facility to help her with her mental health. Charlie’s health is slowly but surely improving, until the funding for her stay runs out and she is sent back to the streets, where she was found. Charlie learns how to live on her own, work as a dishwasher at a coffee shop, and how to manage her feelings for a boy who has issues of his own.
Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief is an entertaining story that makes Greek mythology feel modern and fun. The story follows Percy Jackson, who finds out that his father is a Greek god. Percy then must face a challenging quest alongside Athena’s daughter, Annabeth and Percy’s protector satyr, Grover.
The Death of Vivek Oji is a novel that features a small Nigerian village and a young mother opening her doors to find the dead body of her son, Vivek Oji, wrapped in fabric and missing his necklace. As she desperately searches for his necklace and the person who dropped him at her step, she is faced with the secrets that her son had kept hidden. Specifically, his close bond with his cousin, Osita, and his desire to grow his hair long and change his name to Nnemdi, a name that was his grandmother’s.
Nyxia follows Emmett, a 15-year-old who is selected along with nine other teens from all over the world to go to space to travel to a planet to mine an extremely valuable substance called Nyxia. The company that is sending these teens to space is Bable, and they are offering obscene amounts of money for participants. To Emmett, it is more important that Bable provides the best possible treatment for his mom who has cancer.
We’ll Always Have Summer is the third book of The Summer I Turned Pretty series and takes place two years after the second book and follows Belly Conklin, a freshman in college. Belly has been happily dating Jeremiah for two years, but that all falls apart when she learns that Jeremiah slept with another girl after they fought, and Belly broke up with him.
It’s Not Summer Without You is the second book of The Summer I Turned Pretty series and follows Belly Conklin, a 17-year-old girl. Belly’s having a bad summer, she isn’t going to Cousins Beach for the first time in her life due to the death of Susannah, someone who was a second mother to her. Belly cannot get over Conrad but believes that she has completely ruined the relationship. She believes she will never see the Fisher boys again until she gets a call from Jeremiah that Conrad is missing.