It's never to early to get excited for a new release and I often find myself perusing Goodreads looking far into the future to see what's coming out down the pipeline. A lot of times all I get for a description is a X meets X kinda thing, but it's finally getting to that time of year when full descriptions are coming out for some 2019 debuts. I spent several hours looking through Goodreads and compiling this list of books that I'm genuinely excited for and I hope to make you excited, too.
I did something similar to this in April of 2016 which, whoah, that's a long time ago, and I'd like to bring that tradition back. Last go around I had a few interviews with authors and I'm going to be reaching out again because that was such a fun way to connect. But, anyway, that's pretty far in the future at this point, but do look for bi-monthly updates on these releases.
Now, without further ado, let's get excited:
January 15th, 2019
Tehlor Hay Mejia
We Set the Dark on Fire is a debut novel from Tehlor Kay Mejia, set at the Medio School for Girls, where young women are trained to become one of two wives assigned to high society men. With revolution brewing in the streets, star student Dani Vargas fights to protect a destructive secret, sending her into the arms of the most dangerous person possible.
Published by Katherine Tegan Books
January 22nd, 2019
Lillie Vale
Babe Vogel has spent her whole life in the postcard-perfect small coastal town of Oar’s Rest, Maine. She works at the local coffee shop the Busy Bean, lives in a lighthouse, and has a tight group of friends she’s known since birth.
When NYC-based artist Levi Keller turns up at the Busy Bean, Babe can immediately tell he’s from “out of town.” Levi is determined to live like a hermit and remain a mystery to the Oar’s Rest natives, but Babe won’t allow it. She takes Levi under her wing and shows him how the Maine locals live.
But as the season pass and Babe and Levi’s friendship becomes something more, they both have to figure out if they can balance small-town living with big city dreams.
Published by Swoon Reads
February 2019
Addie Thorley
Ashley Hearn at Page Street has acquired debut author Addie Thorley's YA historical fantasy, An Affair of Poisons—a reimagining of the infamous 17th-century murder scandal in France. After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, 17-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin begins brewing curatives to undermine her mother's Shadow Society and help her former enemy, Josse de Bourbon, reclaim control of Paris. Publication is set for winter 2019; Katelyn Detweiler of Jill Grinberg Literary Management negotiated the deal for world.
Published by Page Street
March 12th, 2019
Alyssa Wees
In the vein of Pan's Labyrinth meets Catherynne M. Valente, the book stars a girl with horrifying nightmares and a wish-granting witch whose lives collide in the most unexpected of ways.
Published by Delacorte
August 27th, 2019
Shana Silver
Arden sells memories. Whether it’s the becoming homecoming queen or studying for that all important test, Arden can hack into a classmate’s memories and upload the experience for you just as if you’d lived it yourself. Business is great, right up until the day Arden whites out, losing 15 minutes of her life and all her memories of the hot boy across the school yard. The hot boy her friends assure her she’s had a crush on for years.
Arden realizes that her own memories have been hacked, but they haven’t just been stolen and shared… they’ve been deleted. And she’s not the only one, the hot stranger, Sebastian, has lost ALL of his memories. But how can they find someone with the power to make them forget everything they’ve learned?
Published by Swoon Reads
Spring 2019
Joan He
Eliza Swift at Albert Whitman has acquired Joan He’s Descendant of the Crane, a debut YA fantasy novel pitched as a Chinese-inspired Game of Thrones. In a world where magic is forbidden, a young princess searches for her father’s assassin, but must fight against the intrigue and suspicion that besets her own court. Publication is set for spring 2019
Published by Albert Whitman
Summer 2019
Isabel Sterling
Razorbill has acquired Isabel Sterling's These Witches Don't Burn. The contemporary fantasy features a teen witch living in modern-day Salem who discovers that the tension with her ex-girlfriend doesn't much matter when there's a Blood Witch on the loose. To stop the attacks and score a second date with the new girl in town, she must uncover who's causing the deadly fires before her coven is destroyed. The first book is scheduled for summer 2019.
Published by Razorbill
Kosoko Jackson
Pitched as Code Name Verity meets Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, this #ownvoices historical thriller follows two boys who can only rely on each other as they travel through war-torn Kosovo. Set to release in summer 2019.
Published by Sourcebooks Fire
Fall 2019
Kelly Coon
Delacorte has bought GRAVEMAIDENS, Kelly Coon's YA fantasy debut and a sequel, in a preempt, in a six-figure deal. In a city-state where girls are selected to join fallen kings as Sacred Maidens in the Netherworld—a dark tradition that is seen as an honor but is, in actuality, a death sentence—a healer's apprentice is determined to save her sister from this fate. Publication is planned for fall 2019.
Published by Delacorte
2019
Emily A Duncan
Something dark and holy...
Published by Wednesday Books
Swati Teerdhala
Esha hates the soldiers of the Blood Fort, especially the ruthless General Hotha. Determined to avenge her family after the royal coup, she becomes the legendary rebel spy known as the Viper. Her goal? Kill General Hotha and topple the Pretender King from his blood-soaked throne.
Kunal is the sole nephew of General Hotha, who put him on the path of a soldier eleven years ago, expecting him to follow in his footsteps. It’s a path of unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the Pretender King which Kunal has no choice but to follow.
When Esha’s mission puts her in Kunal's crosshairs, she expects to fight for her life. Instead, his unexpected kindness gives her opportunity to complete her mission.
Except that the General is already dead and the Viper's been framed for the assassination. A game is already in play — but who's moving the pieces?
Through desert towns and lush jungles, Kunal and Esha play a cat and mouse game. Beliefs are thrown into question. Choices must be made. And both the soldier and the rebel must decide— loyalty to their old lives or to a love that's made them dream of new ones.
Published by Katherine Tegan Books
Amelie Wen Zhao
A fugitive princess with the power to control blood. A black-hearted conman with no past and no future. An Empire spiraling into darkness. A world worth saving.
The Cyrilian Empire: a glittering white sprawl of frozen tundras and ancient, snow-capped forests, where ice spirits roam beneath the flickering northern lights, and where slavers hunt Affinites -- those born with powers to manipulate elements.
Born with an horrifying Affinity to blood, Anastacya Mikhailov has never believed herself to be anything more than a monster. Her curse rings true when an accident in the dead of the night results in the death of her father, the Emperor of Cyrilia -- and she is sentenced for his murder.
But Ana knows what she saw that night: the scent of poison in Papa’s blood, and the face of a murderer vanishing into the dark.
Alone, hunted, and on the run, Ana makes a bargain with Ramson Quicktongue, a handsome yet dangerous underground crime lord: help her find the true murderer and clear her name in exchange for her alliance.
When Ana’s search lands her in the lair of the most powerful slave trader in the Empire, she uncovers a horrifying truth. A new monarch stands poised to lead the empire to a path of hatred and divisiveness, and Ana must stop her before Cyrilia falls to darkness. But first, she must come to terms with the monster she thinks she is and the heir she was destined to be.
In a world where the princess is the monster, oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray... comes a dark Anastasia retelling that explores love, loss, fear, and divisiveness, and how ultimately it is our choices that define who we are.
Published by Delacorte Press
Kat Cho
Set in modern-day Seoul and based on Korean mythology. A girl who must kill to survive falls in love with a boy after she rescues him from a goblin, changing the course of her immortal life.
Published by Penguin Teen
Mara Rutherford
No one who lives in the ocean village of Varenia has ever set foot on land, including seventeen-year-old twins Nor and Zadie. Thanks to a scar from a childhood accident, Nor has always known Zadie will be chosen as the future queen of Ilara, a kingdom all other Varenians are forbidden to enter.
But a twist of fate just days before Zadie’s departure leads Nor to go in her place. Having grown up listening to tales of Ilara’s wealth and beauty, she is dismayed to discover that while Varenians live long, healthy lives, thanks to the blood coral that grows in their waters, the Ilareans are weak from decades spent in their dark, cave-like castle. The crown prince, Ceren, makes it clear he is only marrying Nor to strengthen the royal bloodlines and will stop at nothing to harvest the pearls the Varenians trade for survival.
As Nor comes to know Ceren’s younger half-brother, Talin, she begins to piece together the puzzle of why the Varenians continue to grow poorer at the hands of the Ilareans, and the truth behind the last Varenian queen’s fate. But when Ceren finds the key to strengthening his blood lies within the Varenians themselves, Nor must fight for something far more important than the livelihood of her people: their lives.
Published by Harlequin Teen
Astrid Scholte
A divided nation. Four Queens. A ruthless pickpocket. A noble messenger. And the murders that unite them.
Get in quick, get out quicker.
These are the words Keralie Corrington lives by as the preeminent dipper in the Concord, the central area uniting the four quadrants of Quadara. She steals under the guidance of her mentor Mackiel, who runs a black market selling their bounty to buyers desperate for what they can’t get in their own quarter. For in the nation of Quadara, each quarter is strictly divided from the other. Four queens rule together, one from each region:
Toria: the intellectual quarter that values education and ambition
Ludia: the pleasure quarter that values celebration, passion, and entertainment
Archia: the agricultural quarter that values simplicity and nature
Eonia: the futurist quarter that values technology, stoicism and harmonious community
When Keralie intercepts a comm disk coming from the House of Concord, what seems like a standard job goes horribly wrong. Upon watching the comm disks, Keralie sees all four queens murdered in four brutal ways. Hoping that discovering the intended recipient will reveal the culprit – information that is bound to be valuable bartering material with the palace – Keralie teams up with Varin Bollt, the Eonist messenger she stole from, to complete Varin’s original job and see where it takes them.
Published by Putnam
Anna Bright
Pitched as Cinderella meets The Odyssey and The Selection.
When Selah, Seneschal-elect of Potomac, is publicly rejected on the eve of her engagement, her stepmother forces her to set sail across the Atlantic with an itinerary full of suitors to court before she can return home. But as she navigates the rough waters of political alliances, friendship, and love, Selah realizes that her stepmother has her own dark motives for sending her on the journey.
Published by Harper Teen
Gita Trelease
Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries—and magicians...
When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail, naive sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic—la magie domestique—Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
With the dark magic she learned from her mother, Camille transforms herself into the ‘Baroness de la Fontaine’ and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for la magie. Her resentment of the rich at odds with the allure of glamour and excess, Camille is astonished to find that her would-be suitor Lazare, a handsome young inventor whom she thought shared her dreams of liberty, is also leading a double life.
As the Baroness de la Fontaine, Camille gambles at cards and flirts, desperate to maintain her place at court and keep herself and her sister off the streets. But la magie has its costs. When a scheming courtier blackmails her and Lazare’s affections shift, Camille loses control of her secrets. Then revolution erupts, and she must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, reality or la magie—before Paris burns…
ENCHANTÉE is a thrilling YA historical fantasy that combines the decadence of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette with the dangerous enchantments of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Published by Flatiron
*book descriptions taken from Goodreads; titles linked to Goodreads
Posts
Wow, you are looking far ahead. :) I’m so bad at paying attention to new releases. Next year sounds like a good year for historical fiction. Some of these sound amazing.
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!
Haha yeah I may get a bit carried away with how far ahead I look. Indeed there are a lot of historical fiction seeming to come out! It's a genre I don't tend to read much of but I'm also super excited to dive into. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteI will admit I have a few of these on the Goodreads TBR, but of course, I added another from your list. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYay! Thanks for stopping by :)
Delete