Let the Light In (David Fickling) sees award-winning writer Jenny Downham join forces with her son, Louis Hill, to create a powerful story of siblings coming to terms with the death of their father. Seventeen-year-old Leah finds solace in a secret relationship with a married man while her younger brother, Charlie, is tempted by a seemingly unmissable opportunity to make money, their actions ultimately colliding in a shock wave of secrets and lies. It’s a compassionate, tenderly told family drama, with complex, nuanced characters at its heart.
Ravena Guron, a rising star of the YA thriller genre, is back with Mondays Are Murder (Usborne). Returning to her sleepy home town a year after the death of best friend Ivy, Kay is greeted with a sinister anonymous note promising an alliterative crime for each day of the week, culminating in her murder on Monday. Who is behind the threats and what is their link to Ivy? Meticulous plotting and killer twists drive Kay’s quest to uncover the culprit in this deliciously compulsive read.
In The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold (Penguin), a deadly acid rainstorm has decimated the population of the US. Liz, the antithesis of the generic young adult survivalist heroine, is quietly living in the bookshop where she used to work, collecting the stories of survivors and trading books for supplies, until the arrival of spiky fellow survivor Maeve. A slow-burn sapphic romance plays out against the challenges of apocalyptic life in a reflective, poignant take on climate dystopia.
There’s more romance in This Feast of a Life by Cynthia So (Little Tiger), in which two young people, both in the process of figuring themselves out, are brought together by a shared love of food. Valerie, grieving for her mother, finds the food blog of Auden, who is non-binary and getting accustomed to their new name. Told in alternating voices, a relationship slowly builds, at first online and later in person. An intimate, tender story of self-discovery and queer love with beautifully drawn characters.
On a more epic scale comes Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven (Penguin), a millennia-spanning romance about two souls destined to love each other in multiple lives – with the devastating twist that one must kill the other before they turn 18. In her current existence, Evelyn is determined to break the cycle and stay alive long enough to donate bone marrow to her sister. A series of tantalising cinematic flashbacks reveal Evelyn and Arden’s many different incarnations and the origin of the curse. A bittersweet blockbuster romance.
Finally, in SF Williamson’s A Language of Dragons (Harper Fire), the year is 1923 and in an alternative England known as Britannia dragons soar through the skies, protests erupt on the streets and civil war looms. When her parents are arrested, Vivien Featherswallow is recruited to Bletchley Park to join a team of codebreakers challenged with deciphering a secret dragon language. As love and rivalries emerge, so too do more complex truths about everything she has ever been told. An incredibly assured debut of betrayal, forgiveness and bravery.
• To order any of these books for a special price, click on the titles or go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
