No One Left but You


No One Left but You by Tash McAdam
Publisher: Soho Teen
Special thanks to Soho Teen for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
BEFORE
Newly out trans guy Max is having a hard time in school. Things have been tough since his summer romance, Danny, turned into his bully. This year, his plan is to keep his head down and graduate. All that changes when new It-girl Gloss moves to town. No one understands why perfect, polished Gloss is so interested in an introverted skater kid, but Max blooms in the hothouse of her attention. Caught between romance and obsession, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her on his side.

AFTER
Haircuts, makeovers, drugs, parties. It’s all fun and games until someone gets killed at a rager gone terribly wrong. Max refuses to believe that Gloss did it. But if not Gloss, who? Desperate to figure out truth in the wake of tragedy, Max veers dangerously close to being implicated—and his own memories of that awful night are fuzzy.

Both sharp-edged thriller and moving coming-of-age, this gorgeously wrought novel is perfect for readers who want stories with trans characters front-and-center (Goodreads).

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A Pocket Full of Posies


A Pocket Full of Posies by Shawn Sarles
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Special thanks to Scholastic for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
Who will be the one to fall? In this terrifying spin on the old rhyme, a family moves to a seemingly perfect town only to discover that it is anything but normal. The scent of the town engulfs Parker in its perfume the moment she enters the gates. So much so that she nearly forgets all about the life that she left behind and the best friend she abandoned. Coronation is a place where she and her parents can have a new start. And as soon as Parker gets there, its peacefulness puts her at ease. Everyone is nice. The tennis team immediately accepts her. Even the boys are easy to talk to. The only thing that she can’t quite understand is the town’s history―its devotion to the saint, Rosamund, who helped the original town settlers survive their first winter all those years ago. But she isn’t the only skeptic. Whatever you do, hold on tight. Don’t fall down, the boy tells her frantically before the town’s yearly Spring Festival―thrown in Rosamund’s honor to encourage the harvest. But Parker can’t help it. The vibrant festival immediately draws her into the gardens, the rows of flowers, the food, the laughter. Linked together with the other girls, Parker finds herself spinning with the other girls, struggling to stay in sync. Tilting forward, it’s as if her balance has been taken from her. Because Rosamund has been waiting. Parker has been chosen. Coronation’s next Rose Duchess has been crowned, destined to fulfill her role unless she can find a way to uncover the truth. Ring around the rosie For long ago the seed was sown. A pocket full of posies A sacrifice must be made. Ashes, ashes One must die for the town to survive. We all fall down The Rose Duchess must follow in her footsteps. Offering herself up to the flames.

Vengeance is its own reward (Goodreads).

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She is a Haunting


She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Special thanks to Raincoast Books for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.

But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don’t eat.

Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house—the home her family has always wanted—will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all (Goodreads).

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House of Ash and Bone


House of Ash and Bone by Joel A. Sutherland
Publisher: Tundra Books
Special thanks to Penguin Books for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn’t fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what’s real and what’s not more than anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them — then consume them — in order to rise from the grave and live again (Goodreads).

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