A New Year of YA Reading

30th January 2022

From dazzling debuts to epic conclusions, 2022 is going to be a great NewYear of YA Reading! And our Kid’s Lit Writer in Residence has got the lowdown on some of the hottest, most anticipated reads from all corners of the globe. #NewYearNewReads 

The Cats We Meet Along the Way by Nadia Mikail

📍 MALAYSIA

In nine months’ time an unstoppable asteroid is due to hit the Earth. Desperate to make amends with her estranged sister, Aisha, her extended family and Fleabag the stray cat set out on a road trip across Malaysia in a wildly decorated campervan to put the past to rest, to come to terms with the present, and to hope for the future.

Publishing February 2022 from Guppy Books

Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan

📍 MUMBAI, INDIA

Given up for adoption after an unplanned teen pregnancy, 17 year old Mira Fuller-Jensen has always felt out of place in her mostly white community. So when Mira finds an old box with letters addressed to her from her birth mother, an opportunity to travel to India for her eighteenth birthday and meet her arises. But is she actually ready for what she will learn?

Publishing July 2022 from Scholastic

The Balloon Thief by Aneesa Marufu

📍 SOUTH ASIA

For Khadija, the only escape from her father’s arranged betrothal is the sky. When she spots a rogue hot air balloon fighting against its ropes, she leaps at the chance for adventure. Khadija soon finds an unlikely ally in a poor glassmaker’s apprentice, Jacob. But soon, a deadly revolution against forbidden magic and ancient djinn threatens their friendship and their world…

Publishing March 2022 from Chicken House

When Our Worlds Collided by Danielle Jawando

📍 MANCHESTER, UK

When 14 year old Shaq is stabbed outside of a busy shopping centre, three teenagers from very different walks of life are unexpectedly brought together. What follows flips their worlds upside down and makes Chantelle, Jackson, and Marc question the deep-rooted prejudice and racism that exists within the police, the media, and the rest of society.

Publishing March 2022 from Simon & Schuster Children’s

You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen

📍 UNITED STATES

After a terrorist attack rocks the country and anti-Islamic sentiment stirs, three Black Muslim girls create a space where they can shatter assumptions, share truths and find a sense of community. But as the blog’s popularity grows, so do the threats and hate, forcing the friends to decide whether to shut down the blog and lose what they’ve worked for…or take a stand and risk everything to make their voices heard.

Publishing February 2022 from HarperCollins

Kemosha of the Caribbean by Alex Wheatle

📍 JAMAICA, CARIBBEAN

Kemosha and her brother have lived their whole lives in slavery. Sold away to work in lawless Port Royal, Kemosha takes her chance to escape onboard the Satisfaction: the notorious Captain Morgan’s ship. With a horizon of adventure, danger, and love ahead, will Kemosha be able to make a name for herself on the high seas and earn enough money to buy the freedom of her brother…

Publishing February 2022 from Andersen Press

Glorious Poison by Kat Dunn

📍 PARIS, FRANCE

The daring and dramatic conclusion to Kat Dunn’s epic 18th century French Revolution trilogy set amongst Paris’s glittering and macabre bals des victimes and eerie catacombs. Duc de L’Aubespine plots a coup that will consign the revolution to history but he’s reckoned without the intrepid Battalion of the Dead! An unlikely alliance with an old enemy might be Camille’s only option to save Olympe and stop the Duc in his tracks.

Publishing June 2022 from Zephyr

Daughters of a Dead Empire by Carolyn Tara O’Neil

📍 RUSSIA

With the execution of Tsar Nicholas, the Russian empire is on the edge of civil war. Anna, a bourgeois girl, narrowly escaped the massacre of her entire family in Yekaterinburg. But now she’s being hunted by the Bolsheviks and her life depends on a young peasant girl who will do anything to protect her family. A thrilling retelling of the Anastasia story.

Publishing February 2022 from Macmillan Children’s

Blood to Poison by Mary Watson

📍 CAPE TOWN, AFRICA

Seventeen-year-old Savannah is cursed… It’s a sinister family heirloom; passed down through the bloodline for hundreds of years, with one woman in every generation destined to die young. The family call them Hella’s girls, named for their ancestor Hella; the enslaved woman with whom it all began. The only key to survival lies in the underbelly of Cape Town, where the sinister veilwitches are waiting…

Publishing April 2022 from Bloomsbury

My Life As A Chameleon by Diana Anyakwo

📍 NIGERIA, AFRICA & MANCHESTER, UK

15-year-old Lily has been sent from her home in Lagos, Nigeria, to a new school and family in England. She thought it would be a chance to reinvent herself but without friends or someone to confide in, she struggles to fit in – and being ‘different’ feels newly dangerous, vulnerable and provocative. Can she rely on the strength she built for herself as a child, in order to save herself now?

Publishing August 2022 from Hachette

Truth Be Told by Sue Divin

📍 DERRY & ARMAGH, NORTHERN IRELAND

Two teens from very different backgrounds – Tara, the Catholic daughter of a two generation single parent family, and Faith, the daughter of strict Evangelical Protestants from Armagh – come face to face and discover they look almost identical. Between them, they set out to unravel the mystery of their shared parentage, but in doing so set in motion a series of revelations about the pasts of both their families.

Publishing April 2022 from Macmillan Children’s

My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen

📍 LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Culinary delights abound, romance lingers in the air, and plans go terribly, wonderfully astray in this gender-bent retelling of My Fair Lady set in 1830s London. Culinarians – doyens who consult with society’s elite to create delectable dishes – are the crème de la crème of high society. But can trio Helena, Penelope and Elijah stay true to themselves in a world that would prefer them to stay on the margins.

Publishing February 2022 from HarperCollins

Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed

📍 CHICAGO, UNITED STATES

Jawad Ali was just fourteen when a teacher saw him wearing a cosplay jetpack and mistook it for a bomb. A mistake that got Jawad arrested, labelled a terrorist and eventually killed. But who was the young boy behind the headlines? With Jawad’s haunting voice guiding her investigation, aspiring journalist Safiya Mirza seeks to tell the whole truth about the murdered boy and those who killed him.

Publishing May 2022 from Hachette

Mark My Words by Muhammad Khan

📍 LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Jawad Ali was just fourteen when a teacher saw him wearing a cosplay jetpack and mistook it for a bomb. A mistake that got Jawad arrested, labelled a terrorist and eventually killed. But who was the young boy behind the headlines? With Jawad’s haunting voice guiding her investigation, aspiring journalist Safiya Mirza seeks to tell the whole truth about the murdered boy and those who killed him.

Publishing February 2022 from Macmillan Children’s

What YA book are you most looking forward to reading in 2022? Let us know in the comments or tag us on social with the handles below! #NewYearNewReads 

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