There are almost too many great releases by young adult authors coming out this year to choose from. But these 30+ books – including YA romance, mystery, and fantasy – are some of the best YA books coming out in March 2021.
Sophie Gonzales’ Perfect on Paper is a debut YA romantic comedy with a lot of heart. Darcy Phillips has a booming love advice business – and a huge crush on her best friend, Brooke. But when her latest client, Alexander Brougham, hires her in a bid to get his ex-girlfriend back, she might lose the anonymity that keeps her business, and her own secrets, safe.
Jessica Rubinkowski’s debut novel, The Bright & the Pale, is an epic YA fantasy inspired by Russian folklore. Valeria was one of the few to escape the “freeze,” a magical stranglehold which left most of her family and loved ones trapped in ice. She and her best friend, Alik, make it out of Knnot and manage to scrape together a living as thieves – until Valeria is called to save Alik while evading the vicious czar.
Ada is tired of everyone having sex but her – from her cheating boyfriend to her mom, who’s having an affair – and decides to take matters into her own hands in Cynthia Hand’s coming-of-age novel With You All the Way.
Holly Jackson returns with Good Girl, Bad Blood, the highly-anticipated sequel to her smash hit YA mystery, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Pip swears off sleuthing after producing her viral true-crime podcast with Ravi. But another disappearance has her breaking her promise sooner than she’d hoped.
In Karen Bischer’s YA debut, The Secret Recipe for Moving On, a brokenhearted teen finds unexpected bonds, romance, and rivalry in the high school life skills class she’s forced to share with the ex-boyfriend who dumped her and his brand-new girlfriend.
Sweet & Bitter Magic is a queer romantic fantasy from debut author Adrienne Tooley. After a Coven’s curse dooms Tamsin, a powerful witch, to a life without love, she resorts to stealing it from others. Wren – a “source” who’s been hiding her own powers – strikes a dangerous love bargain with Tamsin to save her sick father.
Historical fiction meets YA fantasy in Allison Saft’s LGBTQ romance, Down Comes the Night. Wren Southerland, a healer whose magic has gotten her into trouble one too many times, is summoned to a run-down mansion to help a servant with an unknown illness – and finds that the Reaper of Vesria, an enemy of her kingdom with his own secrets, is her only ally against the darker forces closing in.
Amy Reed reimagines The Great Gatsby as a gender-swapped YA thriller in Tell Me My Name – a heart-skipping page-turner about Fern, a high school student whose world is turned upside down when the magnetic, wealthy Ivy arrives on Commodore Island.
Poet Safia Elhillo explores themes of loneliness, loss, Islamophobia, immigration, and self-love in Home Is Not a Country, a hauntingly beautiful YA novel in verse.
Grace struggles with relationship problems and a potential lifetime prison sentence in Covet. The third book in Tracy Wolff’s New York Times bestselling paranormal romance series Crave, set at a school for vampires and other supernatural students, is as page-turning and twist-packed as readers have come to expect.
Amraeya ni Ansarim fears being mocked at royal court for her background and her disability – but she knows she can’t turn away from the truth, which is that the children in her region are going missing. Rae finds unexpected supporters in a thief and a princess as she searches for answers in Intisar Khanani’s sweeping YA fantasy The Theft of Sunlight.
New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz concludes her fairytale-infused royal fantasy duology with The Queen’s Secret, the highly-anticipated sequel to The Queen’s Assassin. Lilac knows she can’t take the throne if she wants to stay with the love of her life, royal assassin Cal. But things get even worse when the pair is forced to separate in order to win a magical battle for their lives.
Daya Wijesinghe uses her newfound passion for roller derby to help her navigate the aftermath of her parents’ accidental death – and, just maybe, find a new way to move forward – in Tanya Boteju’s Bruised.
Firekeeper’s Daughter, an #ownvoices YA thriller, is Angeline Boulley’s debut novel. Daunis Fontaine, a Native 18-year-old who lives on an Ojibwe reservation, wrestles with her identity when she’s enlisted by the FBI to go undercover in an investigation of a lethal drug after witnessing a shocking murder.
Steven Salvatore’s Can’t Take That Away is an #ownvoices YA novel about a genderqueer teen and aspiring musical theatre star who fights prejudice – and finds love – while auditioning for their dream role of Elphaba in their school production of Wicked.
A Queen of Gilded Horns is the second book in Amanda Joy’s royal fantasy duology set in a North African-inspired world. In the sequel to A River of Royal Blood, Eva flees Ternain in hopes of deciding what to do about the widespread unrest in the Queendom of Myre – as her sister, Isa, to whom she’s now permanently entwined but still doesn’t trust.
Sixteen-year-old Troy Hayes writes a list of 10 bucket-list items to complete before his planned suicide on the tenth anniversary of his diagnosis with obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette’s syndrome in Halli Gomez’s #ownvoices novel List of Ten. But a burgeoning friendship, and possibly more, with his classmate Khory helps him find a sense of hope.
Two teen girls, both aspiring artists, find their San Diego summer infused with romance and transformed into a murder mystery after an elusive third young woman enters their lives in Wendy Heard’s psychological thriller She’s Too Pretty to Burn.
Fifteen well-known young adult authors offer their contemporary send-ups of the works of William Shakespeare in That Way Madness Lies, an eclectic collection of retellings of the Bard’s most famous tales.
Kelly Loy Gilbert’s When We Were Infinite is a romantic drama about friendship, healing, and trauma. Beth’s friends, especially her crush Jason, are practically her chosen family. But when she sees a disturbing act of violence in his home, the friend group has to decide whether or not to close ranks to keep his secret.
In Kate Alice Marshall’s YA thriller Our Last Echoes, Sophia returns to Bitter Rock, the remote island where people have been vanishing for decades – including her own mother – in hopes of finding answers to the haunting questions that plague her.
YA suspense author Natasha Preston returns with the highly-anticipated The Lake, a psychological thriller about two teens who come back to work at the summer camp where they once did something bad…really bad. They tried to forget about it – but when they get an ominous note, they realize that somebody out there didn’t.
Ana Mikhailov, the sole surviving member of Cyrilia’s royal family, turns to con man Ramson Quicktongue for a second time in hopes of leading a revolution and seize the throne once again in Amélie Wen Zhao’s Red Tigress, the sequel to the epic fantasy Blood Heir.
CeCe, a social media influencer, is heartbroken when her girlfriend, Silvie, abruptly dumps her in Jess Verdi’s Follow Your Arrow. When she starts to fall for Josh – a new guy in town who doesn’t know Instagram from TikTok – she’s not too taken aback, since she has always been openly bisexual. But he might be surprised when he finds out who she is.
In Auriance Desombre’s debut novel, the contemporary LGBTQ romance I Think I Love You, movie lovers and diehard rivals Emma and Sophia start to fall for each other when they’re pitted against each other in hopes of winning tickets to a Los Angeles film festival.
Monica Gomez-Hira’s debut novel Once Upon a Quinceañera is an #ownvoices YA romance about Carmen, an unpaid intern who has to don a ball gown in Miami’s sweltering summer heat in her role as a party princess. Throw in her pampered cousin and an ex who wants her back, and Carmen’s summer is turning out to be a lot more dramatic than she’d hoped.
In Pride and Premeditation, Tirzah Price’s murder mystery retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie Bennet is a London 17-year-old who longs to be an attorney. Mr. Darcy, meanwhile, is slated to inherit the reins to his family’s prestigious law firm. Lizzie steps in to help someone she thinks has been wrongly accused of murder – no matter what the high-handed heir has to say about it.
Lighthearted rom-com fans will love sinking their teeth into Lauren Morrill’s It’s Kind of a Cheesy Love Story, a delightful YA romance novel about a teen who’s reluctantly famous for being born in a pizzeria bathroom. She’s been promised free pizza for life and a job at the local pizza joint, but she gets a lot more than she bargained for when she starts to fall for the cute delivery boy.
Adam Silvera’s Infinity Reaper is the face-paced sequel to the New York Times bestseller Infinity Son, set in an alternative version of New York City where the blood of rare magical creatures is stolen to infuse human beings with supernatural powers. This time, Emil has to race against time to rescue his brother, Brighton, with an antidote against the blood potion that’s threatening his life.
In Jillian Boehme’s upcoming YA fantasy The Stolen Kingdom, a harrowing epic saga unfolds when Maralyth, a vintner’s daughter with secret magical powers, and Alac, a reluctant dark arts practitioner and “spare heir” to the throne, are swept up in a sinister plot to murder the royal family.
A girl and boy who were both sexually assaulted at the same party help each other find the magic they lost that night in Anna-Marie McLemore’s The Mirror Season, a haunting YA romance steeped in magical realism.
Sisters Jayne and June couldn’t be more different, but they do agree on one thing: They don’t want anything to do with each other. A cancer diagnosis that forces them to swap identities also leads them to face their longtime estrangement in Yolk, a YA novel by New York Times bestselling author Mark H.K. Choi.
New York Times bestselling author Alyssa B. Sheinmel returns with a nuanced exploration of grief and trauma in The Castle School (for Troubled Girls).
Moira’s parents don’t know what to do with her in the aftermath of her best friend Nathan’s untimely death, so they send her to an isolated all-girls’ boarding school in Maine. But it turns out there’s a Castle School for boys, too – and they’re not too far away.