New ... (ish!) Books

This month’s theme does what it says on the tin!

Obviously, working in a school library means I have to keep a close eye on new releases to make sure we have the latest in a popular series or a favourite author, but we’re also always on the look out for something new, different, well written (harder than you would think – especially in the young adult writing world!) that would be good for our students. These ones have all been published in the last 6-12 months and are worth a look!

Click here to listen to my segment (Tuesday 13 May 2025) on some great new books on 'Afternoons with Jesse' on Radio New Zealand.

For Ages 10-11

The Bletchley Riddle

By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

Published in October 2024

This is set during WWII at Bletchley Park – Britain’s now famous (but during the war totally top secret), code-breaking base. Siblings Jakob and Lizzie have been on their own since their mother disappeared a year ago in Nazi occupied territory. Jakob has been recruited to Bletchley, and 14-year-old Lizzie has to go with him but she has her own riddle to solve – where her mother is and proving the determined MI5 agent who keeps hanging around watching them, that her mother is NOT a traitor working for the Nazis.

I am a hug fan of Ruta Sepetys’s YA historical fiction (if you haven't read any, rush out now and find one of her books!), and this collaborative piece is her first try at writing for a tween audience, which, unsurprisingly, she does very well. The book is fast-paced, exciting and very well written and the slightly older than tween protagonists will also appeal to the target audience too.

For Ages 11/12+

A Language of Dragons

By S.F. Williamson

Published January 2025

Romantasy is a huge genre right now – these tend to be pretty spicy (a polite way of saying explicit) stories, set in other worlds of magic, prophecy, dragons, assassins and muscular men with wings. This one is not like that (which is a relief since I’ve put it in the 11-12 age group!!) – there is a romance but it is all very chaste and is a means to an end for the story.

This is set in 1920s England – but with dragons. Having lived alongside humans reasonably peaceably for centuries, these dragons are now having their rights eroded, being told where they can live, work and even when and where to bred. The humans in our story are also controlled by a strict class system.

Teenager Viv, is a linguistic prodigy, specialising in the many languages and dialects of dragons, and when her parents are arrested for being members of an underground resistance to the increasingly fascist government, Viv does something very dangerous in the hopes of rescuing her family. This should have landed her in prison but instead she is given a deal by the Prime Minister, work herself – and her family – out of trouble at the top-secret government facility known as Bletchley Park (yes, the very same Bletchley Park…well, not the VERY same, this one is guarded by dragons). But there is so much more going on than she could ever imagine … I mean it wouldn’t be much of a story if there wasn’t! 

This whole story is a blatant metaphor for the Second World War, the class system for the humans is a far more unequivocal and official version of the millennia old British class system, but that is what makes it so clever and appealing. What a great way to get tweens thinking about slow erosion of rights, fascism and how this happens in a civilised society, and they won’t even realise they are studying history ... or, let's face it, the present!

I will say this is a first book for this author and it does show a bit, the pacing of the book needs work, and there is a dreariness to the drawn out way the character finally makes up her mind she is going to do the right thing – we all know it’s coming, so getting there was a bit tedious.

However, the world building is clever, the dragon culture and lore she has created is quite unique and very well structured and the ending made it clear there is going to be far more focus on the dragon world moving forward, which for this story is a very positive thing.

For Ages 12+

Sunrise on the Reaping

By Suzanne Collins

Published in March 2025

Suzanne Collins published the last in the Hunger Games trilogy in 2010 and she finished it off nicely, giving her horribly traumatised, totally broken characters a fittingly peaceful and insignificant ending. However, much like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games remains hugely popular as new generations of teenagers grow up enough to read it. Which means it is still hugely lucrative, and I doubt Collins would have needed much persuasion when her publishers approached her to revisit the series.

But I think she also knew it would be doing her long-suffering protagonists Kaitness and Peta (and her loyal audience) a real disservice to drag them out of their quiet retirement, so she resorted to another very popular trend – the prequel! The first prequel was published in 2020, it was well received but personally I didn’t enjoy it at all, in fact I actively disliked it, not for the writing, boy can Collins can still tell a story, but for the characters.

And now she has revisited Panem again. This one is a little nearer the time of the original trilogy, filling in the back stories of characters we know well from the original trilogy, but unlike her first prequel, these are likeable characters, ones we actually care about and who deserve our interest and attention – in this one we are introduced to all the adults we know from the Hunger Games as teenagers and young people.

Another cast of unfortunate children are forced into another arena of death and events unfold as you would imagine them to, but Collins still manages to make it gripping, new and merciless. An enjoyable read for fans and for anyone new to the series as well.  

All Better Now

By Neal Shusterman

Published in February 2025

Neal Shusterman is a prolific YA author, who writes a wide variety of books from dystopian series to mind bending one offs, and he is very good at it, some of his books are quite widely used as novel studies in schools for years 10-11. This is his latest offering.

The world is facing another pandemic – this time the virus is called Crowne Royale (or CR). But this virus is unlike anything the world has faced before. It does have a high mortality rate, but those that survive are changed forever. They seem to lose their drive, ambition and anxiety, they exist in a state of contentment, with determination only focused on making the world a happier, calmer place and helping strangers. Plenty of people are actively trying to catch the virus, figuring living in a blissed-out state is worth the risk of dying from it. But nobody knows yet the long-term effects or how society will be changed by the spreading of this virus. The story is told through three separate, very different characters, whose stories all converge.

There are plenty of deadly virus pandemic stories out there, written both before and after COVID, but this is an unique and interesting twist on an old tale in the hands of an expert YA author.    

For Ages 13/14+

By Any Other Name

By Jodie Picoult

Published in August 2024

I guess most people would classify Jodie Picoult as writing for adults (I don’t want to use the term ‘adult writer’ as that has very different connotations!), though she does have a tween series she co-writes with her daughter and many of her books are accessible and relevant for young adults including this one.

Her latest and highly anticipated book is her own take on who Shakespeare was.

This has been a favourite debate for generations – lots of people just don’t believe that all those incredible and insightful plays could have been written by the one uneducated man who had never left England that we know as Shakespeare. There have been lots of theories put forward on who Shakespeare actually was, a particular favourite at the moment is that the plays were written by a stable of different playwrights, all of whom, for whatever reason, could not write under their own names, and all wrote under the umbrella of the Shakespeare name. Picoult theory falls near this, she is advocating that there was one primary writer, a woman, which meant she was unable to write under her real name, so she paid Shakespeare, who was actually just an actor and failed playwright lurking around the edges of the London theatre scene at the time, to use his name.

Picoult tells the story from the point of view of two young women – one modern and one historical.  Picoult’s chosen Shakespeare is a real historical person, and what comes across most in the book, is just how much research she has done - she certainly makes some very compelling arguments for the theory in her author’s note. It’s highly unlikely we’ll ever know if there is anything to this theory or any of them, but there is no taking away from the fact Picoult is a great storyteller – this is very readable and the story certainly feels very plausible.  

One point to make – Picoult’s usual genre is not historical fiction and there is a very definite art to writing historical fiction, which is lacking here. Still an interesting and engrossing story, but Picoult needs to refine her meshing of real history in fictional writing.

Click here to access some of my past chats with Jesse on RNZ