Last Updated: September 28, 2023
City of Saints and Thieves
by Natalie C. Anderson
Sixteen-year-old Tina and two friends leave Kenya and slip into the Congo, from where she and her mother fled years before, seeking revenge for her mother’s murder but uncovering startling secrets.
Dark Room Etiquette
by Robin Roe
Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything: popularity, good looks, perfect grades–there’s nothing Sayers’ family money can’t buy. Until he’s kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he’s been living is based on a lie. Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he’s been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him. But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins to wonder if he can escape… before he loses himself.
Girl Forgotten
by April Henry
Seventeen years ago, Layla Trello was murdered and her killer was never found. Enter true-crime fan Piper Gray, who is determined to reopen Layla’s case and get some answers. With the help of Jonas—who has a secret of his own—Piper starts a podcast investigating Layla’s murder. But as she digs deeper into the mysteries of the past, Piper begins receiving anonymous threats telling her to back off the investigation, or else. The killer is still out there, and Piper must uncover their identity before they silence her forever.
Hollow Fires
by Samira Ahmed
After discovering the body of fourteen-year-old Jawad Ali in Jackson Park, seventeen-year-old journalism student Safiya Mirza begins investigating his murder and ends up confronting white supremacy in her own high school.
My Flawless Life
by Yvonne Woon
Two years ago, Hana Yang Lerner’s life fell apart when her father was forced by a scandal to resign from his position as a Democratic senator from Virginia. Though Hana still attends the same prestigious Washington, D.C., school, she no longer speaks to her best friend, Luce Herrera. Her other friends no longer speak to her either—at least not in the open. Behind the scenes, Hana’s classmates hire her to make sensitive problems go away. Now, an anonymous person going by Three has hired her to fix something for Luce. But the job turns out to be about much more than Luce; it involves Luce’s boyfriend, Hana’s one-time friend group, and interconnected secrets that spiral out and back around again. And Hana isn’t the only one on the case: James Li, her former childhood friend, is also investigating for their school newspaper. As the two work together, unspoken truths threaten to push them apart once again. Hana is determined to complete Three’s job, but to do so, she may have to confront mistakes she’s made and her own stalled life.
Queen of the Tiles
by Hanna Alkaf
Fifteen-year-old Najwa Bakri is forced to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend and Scrabble Queen, Trina, a year after the fact, when her Instagram comes back to life with cryptic posts and messages.
The Lies We Tell
by Katie Zhao
During her freshman year at college, Anna Xu investigates the unsolved on-campus murder of her former babysitter, as she and an old rival have to team up to look into the hate crimes happening around campus.
The Restless Dark
by Erica Waters
The Cloudkiss Killer is dead. Now a true-crime podcast is hosting a contest to find his bones. Lucy was almost the serial killer’s final victim. Carolina is a true-crime fan who fears her own rage. Maggie is a psychology student with a little too much to hide. But there are more than bones hiding in the shadows…sometimes the darkness inside is more frightening than anything the dead leave behind.
We Made It All Up
by Margot Harrison
Celeste Bergstein moves to a small town in Montana to escape her past, only to become embroiled in her new home town’s twisted secrets when the school’s star athlete–who is also the subject of Celeste’s writings–is found dead at the mouth of a cave.