Our Most Anticipated YA Books of January 2024

A Fragile Enchantment packs all the pieces that make a YA romantasy sizzle into one delightful package. With courtroom intrigue, heart-thumping romance and a unique magic built around enchanting clothes, this fully-realized world comes to life with dynamic characters and relationships you won’t soon forget.

If you loved House of Hollow, you will love this Krystal Sutherland follow-up, a multiple-POV, witchy, feminist thriller, which is just as addictive as it sounds. With just the right blend of magic and looming stakes, this book has an irresistible hook.

A timely and necessary YA thriller that bandies with themes of systemic racism and racial bias in the modern South, Wander in the Dark also maintains all the hallmarks of a page-turning thriller. This is a tough one to put down.

The unbeatable duo of Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham delivers a meaningful rom-com that meshes the push and pull of destiny with the search for love. It’s a touching narrative with illustrations that deepen the emotional resonance — exactly what you’d expect from this team.

The captivating conclusion to a series ripe with palpable danger, mystery and romance, Destroy the Day is just as imminently relevant to modern readership as the rest of the series. With revolution brimming, the high-stakes tension will drive you to the very end.

The second in the acclaimed Song of the Last Kingdom YA series, Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White expands the narrative, growing into the gorgeous, Chinese-inspired fantasy world. As the battle for the Last Kingdom persists, Lan and Zen continue to feel the reverberating effects in their personal lives.

A YA romance with plenty of appeal for adult readers, this is the story of bad decisions and what comes from them. With comps to the likes of Elise Bryant and Nina LaCour and gorgeous prose, there’s so much to love in this authentically human tale of grief, vulnerability and perseverance.

Emma Lord knows her way around the romcom space, and The Getaway List is a shining example. One grouch and one optimist, with layers shared between them, bring this cheery romance to life.

An honest-to-goodness Cupid is in hot water after falling in love with a human, and it won’t be the last time either. A heartfelt and unique approach to the mythological love facilitator, Okay Cupid is ripe with genuine human connection and characters that walk right off the page.

Sky’s End possesses the holy fantasy trinity of accessible world-building, scintillating plot and an underdog protagonist thrown into a pit of misfortune. This is a YA series that runs roughshod through a wild dystopian world, pulling no punches and relentlessly hooking all who turn that first page.