Peachtree and Peachtree Teen Showcase: April through July 2024

I read 33 books in February and even if I managed to read at the rate all year long, I still would BARELY make a dent in the book mail I get to consider for coverage on TLT. I’m so grateful to the many publishers who keep me drowning in books (floating in books? That sounds less dire.).

This list comes to you courtesy of Peachtree and Peachtree Teen.

All descriptions from the publisher.

The Misdirection of Fault Lines by Anna Gracia (ISBN-13: 9781682635803 Publisher: Peachtree Teen Publication date: 04/02/2024, Ages 14-17)

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants goes to the French Open in an emotionally honest and openhearted novel for fans of Yamile Saied Méndez and Mary HK Choi.

Three teen girls compete at an elite tennis tournament for a shot at their dreams—if only they knew what their dreams were.

Alice is on her own for the first time. She has no coach. No friends. Not even clothes that meet the Bastille Invitational’s strict dress code. There’s only the steady drumbeat of guilt inside—pressure to make the tournament’s costly expense “worth it” in the wake of Ba’s unexpected passing. But will a win on court justify the price she paid to get here?

Violetta is Bastille’s darling: social media influencer, coach’s pet, and daughter of a former tennis star who fell from grace. Bastille is her chance to reclaim the future her mother gave up to raise her. But is that what she wants for herself?

Leylah hasn’t competed in two years, thanks to a back-stabbing ex-friend. Bastille is her last chance to prove she’s ready for a life of professional tennis. But will her fixation on past wrongs keep her from reclaiming her rightful place at the top?
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One week at the elite Bastille Invitational tennis tournament will decide their futures. If only the competition between them stayed on the court.

The Misdirection of Fault Lines is an incisive coming-of-age story, infused with wit and wisdom, about three Asian American teen girls trying to find their ways forward, backward, and in some cases, back to each other again. Anna Gracia, acclaimed author of Boys I Know, delivers with a refreshingly true-to-life teen voice that perfectly captures the messiness of adolescence and the pressures of expectation.

Death’s Country by R. M. Romero (ISBN-13: 9781682636916 Publisher: Peachtree Teen Publication date: 05/07/2024, Ages 14-17)

Lakelore meets “Orpheus and Eurydice” when two Miami teens travel to the underworld to retrieve their girlfriend’s soul.

Andres Santos of São Paulo was all swinging fists and firecracker fury, a foot soldier in the war between his parents, until he drowned in the Tietê River… and made a bargain with Death for a new life. A year later, his parents have relocated the family to Miami, but their promises of a fresh start quickly dissolve in the summer heat.

Instead of fists, Andres now uses music to escape his parents’ battles. While wandering Miami Beach, he meets two girls: photographer Renee, a blaze of fire, and dancer Liora, a ray of sunshine. The three become a polyamorous triad, happy, despite how no one understands their relationship. But when a car accident leaves Liora in a coma, Andres and Renee are shattered.

Then Renee proposes a radical solution: She and Andres must go into the underworld to retrieve their girlfriend’s spirit and reunite it with her body—before it’s too late. Their search takes them to the City of the dead, where painters bleed color, songs grow flowers, and regretful souls will do anything to forget their lives on earth. But finding Liora’s spirit is only the first step in returning to the living world. Because when Andres drowned, he left a part of himself in the underworld—a part he’s in no hurry to meet again. But it is eager to be reunited with him…

In verse as vibrant as the Miami skyline, critically acclaimed author R.M. Romero has crafted a masterpiece of magical realism and an openhearted ode to the nature of healing.

Shooting for Stars by Christine Webb (ISBN-13: 9781682636015 Publisher: Peachtree Teen Publication date: 05/21/2024, Ages 14-17)

A charming romantic dramedy from the author of The Art of Insanity

High schooler Skyler Davidson spends most of her time with her pet rat, Five. The daughter of scientists, she’s determined to finish her late mother’s research on neutron stars. So she teams up with aspiring videographer, Cooper, to film a submission for a NASA internship—all while keeping it a secret from her dad, who doesn’t expect any trouble from his obviously college-bound daughter. As Skyler and Cooper grow closer, it turns out that Skyler’s dad has a new love interest as well: a hot makeup influencer who likes to put her nose where it doesn’t belong. She’ll keep hush on Skyler’s NASA plans, if Skyler agrees to get to know her. Now Skyler’s tangled up in a budding romance, an unexpected friendship, and the stress of having to retake her SATs. Will Skyler’s dream of stars collapse and explode, or can dad and daughter reconcile and change their trajectory?

Lady of Steel and Straw by Erica Ivy Rodgers (ISBN-13: 9781682636657 Publisher: Peachtree Teen Publication date: 06/04/2024, Ages 14-17)

A tenacious heroine with a dark gift must defend her family’s legacy and faith from a handsome enemy, in this young adult fantasy debut.

Lady Charlotte Sand was born to calm the restless dead, but her power has grown unpopular thanks to the newly ascendant religion of the Silent Gods. Worse, her family’s ancestral Guardian, a lavender scarecrow who was once a defender of the crown, hasn’t woken for a new heir since her father’s sordid death. With other Guardians also reduced to pitiful bags of herbs on distant farms, the Order of the Guardians is a struggling remnant filled with political exiles. But darkness stirs in Niveaux, and the spirits of the dead are turning into vengeful wraiths with alarming frequency.

Captain Luc de Montaigne is a pious follower of the Silent Gods, and he comes calling on Sand Manor with orders to collect the magic hearts of every sleeping Guardian. His success would purge the kingdom of the Old God once and for all, but Charlotte proves defiant and triggers a faction war. As an army of the dead amasses and dormant warriors stir from slumber, Luc and Charlotte grapple with a forbidden attraction: kill the other and step closer to victory—or yield to the electricity between them. The hearts they stand to lose may, in fact, be their own.

Juneberry Blue by Candice Ransom (ISBN-13: 9781682636695 Publisher: Peachtree Publication date: 06/18/2024, Ages 8-12)

Taking inspiration from Sleeping Beauty and rural settings, this contemporary magical realism novel includes a mistaken destiny, a dying town, and a determined ghost cat.

Eleven-year-oldAndie Jennings, of Morning Glory, Virginia (population: 8), is set to inherit a matrilineal gift on Test Day, and she plans to use it to bring her dad home for good from his long-haul trucking job. Except her gift doesn’t come.

Instead, Andie starts seeing and hearing unexplained things, and a see-through cat seems to be following her. Turns out, she didn’t fail Test Day. Her gift just isn’t what anyone expected. But Andie’s ability to communicate with the ghosts at the town’s shuttered Juneberry Blue factory may be the very thing that Morning Glory—and her own family—needs.

Anatomy of Lost Things by Shawn K. Stout (ISBN-13: 9781682635872 Publisher: Peachtree Publication date: 06/18/2024, Ages 8-12)

A laugh-through-your-tears middle grade novel about what it’s like to lose something precious. For fans of the Three Rancheros series by Kate DiCamillo.

A necklace. A bugle. A lion statue. What do they have to do with each other? Absolutely nothing unless you’re Tildy, Leon, or Nell. These items matter an awful lot to them. Not because of what they are, but what—and who—they represent.

Anatomy of Lost Things shares the crisscrossing stories of Tildy, Leon, and Nell, of the impossible losses they’ve each recently faced, and the unexpected histories of their prized objects. Written with heartbreaking honesty and humor, this novelunfolds in the tender space that exists between staggering loss and the start of recovery, and it finds plenty of hope and laughter waiting there.

I’m from Here Too by Kashmira Sheth (ISBN-13: 9781682636060 Publisher: Peachtree Publication date: 07/02/2024, Ages 8-12)

Kashmira Sheth’s eloquent verse novel follows an Indian American Sikh boy through a year of change, challenges, and growth

Anoop is many things: a brother, a son, a grandson, a friend, a middle school student, and a budding writer. He is also Indian American and Sikh.

When he joins a new class, separated from longtime friends, aspects of his identity—especially his long hair, covered with a patka—draw attention in new and uncomfortable ways. At the same time, his beloved grandfather in India is nearing death, leading Anoop to think about faith and identity and his place in the world, especially as attacks on American Sikhs accelerate and he is reminded of his grandfather’s experiences during Partition.

Can the tenets of his faith—equality, justice, service, honesty—help Anoop navigate life? Can he even maintain them?

Filed under: new books