We love love! But, as the days fill with conversation hearts, cheesy messages, and Valentine’s plans, we want to balance our TBR with some of loves best pairings: friendship, mystery, magic, and adventure! We’d be lying if there wasn’t a touch of romance in each of these reads, but we promise the stakes are high and the themes go above and beyond tales of the heart.
16 Forever by Lance Rubin
Carter has a unique problem. Every year on his birthday, he turns 16…again.
When Carter’s 16th birthday rolls around for the sixth time, he’s more than over it. Carter wants to grow up, get his driver’s license, move on, but if every year he forgets the last year of his life and his body ages backward, how is he every supposed to do anything? The people around him, including Maggie Spear, the girlfriend Carter forgot when the birthday reset hit him all over again, can only watch the process.
This year could be different though, Maggie can’t let go, and Carter seems to know that something bigger is going on. If they can sort out their memories (and secrets), does Carter have a chance at growing up?
If you like: Time travel, coming of age, high school, second chances
Winter White by Annie Cardi
This modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is all about learning what it takes to survive.
Pia and Max live on an isolated farm in rural Maine with their father. The siblings don’t leave the farm for school, socializing, or really anything. Their father says it’s not safe beyond their property, but when her father breaks his leg, Pia is thrust into the “dangerous” and unfamiliar world, left to make his deliveries in town.
The strangers she meets, including a boy named Felix who seems oddly familiar, will push her out of her comfort zone and challenge the things her father has told her. Her new perspective will put her in the position to change her life and maybe the whole community.
If you like: Retellings, mystery, family stories
Persephone’s Curse by Katrina Leno
Magic always comes with consequences.
The Farthing sisters have always been told that they can trace their family lineage to Persephone. They don’t have proof, but their lives are pretty strange. Things can only get stranger when one of the sisters falls in love with Henry, the ghost living in the attic of their Manhattan brownstone. And stranger still when another sister banishes poor Henry to the Underworld.
Along with being a horrible way to treat your sister’s boyfriend, the banishing might just be proof of the family legend. The sisters will have to work together to bring Henry back and find out who they are. Good thing the stakes are even bigger than they seem. That will make everything so much easier, right?
If you like: Fantasy, mythology, family history, paranormal stories
A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann
The theater has specific kind of magic about it, but the Playhouse is even more enchanting…and dangerous.
18-year-old Riven knows how dangerous the Players can be. Her run in with one of the immortal members of the Playhouse left her cursed and dying. The only way to save her life is to win a competition put on by the Playhouse. The winner gets to take the immortality of one of the Players for themself.
With a prize like that, winning won’t be easy, and a deal Riven makes with the Lead Player, Jude, could put her ahead or it could just make everything a bit more treacherous. Everything at the Playhouse is not what it seems, and Riven ending might not be a good one, if she even survives it.
If you like: Fantasy, theater, competition
They Call Her Regret by Channelle Desamours
Not into Valentine’s Day? What if it were Halloween instead?
Simone Washington is known for her love of horror and her epic Halloween parties. Every year, she throws the ultimate get together, and everyone wants to be there. This year, the party is an invitation-only 18th birthday celebration at Doll’s Head Lake. It’s going to be a night of pranks, scares, and stories (like the legend of the witch named Regret). Or it is until Simone’s best friend Kira dies.
Turns out the witch is real. She appears to offer Simone a deal: release Regret from her curse within fourteen days and all Simone’s regrets will be erased. Accepting means bringing Kira back to life, but failing means Kira will die again and it will be Simone’s fault.
If you like: Horror, Thriller, Halloween, mystery, high school, paranormal
