Cover Crush: The Steps by Wendelin Van Draanen

The cover for The Steps immediately caught our eye, with its bold, moody colors, two girls facing off, and a looming house in the distance. It screams family drama with a dangerous twist, and that’s exactly what this book delivers.

Fourteen-year-old Ruby Vossen would rather focus on chess than her family’s endless fights, but after her mom and aunt die in a car crash, the rivalries only deepen. Banished cousins, shady step-siblings, and whispers of murder make life at the Vossen estate feel like a high-stakes game, and Ruby knows the only way to win is to make her own moves.

If you love YA thrillers with messy family secrets, shifting alliances, and smart heroines who don’t back down, The Steps is one to add to your stack. It’s out next Tuesday!

The Steps

by Wendelin Van Draanen
Published by: Holiday House
on September 2, 2025
Bookshop
Goodreads

Riverdale meets The Queen’s Gambit in this fun, twisty thriller by an Edgar Award-winning author, featuring a deliciously dysfunctional family with dark secrets and shifting alliances.
Fourteen-year-old chess whiz Ruby Vossen tries to keep to herself. She refuses to be a pawn in her wealthy family’s web of deception.
But ever since Ruby’s mother and aunt died in a car wreck, the battle lines drawn within the Vossen clan have ruled her life. Ruby’s father and uncle became irreparably estranged, and within months, Ruby’s cousin/BFF was banished from her life, her father remarried, and she wound up with a gold-digging stepmom who has two teens of her own—The Steps.
So when strange and dangerous things begin happening on the Vossen estate, Ruby sees only one logical explanation: The Steps are scheming to inherit the Vossen fortune. And as things get more and more intense, it seems like killing is in their playbook.
Luckily, Ruby has her own playbook, and she’s not about to go down without a fight. She’ll even break her dad’s rules to get her cousin back on her side of the chessboard . . . It’s time to check-mate The Steps before they can finish the Vossens off.
Secrets, lies, and lethal threats abound in this clever, quirky thriller by the award-winning, bestselling author of Flipped and the Sammy Keyes mysteries.