Cover Crush: We Were Never Here by Sophia Hannan

We cannot stop looking at this cover. We Were Never Here by Sophia Hannan splits a face right down the middle, one half a classical painted portrait like something hanging in a museum, the other half a modern girl with green hair clutching wilted flowers. Same face, two different centuries, framed in ornate gold with the title dripping down the center in neon green. It looks like something you would find in a haunted house, which tracks because that is basically the plot. Georgia and Jules are secret girlfriends, ghost hunters, and art thieves who step into a haunted manor to steal a painting and wake up hours later with a knife in Jules’s chest and no memory of what happened. Sapphic YA horror debut, out July 28th and already on our TBR!

We Were Never Here

by Sophia Hannan
Published by: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
on July 28, 2026
Genres: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Mystery, Paranormal, Thriller, Young Adult
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The remaining members of a ghost hunting show return to the haunted manor that may have killed their friend in this atmospheric, contemporary gothic debut perfect for fans of She Is a Haunting and Delicious Monsters.

In July, Georgia Perry and Jules Park—secret girlfriends, covert art thieves, and cohosts of a popular YouTube ghost hunting show—step into a haunted house to steal a priceless painting. A few short hours later, there’s a knife in Jules’s chest and Georgia is waking up in a pool of blood with no painting and no memory of how she got there.

Now it’s October, and Georgia is underwater. She hasn’t been to class in weeks, and she’s avoiding her old crew—and only friends—like the plague. But when the three remaining thieves get a call from the man who paid a hefty sum to keep them out of jail, demanding that they return to finish the job, Georgia has no choice but to return to her old life.

As the estranged friends scramble to steal the painting with no cover story and no leader, they quickly realize that something is very, very wrong, and it’s not just the suffocating memory of Jules or the prying eyes of their viewers. Between the strange shadows that begin to trail them and the nightmares plaguing Georgia’s sleep, only one thing is certain: something followed them home from De Lys manor, and it will do anything to keep them from going back.