Young Adult New Releases August 4th 2026
Happy August! There are a lot of YA books coming out this week and this month, the fall releases are upon us! So start building your fall TBRs with these thrillers and other summerween finds.
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Wings of Reverie (Wings of Pixie Hollow, #2)
by Anna BrightPublished by: Disney Press
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Fantasy, Media Tie-In, Young Adult
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Centuries after the events of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wings of Starlight, two fairies must battle a dangerous magic—and their growing feelings for each other—in order to save their home in the Winter Woods of Pixie Hollow.
When frost fairy Periwinkle travels too close to the forbidden border where Spring meets the Winter Woods, she unknowingly discovers a thread of a lost magic. And, for the first time, she begins to dream. While Periwinkle’s dreams start sweet, they slowly morph into more disastrous visions of the Pixie Dust Tree—the life source for all of Pixie Hollow—destroyed. Soon Periwinkle is confronted by a sparrow man who knows two secrets: one, that Peri has been dreaming, and two, that the Winter Woods is in terrible danger.
The infuriatingly handsome stranger introduces himself as Weaver, claiming to be a dream-talent, the last of his kind. There's a chance he can spin Periwinkle's dreams into dream thread which could protect the Pixie Dust Tree. But to do so, they will have to embark on a quest to find a magic spindle and scissors in the legendary lost fairy workshops of dream-talents past.
Peri begins a reluctant journey with Weaver through the uncharted heart of the Winter Woods. But dreaming is dangerous, and as Peri’s dreams begin to unravel, she will start to question everything she thought she knew. For in Winter even beautiful things can hurt you… and Weaver is no exception.
Return to Pixie Hollow with this exciting new story set in the world of Wings of Starlight several hundred years in the future.
Immortal Game
by Allison SaftPublished by: Wednesday Books
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, Young Adult
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In #1 New York Times bestseller Allison Saft’s enthralling new romantic fantasy, a chess grandmaster will go to any length to save the person she loves the most.
Six years ago, Shea Fury’s sister was whisked away by the High King of the Otherworld, the ruler of the treacherous land of fae. Although Shea has spent the years since dreaming of rescuing her sister from captivity, the Iron Veil that separates the human world from that of the fae has made it only a wish. That is, until an invitation to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime chess tournament in the Otherworld arrives on Shea’s doorstep. The winner of the tournament may ask the High King to grant one wish, and Shea is finally within reach of hers.
But entering the tournament and winning it are two different matters. Dark magic lurks around every corner in the Otherworld, and Shea’s cutthroat opponents are willing to bend the rules to make their own wishes come true. To make it to the end—and to find her sister—she is forced to strike an alliance with her longtime rival, the sharply beautiful fae princess, Ciara of Bri Leith. One wrong move, though, and Shea could lose more than just the competition: She’d lose her sister, her dignity, and maybe even her life.
In Immortal Game, Allison Saft has written a high-stakes sapphic love story brimming with competitive tension set against a lush, Irish folklore-inspired fantasy world.
Fire to the Stars
by Morgan J. WatchornPublished by: Knopf Books for Young Readers
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
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In a kingdom cursed to turn people into dragons, two teens from opposite worlds, each with nothing left to lose, form an uneasy alliance. Told in dual perspectives, this sweeping debut follows their search for redemption and the slow-burning bond that could save them both.
Every month, the kingdom of Florent braces for the Ignition: a solar event that turns ordinary humans into vicious dragon shifters. And anyone can be a dragon's next victim.
Claire knows this all too well because the Ignition consumed her and her father, her town, and the life she thought she’d have. Now, she's scraping by on her wits as part of a sisterhood of thieves—lying, stealing, her heart locked tight—until she tracks down a disgraced dragon slayer who may be the one person who can give her back the life she once had.
Abel has been shunned by the prestigious Slayers Guild for conducting research that’s too...unorthodox to condone. But there’s no one Claire trusts more than a rulebreaker, and that research might be the one thing that could help her. So when Abel reveals he is hunting again, Claire tries to hire him under false pretenses. Abel, however, is reluctant to accept a job from a criminal, no matter how charming she is. And yet...he really needs the money.
Together, Claire and Abel will race through Florent and uncover dangerous secrets in their quests for forgiveness—and survival. But that knowledge may cost them the very thing they’ve grown desperate to protect: each other.
Killing Sadie
by Rachel PetersonPublished by: Simon Pulse
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Thriller, Young Adult
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Perfect for fans of How to Survive Your Murder and Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets, this young adult thriller unspools the truth behind a tragic murder through multiple unreliable narrators who all have secrets to keep.
Here’s what we do know: there was another infamous barn party at the McClain family farm last night, and things went horribly wrong. By the end of the night, there were two dead bodies in the old barn: seventeen-year-old Sadie Cooper and her killer, Mason Vreeland. The murder was heartbreakingly witnessed by Sadie’s twin sister, Jayne, and Sadie died in her arms. Mason was killed by Sadie’s boyfriend, Ben, in an attempt to save Sadie.
Aside from figuring out Mason’s motive, it should be an open and shut case.
But it’s not.
The story unfolds just after the murders, and Jayne, Ben, and Sadie’s best friend, Liz, are telling the cops what transpired at the party and the events leading up to it. But little details don’t match. And those little details start to add up to big discrepancies. But who’s lying, and why?
The shocking truth is revealed in the third act, when the POV shifts to victim Sadie herself, in the days leading up to the party. Witness exactly what happened—and see if you can piece it all together. Because poor Sadie totally missed what was right in front of her.
Find My Way Down to You
by Julian WintersPublished by: Viking Books for Young Readers
on August 4, 2026
Genres: LGBTQIA+, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult
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You've Reached Sam meets Hadestown in this enchanting, intoxicating romance across the mortal world and the underworld.
Eighteen-year-old August is trying to navigate life after the sudden death of his boyfriend left him devastated, aimless, and feeling guilty. Years after the tragic accident, August mistakenly stumbles into a world beyond his own—the Underworld. Unlike his own gray existence, the underworld is a lavish extravagant place, full of mystery and a flurry of charismatic gods, all curious about August's arrival in their world.
Realizing right away the opportunity in front of him, August goes searching for his lost love, guided by Cary, the smoldering, broody ferrier of souls. But the more time August spends down below, the more his intentions begin to blur. Is he visiting this realm to reunite with his soulmate? Or is he desperately, inexplicably, intoxicatingly drawn to Cary? With his own world in pieces and a dangerously seductive realm promising him a new existence at a heavy cost, August must choose: a life with grief or a love that might destroy him.
The Killing Rules
by Bree DespainPublished by: Entangled: Mayhem Books
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Young Adult
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Seventeen-year-old Harper Westbrook isn’t afraid of monsters…she is one.
For the past three years, she’s been one of the Blood Bound―girls and women cursed with a bloodlust only satisfied by killing terrible men. Once every three months, she trades in her pom-poms for a lethal throwing axe. Her life is led by a strict set of rules to keep her dark secret as hidden as the bodies she buries.
And her number one rule? Stay away from Grayson Jones.
The boy she was totally falling for until the night her curse manifested, everything went horribly wrong, and she killed his father. It was self-defense. Or at least that’s what she keeps telling herself.
Grayson is an investigative reporter for their school paper, and he’ll stop at nothing to find the truth behind his father’s gruesome death.
As he follows new clues down darker and darker paths―to an unbelievable world of mythical beasts and the men who hunt them―Grayson doesn’t realize he’s on a collision course with Harper’s biggest secrets. Now, she must stop him before he exposes her family to the Hunters, even if it means risking her life and heart.Because who could ever love a monster like her?
Gingerbread Bones
by Lindsay LovisePublished by: Entangled: Mayhem Books
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Young Adult
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They're being hunted…
When sixteen-year-old Georgie and her troublemaking brother are shipped off to the wilderness for their stepmother’s newest reality show, Georgie is convinced it’ll be the worst experience of her life. Two weeks. No phones. Hiking. Camping. Cameras catching every humiliating second.
Then she meets Mack Gray. Tattooed, unreadable, and―among a cast of kids already branded as trouble―he’s the one she’s sure is dangerous.
One night, the counselors are chanting affirmations around the fire. By morning, they’re gone.But the kids are not alone.
Georgie can feel it, stalking them from the shadows―watching, waiting, picking them off one by one. Whatever it is, it isn’t just hunting.
It’s playing.
And in this game, there seems to be only one ending: no one gets out alive.
Survival Show (Survival Show, #1)
by Juno DawsonPublished by: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Dystopian, Thriller, Young Adult
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American Idol meets The Hunger Games in this campy, dystopian satire about a teen betting her life that her singing talent can make her a star from the celebrated author of This Book Is Gay, Juno Dawson.
The world just seems to take and take from Taryn Beck, but there’s one thing it’ll never have: her voice. Only when she’s singing does Taryn feel like she can escape her reality—free from the aftermath of the War, free from the Scottish refugee camps where she and her family now live, and free from the responsibility of making ends meet for the sake of her sick brother.
Taryn’s voice is her one ticket out, and that’s why she enters to be a contestant on the world’s most watched television program: Starmaker, where kids from the New Peace Global Alliance compete for the chance to join an all-singing, all-dancing pop group. Rise to the top, and a life of luxury, stardom, and money awaits.
There’s only one small catch. The lowest ranking face a televised public execution. Starmaker thanks their participants for their noble sacrifice to Project Population.
Taryn’s about to sing for her life.
Just Another Summer
by Susan Bridges, Tilly Bridges, Giulia Rinaldo, Gaia Fredella, Valentina Briški, Chas PangburnPublished by: Maverick
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Graphic Novel, Young Adult
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When scandal sidelines two LA teen celebrities, a punishment summer on a Montana farm forces them to trade red carpets for rubber boots—and to choose between the futures they were raised for and the loves they never saw coming.
Eager for a break from their brutal schedules as A-list actors, teen sisters Hayley and Becky Huxley sneak out to experience LA on their own terms. After a big mistake gets them fired from their gig on a hit TV show, they’re sent to a dairy farm in Montana to learn a little humility!
Sparks fly when they meet farm hand Jake, who can’t believe he has to babysit some pampered rich girls all summer! But Becky's very into the cute girl at the local diner, and Hayley and Jake start to realize that they have more in common than they think. Even though she's a cis city girl and he's a trans country boy — they might just be falling for each other. But they're from entirely different worlds, it could never work! ...or could it?
The Dream Thieves: The Graphic Novel (The Raven Cycle: The Graphic Novels #2)
by Sas Milledge, Maggie StiefvaterPublished by: Viking Books for Young Readers
on August 4, 2026
Genres: Graphic Novel, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult
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A stunning graphic novel adaptation of the second book in Maggie Stiefvater’s #1 New York Times bestselling series The Raven Cycle!
Ronan Lynch is made of secrets. His longest kept one? He can pull impossible things out of dreams. It's a secret that's nearly killed him more than once.
Waking the ley line should have led Blue and the Raven Boys straight to Glendower, the Whelsh king rumored to be sleeping beneath the mountains of Henrietta.
But instead, the forest of Cabeswater has disappeared, energy hums and sputters beneath the town, and the Raven Boys' search is at a dead end. Ronan's dreams may be the key to finding Glendower, but none of the Raven Boys are prepared for what will be unleashed in Ronan's desperate attempt to finally control his power.
Reimagined as a stunning full-color graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Sas Milledge, The Dream Thieves blurs the line between reality and nightmare until they are one and the same.
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