New Release Tuesday: YA New Releases February 17th 2026

Young Adult New Releases February 17th 2026

It’s New Release Tuesday, and we are celebrating the new YA Books hitting the shelves today! We love to share the newest releases each week and we hope that if you are planning on purchasing any titles you can check out our amazing indie bookseller affiliates Bookshop or Libro.fm!

The Sun and the Starmaker

by Rachel Griffin
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, Mythology/Folklore, Romance, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

There once was a village so far north that most considered it the top of the world... and in that village, the Sun fell in love with her Starmaker. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches comes a whimsical and sweeping romantic fantasy.

Nestled deep in the snowy mountains of the Lost Range, the small village of Reverie endures on a miracle. Beyond the reach of the Sun, Reverie is dependent upon the magic of the mysterious Starmaker: every morning, he trudges across a vast glacier and pulls in sunlight over the peaks, providing the village with the light it needs to survive.

Aurora Finch grew up on tales of the Starmaker’s magic, never imagining she’d one day meet him. But on the morning of her wedding, a fateful encounter in the frostbitten woods changes everything. The Starmaker senses a powerful magic within her and demands she come study under his guidance. With her newfound abilities tied to the survival of the village, Aurora is swept away to his ice-covered castle at the mountain’s peak.

The Starmaker is as cold and distant as the dark woods, leaving Aurora to explore his enchanted castle with only an immortal rabbit for company. Yet the more she discovers about the sorcerer, the stronger their ruinous attraction grows, pulling her closer to the secrets he refuses to share. A deadly frost approaches, and Aurora must uncover what the Starmaker is hiding before she is left in an endless winter that even the Sun cannot touch.

Postscript

by Cory McCarthy
Published by: Dutton Books for Young Readers
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Dystopian, LGBTQIA+, Sci-Fi, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

From Stonewall Honoree Cory McCarthy, joyful, affectionate, read-in-one-sitting novel about letting go of the things we can’t change and holding on to the passion of our instincts.

On the far side of a swift and unknowable apocalypse, a few sapiens are surviving off the last scraps of humanity. No longer recognizable as Cape Cod, the dunes of their archipelago are empty apart from regrets and ruins—until West blows in like a storm.

West is a prophet of instinct, the last amateur anthropologist, ever aware of being present in life. He can’t help but move through Ani’s rage, Karen’s anxiety, and Emil’s immense longing with curiosity and care. West’s unbridled love and grief challenge the survivors to defy extinction with the most beautifully human thing imaginable: a family.

He may even impress Death.

★ “Simultaneously tragic, existentially terrifying, heartwarming, and sensual."—Kirkus, starred review

Love on Ice

by Sara Ney
Published by: Delacorte
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

What's a girl to do when the star of the hockey team crash lands in her backyard after a prank gone wrong? Help him cover up the evidence...in exchange for him posing as the perfect prom date, of course. Get ready to swoon with this hilarious YA rom-com debut from the USA Today bestselling author Sara Ney!

Harper Conrad figures when opportunity knocks, smart girls listen. Which is why when she catches high school hockey star Easton Westermann in her backyard after stealing their rival school’s mascot, she knows exactly what to do.

The deal is simple: In exchange for Harper’s silence, Easton will be her date to their upcoming prom. It’s the perfect bargain . . . but what happens when what starts as a business transaction begins to feel all too real?

You know how the saying goes: If you like someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they were meant to be your prom date. Or something like that.

This Wretched Beauty

by Elle Grenier
Published by: Feiwel and Friends
on February 17, 2026
Genres: LGBTQIA+, Retellings, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

Happiness needs to be earned in the face of impossible odds, or there’s no beauty in it.

London, 1867. Dorian Gray is the heir to a title and their family’s estate, but they’ve never been given the chance to decide whether that’s actually what they want out of life. Forcibly estranged from their father by their manipulative grandfather, Dorian feels trapped in the life that has been decided for them.

Then one night they sneak out of their grandfather’s house, they meet a sweet and talented young painter named Basil, who immediately recognizes Dorian as his new muse. They agree to sit for Basil for a portrait, and Dorian is struck by the beauty and depth that Basil paints into their likeness—and they dare to begin hoping there might be more to life than being their grandfather’s perfect, empty-headed heir.

Dorian is further elated when Basil introduces them to the world of molly houses and drag performers—they’ve never seen such joyful variety of humanity and gender expression. But, as the barrier between the London they know and the one they're discovering begins to crumble, Dorian must face the fact that freedom and safety do not come hand in hand.

The aftermath of this realization pulls Dorian into a terrible downward spiral, torn between guilt over their own actions and hatred for the suffocating expectations of society. They push away those closest to them, surrounding themself instead with vapid courtiers and decadent socialites. And as Dorian’s spiral of self-loathing deepens, something strange happens—Basil’s portrait of them begins to change. Their smile becomes a little sharper, the glint in their eyes a little colder.

Dorian will have to choose—embrace the wickedness within and allow themself to become what they were always meant to be, or dare to try for something far more fragile and dangerous: a life of their own making.

In the Remixed Classics series, authors from marginalized backgrounds reinterpret classic works through their own cultural lens to subvert the overwhelmingly cishet, white, and male canon.

They Call Her Regret

by Channelle Desamours
Published by: Wednesday Books
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Mystery, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

In this young adult speculative mystery, a teen must find a way to free a cursed witch in order to save her best friend before time runs out.

Every year horror-loving Simone Washington throws an epic Halloween party for her classmates. Party-planning is her favorite escape from the dark secrets in her past, and this year, she’s taking things up a notch with an invitation-only event to celebrate her eighteenth birthday—something that will leave the halls of Pinegrove Academy flooded with gossip about the big ghoulish bash. The overnight stay at Doll’s Head Lake will be filled with spooky pranks and scary stories told by the fire—including the legend of a local witch named Regret.

But those dark secrets from Simone’s past are forced to the surface at the party when her best friend Kira dies under questionable circumstances. The witch appears and offers Simone a deal: if Simone can figure out how to release Regret from the curse trapping her at the lake within fourteen days, all of Simone’s regrets will be erased. If Simone accepts, Kira’s life will be immediately restored. But if she fails, Kira will die again—and Simone will be the one to kill her.

Love, Sivvy: A Novel Inspired by the Life, Letters, and Diaries of Young Sylvia Plath

by R.L. Toalson
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Historical Fiction, In Verse, Non-Fiction, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

This intensely relatable historical novel-in-verse follows the young adult years of the exceptionally talented tortured poet, Sylvia Plath, as she casts off the limiting expectations of American women and forges her own path. Perfect for fans of Girl in Pieces.​

Sylvia Plath knows she was born to be remembered. She loves learning, literature, and writing, especially poetry. The problem is, she's coming of age in a time when women are expected to happily set aside their dreams for a husband and a home. Even in high school, Sylvia struggles to reconcile the societal expectations placed on women and the ambitions she has for a great career. She aches for a partner and a family, but she longs to become a poet, too. And she's afraid she can't have both.

​Covering her high school and college years, and capturing her many highs and lows as she wrestled with her mental health and blazing talent, Love, Sivvy is a beautifully rendered portrait of one of the most incandescent poets of all time.

Goodbye and Everything After

by Mae Coyiuto
Published by: Feiwel and Friends
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

A teen girl comes face to face with her dad's spirit when she ignores a strict Filipino superstition in this contemporary young adult novel that tackles grief, family tension, and first love.

"I laughed and I cried and I felt like I was inside of Nika's family. Mae Coyiuto has given us a moving—and hilarious—novel about grief and love."—Nina LaCour, Michael L. Printz Award winning author of We Are Okay and Watch Over Me

It’s been five years since Nika’s beloved father passed away, but her family has never fully grieved. They don’t speak of him much at all, except on the anniversary of his death.

Whenever they visit her father’s grave, Nika’s superstitious mother still insists on practicing pagpag, a Filipino belief that you can never go directly home after attending a funeral—or risk the spirit of the departed following you back home.

But when her mom’s new fiancé suddenly shows up at the cemetery for this year’s memorial for her dad, she furiously walks out, breaking the pagpag superstition. The next day, she finds herself face-to-face with the ghost of her dead father. . . and Nika’s the only one who can see him.

As she spends time reconnecting with her dad’s ghost, Nika learns about her parents’ past and how they started dating back in high school. And when she starts to fall for her neighbor Seph and accidentally re-creates memories of her parents’ love story with him, her dad’s spirit slowly becomes more solid and alive. Fearing that she’ll lose her dad again, Nika makes it her mission to find a way to make her dad stay permanently, no matter what the cost.

With a perfect blend of humor and heart, Mae Coyiuto artfully brings past to present in a way that explores grief head-on.

Ungodly Chaos

by Selma Soren
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

An action-packed contemporary fantasy for fans of Rick Riordan and Legendborn following a heartbroken girl who accidentally discovers her ex-boyfriend is the descendant of the Egyptian god of chaos and in danger from a deadly plot.

Amira Shah is having a perfectly good, perfectly normal year—until her boyfriend (and hottest boy in school) Kaidan Jaziri breaks up with her on her seventeenth birthday. But Amira is never one to let things go, and after overhearing Kaidan loudly arguing with someone in town, she follows him, only to fall through a portal to the underworld, also known as Duat.

There, she learns the chaotic ex-boyfriend who would endlessly rope her into trouble inherited his impulsive nature from his ancestor Apep, the god of chaos.

Kaidan is intent on solving a spree of murders happening in the human realm. Someone is killing other descendants—and if Kaidan isn’t careful, he might be next. Feeling a mystical pull to Kaidan and the underworld, Amira insists on helping solve the mystery.

Together with Kaidan’s rival and descendent of the sun god, Zain Neilos, they uncover secrets behind Amira’s mysterious connection to the Egyptian pantheon and pursue the clever killer who may have been hiding among them all along.

The College Try (0)

by Olivia Cuartero-Briggs
Published by: Maverick
on February 17, 2026
Genres: Graphic Novel, Romance, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

What would you do if you could go back in time and discover your true love?

A desperate 40-something’s hopes of reuniting with her college ex-boyfriend are dashed when he publicly professes his love for a fellow graduate. Through a twist of magical fate, however, she is given the chance to go back in time and fix what went wrong.