YA Spotlight (3/20/23)

This week we’re celebrating an enchanting queer Rapunzel retelling featuring a vampire and a witch learning to love each other despite being sworn enemies and an edge-of-your-seat debut that follows a girl who is cursed with bad luck and desperate for power as she partakes in a vicious competition to become her country’s next ruler.

THE WITCH AND THE VAMPIRE BY FRANCESCA FLORES

“The romance between Kaye and Ava is fun to read, and the book has some interesting worldbuilding that will engage lovers of paranormal fantasies…­Readers of paranormal romance or fairy-tale ­retellings will likely enjoy this quick read.”—School Library Journal

THE MOONLIGHT BLADE BY TESSA BARBOSA

Narra is cursed with a touch that spreads bad luck like poison. When her mother is arrested, she has no money or connections to save her. To obtain power and save her mother, she enters the vicious competition that happens every 10 years to elect the new ruler of her country. Along the way, Narra must unravel the mystery of who she is, and confront the ugly truth of who she was, before the competition undoes her, or her growing feelings for the enemy destroy her people—again.

THE WITCH AND THE VAMPIRE by Francesca Flores; 9781250220516; 03/21/23
THE MOONLIGHT BLADE by Tessa Barbosa; 9781649373366; 03/21/23