Fantasy for Young Adults is definitely in right now, but if you’re looking for something wholly unique to stand out from the pack, you need to check out Mary Taranta’s Shimmer and Burn. There’s a lot of political scheming, some family drama, and a hint of forbidden romance that will set your fingers itching to keep turning those pages. PLUS it’s the first in a new duology, so yes, that means you have to wait for the next one, but it’s a satisfying wait because the next one is also the last one.

Need some more convincing? Here are just a couple more reasons to check out Shimmer and Burn.

1. A Badass heroine

Faris Locke may not start out as your typical definition of a bad-ass, but as her situation out in the wildlands of Avinea gets more and more desperate, her courage and daring step up. Between a manipulative princess, a sister held hostage, and the constant threat of hellborne magic addicts trying to steal her only bargaining chip, Faris has her work cut out for her. Did I mention she’s also been taking care of her little sister for ten years, ever since her mother was arrested and executed for stealing the king’s magic and then trying to murder Faris? Oh, and she also boxes for extra cash. NBD. She’s been knocked down, her dreams crushed, but every time she finds a way to stand back up with fists and fangs bared.

2. A scheming princess

Princess Bryn is one of those characters you love to hate. She is power hungry and manipulative, and worst of all, her arguments are logically sound, so Faris can’t even argue back. She creates this plan to steal her father’s throne, and keeps herself safe in Avinea by binding Faris to her to the point where she can’t disobey Bryn, else she risks herself and her sister. She is cunning and wicked, and her desperation for her father’s throne (by any means necessary) makes her dangerous.

3. A weirdly lovable…executioner?

Alistair Pembrough is the king’s infamous executioner and Bryn’s betrothed. Faris has plenty of reasons to hate him, but in his approximately four total appearances throughout Shimmer and Burn, Pem does nothing but try (in his admittedly odd and misguided way) to help Faris get her sister back from the king’s enslavement. He’s clearly in just as tight a spot as Faris, and their odd relationship makes you want to root for him.

4. A hot, tortured magician

North is on a mission to find clean magic and use it to find the exiled king of Avinea, Merlock, to support the bastard prince Corbin, but being so close to the Burn and it’s hellborne means he and his assistant Tobek are constantly at risk of being infected by dirty, poisoned magic. The very magic he uses to protect them puts him at greater risk of being infected, and he’s got quite a few secrets hiding in that heart of gold, making his cover very hard to keep as he starts falling for Faris 😉

5. Poisonous magic

(aka a super interesting and unique magic physics)

The physics of the magic in this universe are nothing like I’ve ever read before in a YA fantasy, which is incredibly cool to a nerd like me. There’s a source of magic, but people cannot “create” it, only carry it (like Faris) or use/manipulate it (like North, or Faris’s mother). But the more it’s manipulated or used for different purposes, the easier it gets “dirty” and dirty magic is poisonous. A huge issue is that magic is addictive, and if it’s available willy-nilly like it is in the wilds of Avinea, people become addicts, and will take any magic they can get, clean or poisoned. To protect themselves, magicians can use stones and other fabrics as buffers to keep the magic out of their skin and blood, but any time they try to use the magic, they have to “unravel” the fabric of its original use and they run the risk of stray strands catching onto them. It’s a little complicated, but original and unique, and definitely worth checking out.

6. ALL THE SECRETS

It’d be easier to say who ISN’T keeping a secret in this book, but that’s no fun! The list starts at King Perrote and trickles down to basically every character Faris meets – Bryn, Pembrough, the hellborne leader Baedan, North, Tobek, the exiled king of New Prevast, even Faris’s dead mother! There’s a lot going on in Avinea, and once those secrets start coming out, you can’t turn the pages fast enough.

Have you ever found yourself on the losing side of a political civil war? Does your team need a bit of a leg-up on the competition in an actual war? Are you a princess, in need of redeeming your conquered kingdom? Or perhaps you’re a poverty-stricken citizen being oppressed by a selfish and volatile ruling class?

It sounds like you might benefit from a little espionage, deploying a spy or two behind enemy lines to relay useful and possibly war-ending (or starting!) information to your allies. Maybe you can be that spy! Or at least you can live vicariously through some fictional spy characters! Want by Cindy Pon is a perfect example AND you can even read an extended excerpt right now (but only until July 3rd)!

Whether you’re actually looking into becoming a spy or need to shake up your life, here are some real fictional YA heroes who have infiltrated the enemy and lived to tell the tale (maybe).

Beware, though—some of these short book descriptions may include spoilers!

Fairy tale retellings are a hot commodity in teen lit, and there’s a simple reason – classics provide a fantastic base for a new and unique story. Anyone who knows me knows that I have the soul of a mermaid, so it only makes sense that I would gravitate to the retellings of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. It doesn’t matter if it’s a contemporary reimagining, an old-timey version with corsets and carriages and all that, or something completely out there, like space mermaids (seriously Marissa Meyer, I think you dropped the ball on leaving TLM out of the Lunar Chronicles, just saying), I love it all. Especially during Princess Week!

If you’re just as much of a land-mermaid AND fairy tale enthusiast as I am and need something to read, here are a couple of suggestions:

Have you ever been minding your own business when suddenly an extremely handsome but incredibly brusque man comes up to you and says “you’re the lost princess of Awesomelandia, and I, as captain of the royal guard, must keep you safe from your enemies?” No?

Well, obviously it happens because there are TONS of wait-what-do-you-mean-I’m-the-lost-princess stories out there, especially in YA books. Sometimes the protagonist knows she’s a princess and she’s hiding out for her own safety, sometimes she has no idea she’s had a great secret her whole life, but almost always she ends up in that palace with that crown on her head! And what better time to celebrate these secret princesses than during Princess Week?

Since I’ve yet to get the news that I’m a secret princess, I’m ok with living vicariously through these lucky heroines. Check out this list and let me know if you like it or if I’ve missed any of your favorite secret princesses!

There may be some spoilers ahead!

BONUS: in honor of Princess Week, feel free to read Anastasia and Her Sisters by Carolyn Meyer and Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix for free until May 8th!