Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Most Anticipated Debut Novels For 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

I don't usually participate in this type of thing, because I don't always feel inspired by the proposed topics. However, I loved this week's theme. For this week, I've created a list of my top ten most anticipated debut novels for 2015 including each book's cover and synopsis. If you have any suggestions for other 2015 debut novels I should read, let me know in the comments.

1. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend. She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

2. Pretending to be Erica by Michelle Painchaud 

We Were Liars meets Heist Society in a riveting debut! Seventeen-year-old Violet’s entire life has revolved around one thing: becoming Erica Silverman, an heiress kidnapped at age five and never seen again. Violet’s father, the best con man in Las Vegas, has a plan, chilling in its very specific precision. Violet shares a blood type with Erica; soon, thanks to surgery and blackmail, she has the same face, body, and DNA. She knows every detail of the Silvermans’ lives, as well as the PTSD she will have to fake around them. And then, when the time is right, she “reappears”—Erica Silverman, brought home by some kind of miracle. But she is also Violet, and she has a job: Stay long enough to steal the Silverman Painting, an Old Master legendary in the Vegas crime world. Walking a razor’s edge, calculating every decision, not sure sometimes who she is or what she is doing it for, Violet is an unforgettable heroine, and Pretending to be Erica is a killer debut.

3. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom. It’s a story that’s literally burning to be told. LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution. ELIAS is the academy’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest to choose the next Martial emperor. When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself.

4. Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be—sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. Made You Up tells the story of Alex, a high school senior unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. This is a compelling and provoking literary debut that will appeal to fans of Wes Anderson, Silver Linings Playbook, and Liar. Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn't she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal.  Funny, provoking, and ultimately moving, this debut novel featuring the quintessential unreliable narrator will have readers turning the pages and trying to figure out what is real and what is made up.

5. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

The poverty stricken Reds are commoners, living under the rule of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers. To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from The Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change. Mare finds herself working in the Silver Palace, at the centre of those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control. But power is a dangerous game. And in this world divided by blood, who will win?

6. Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler

Mina is seventeen. A virgin. And pregnant. Mina is top of her class, girlfriend to the most ambitious guy in school, able to reason and study her way through anything. But when she suddenly finds herself pregnant—despite having never had sex—her orderly world collapses. Almost nobody believes Mina’s claims of virginity. Her father assumes that her boyfriend is responsible; her boyfriend believes she must have cheated on him. As news of Mina’s story spreads, there are those who brand her a liar. There are those who brand her a heretic. And there are those who believe that miracles are possible—and that Mina’s unborn child could be the greatest miracle of all.

7. The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

To fight her destiny as the missing heir to a powerful and dangerous secret society, sixteen-year-old Avery West must solve an ancient puzzle in a deadly race across Europe. Forbidden love and code-breaking, masked balls and explosions, destiny and dark secrets collide in this romantic thriller, in the vein of a YA DaVinci Code. Avery West's newfound family can shut down Prada at the Champs-Elysees when they want to shop in peace, and can just as easily order a bombing when they want to start a war.  They are part of a powerful and dangerous secret society called the Circle of Twelve, and Avery is their missing heir. If they discover who she is, some of them will want to use her as a pawn. Some will want her dead.  To thwart their plans, Avery must follow a trail of clues from the landmarks of Paris to the back alleys of Istanbul and through a web of ancient legends and lies. And unless she can stay one step ahead of beautiful, volatile Stellan, who knows she’s more than she seems, and can decide whether to trust mysterious, magnetic Jack, she may be doomed after all.

8. The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes

When seventeen-year-old Minnow stumbles out of the woods one winter morning, she is haunted and handless and covered in someone else’s blood. She has just escaped the strict religious commune run by a cruel man named the Prophet. In exchange for freedom, she leaves behind her family, her home, and Jude--an outsider boy who changed everything.  But the real world isn't the sanctuary Minnow imagined. Soon, she gets arrested and placed in juvenile detention. Now, Minnow is being questioned by an FBI psychiatrist about the night she escaped, the same night the Prophet was burned to death in his own home—a murder Minnow may be responsible for. A modern retelling of the Grimm fairy tale, "The Handless Maiden," in which the Devil orders a girl's hands cut off, The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly is the story of a girl growing out of the wreckage of corrupted faith.

9. Becoming Jinn by Lori Goldstein

Azra has just turned sixteen, and overnight her body lengthens, her olive skin deepens, and her eyes glisten gold thanks to the brand-new silver bangle that locks around her wrist. As she always knew it would, her Jinn ancestry brings not just magical powers but the reality of a life of servitude, as her wish granting is controlled by a remote ruling class of Jinn known as the Afrit.  To the humans she lives among, she’s just the girl working at the snack bar at the beach, navigating the fryer and her first crush. But behind closed doors, she’s learning how to harness her powers and fulfill the obligations of her destiny.  Mentored by her mother and her Zar “sisters”, Azra discovers she may not be quite like the rest of her circle of female Jinn . . . and that her powers could endanger them all. As Azra uncovers the darker world of becoming Jinn, she realizes when genies and wishes are involved, there’s always a trick.

10. The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Seventeen-year-old Twylla lives in the castle. But although she’s engaged to the prince, Twylla isn’t exactly a member of the court. She’s the executioner. As the Goddess embodied, Twylla instantly kills anyone she touches. Each month she’s taken to the prison and forced to lay her hands on those accused of treason. No one will ever love a girl with murder in her veins. Even the prince, whose royal blood supposedly makes him immune to Twylla’s fatal touch, avoids her company. But then a new guard arrives, a boy whose easy smile belies his deadly swordsmanship. And unlike the others, he’s able to look past Twylla’s executioner robes and see the girl, not the Goddess. Yet Twylla’s been promised to the prince, and knows what happens to people who cross the queen. However, a treasonous secret is the least of Twylla’s problems. The queen has a plan to destroy her enemies, a plan that requires a stomach-churning, unthinkable sacrifice. Will Twylla do what it takes to protect her kingdom? Or will she abandon her duty in favor of a doomed love?

Why I Love YA

Last summer, I took a class about young adult literature. The most recently-published book we read was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which is a great read, but not what I expected out of the course. I wanted to learn about the modern young adult classification and the books it contains. I ended up feeling as though most of what I learned didn't apply to the current YA climate. However, of what we were taught, there was one nugget of information that resonated with me.

It was this:

This quote highlights the coming-of-age theme that constitutes YA lit. Regardless of whether the story involves wizards, sparkly vampires, or Perfectly Normal People, all YA lit involves the MC growing up and learning about his or herself. YA lit is about the MC's - and, by extension, the reader's - discovery of who they are and what they want to become.

This story was a roundabout way of explaining something I love about YA lit. To spare you from many more blocks of writing, I'll enumerate all of my reasons in a list:

Why I Love YA

1. YA lit helps readers discover and shape their personal identity.

The above excerpt refers to individuals shaping their adult identity, but I think that term is too constricting. It implies that once you're an adult you have no need to further define yourself. Every person, regardless of age, will encounter times in their life when they lose sight of who they are. This might be because of a divorce, a layoff, or the death of a loved one. Or perhaps that individual is like me, and hasn't yet discovered their identity in the first place. This is the case for most teenagers, which is why YA lit is so appealing to them. But unlike what the excerpt suggests, YA lit isn't limited to teenage readers. It can help any person, regardless of age, discover something about themselves they hadn't previously known.

2. Genres in YA lit are less restricting than in "adult" fiction.

This is something pointed out to me by C.J. Redwine at one of her signings. When she first tried to get published (I can't remember if it was for Defiance or a different book), she pitched the manuscript in an adult genre and agents told her that the book wouldn't be marketable because it didn't fit the requirements for that genre. Later, she ended up getting Defiance published under the YA classification. She stated that she enjoys more freedom when writing YA and that's one of the reasons she loves it. I agree with her. I hate the notion of catering to a particular genre rather than writing what's best for the book, so I love that YA encourages the latter rather than the former.


3. YA lit explores the endless realm of possibility

Points 2 and 3 are related, but separate. Perhaps because they're less restricted in content than adult books, YA books are more likely to take fresh perspectives on issues and include unusual story elements. As an example, I'll use my most recent read: All These Lives by Sarah Wylie. The book is about Dani, a girl who believes she has nine lives. Her twin is dying of cancer, and Dani believes that each life she loses is given to her sister, so she endeavors to give them all away. It's an incredibly unique approach to the issue of cancer and the coping process that I don't think would have been as successful if marketed as a book for adults.

YA lit also explores new worlds and settings that would otherwise not have been approached. Hogwarts for adults, while probably interesting, is an idea unlikely to be executed. Same with Panem, Narnia, and Camp Half-Blood.

4. Fandom 
Some people sneer at the word "fandom" because it's gained negative connotations over the years, but I love it. In its most basic form, a fandom is a community of individuals brought together by their love of a book (or movie/TV show/musician/John Green/etc., but in this case we're referring to books.) There's nothing wrong with that. I would be pleased as pie to have fandoms for the future novels I hope to have published. And while I'm sure some adult books have gained fandoms, none can compare to those for young adult books.

I'll use J.K. Rowling as an example. Harry Potter, her series for children/YA? Huge fandom. The Casual Vacancy, her book for adults? Not so much.

5. YA books are flat-out awesome
This is the part where I cop-out and say "all that sstuff I wrote earlier? Doesn't really matter." What I mean by that is if, after reading all of the above, you still don't understand why you should read YA books, read them anyway! Seriously, they're wonderful in a way I can't fully define. Whether you're 14.5253 years old or 35.2541 years old, you should give them a chance. Who knows? You might actually like them.

So there you have it! That's why I love YA.

P.S. I gave my YA lit class a hard time, but I did learn more from it than that one quote above. In particular, I enjoyed learning about the history of the YA classification because it supplemented my understanding of how YA lit has developed over time.

P.P.S. I wrote this post based on Beth Revis' November challenge. Check it out here: