20 upcoming YA books we can’t wait to read in 2020

The Night Country – Melissa Albert

The Night Country is a follow-up to The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert’s gorgeous and atmospheric debut novel full of fairy tales, secret doors, and dark secrets. In it, a girl named Alice Proserpine journeys to a fairy world known as the Hinterland to rescue her mother, only to find out that she’s not exactly who she always believed herself to be, and can’t escape the consequences of the dark stories her grandmother once told.

Now Alice and several other refugees from the Hinterland are in New York, and trying to make new lives for themselves in a world without magic. But someone out there is trying to kill ex-Stories in increasingly cruel and dark ways, while Alice is trapped in the middle – torn between the girl she wants to be and the girl she fears she is.

The official synopsis has a bit more detail.

"In The Night Country, Alice Proserpine dives back into a menacing, mesmerizing world of dark fairy tales and hidden doors. Follow her and Ellery Finch as they learn The Hazel Wood was just the beginning, and that worlds die not with a whimper, but a bang. With Finch’s help, Alice escaped the Hinterland and her reclusive grandmother’s dark legacy. Now she and the rest of the dregs of the fairy tale world have washed up in New York City, where Alice is trying to make a new, unmagical life. But something is stalking the Hinterland’s survivors―and she suspects their deaths may have a darker purpose. Meanwhile, in the winking out world of the Hinterland, Finch seeks his own adventure, and―if he can find it―a way back home…"

The Night Country will be available on January 7.