Shireen has just learned she’s a contestant on the first ever Junior Irish Baking Show, which is something she should be over the moon about. Not only could she really use the cash prize if she wins, but she’s hoping that her time on TV will help out her family’s struggling donut shop. But the only problem? Her ex-girlfriend Chris is also a contestant. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, she’s now crushing on fellow contestant Niamh. The drama is about to get real.

Sitlali lives in modern day Mexico, and she’s without any family or friends. In order to escape a gang leader, she must make the dangerous trek to the U.S., but she stumbles upon a conch with mysterious markings before setting out. Calizto is an Aztec warrior in 1521 fighting against the Spanish colonizers when he discovers asks a sacred conch for direction, and hears Sitlali through the conch. They can communicate through the conch, but soon they’re falling for each other across centuries.

Natalya has only 24 hours to make a decision that could change the course of her summer: Stay in NYC with her dad or go to L.A. to reconnect with her estranged mom. The book follows both paths as Natalya gets up the courage to talk to the girl she’s been crushing on in NYC, and tentatively gets to know her mom again and meets a boy in L.A.

Fatima loves hanging out with her friends, baking, and spending time with her family. When she meets older guy Raheem, she falls for his charm. Her parents definitely won’t approve of them dating, so she keeps it secret…but when she discovers that her parents want to arrange their marriage, it feels like fate. But once officially engaged, Raheem turns manipulative and cruel, and threatens to ruin her reputation if Fatima breaks it off. Somehow she has to find the strength to do what’s right, even if it means opening herself up to an uncertain future.

Naomi and Kylie grew up together, practically sisters. Naomi’s mom was Kylie’s nanny, and despite the differences between the girls across class and race, they’re best friends. But when Kylie calls the police on a group of Black teens in a parking lot and a video of the incident goes viral, Naomi is left questioning their relationship and wondering if she really knows Kylie at all.

Beck has been struggling since her mom, an investigative reporter, died. When she receives a mysterious letter points her to the town her mom was investigating before her death, Beck and her sister Riley head there to see if they uncover answers. What they find are more questions, especially surrounding a mysterious town leader and his daughter Avery, who are definitely hiding something. Beck is drawn to Avery, but as she digs deeper, she risks losing herself to this dangerous place.

Charity works at Camp Mirror Lake, an immersive horror experience. She plays the camp’s “final girl” and enjoys acting out horror scenarios to scare and thrill their guests. But during the last weekend of the job, Charity’s co-workers begin to disappear and one ends up dead. Now Charity and her girlfriend will have to track down a real killer to avoid a grim fate.

Lahey is extra talented at matchmaking…other people. When it comes to her own dating life, her needs usually take a back seat. But now she’s desperate for a plus one to her cousin’s sweet 16 in order to save face. To find the perfect match she’ll juggle six prospective dates in one week while her older sister’s best friend Adler watches — and attempts to distract her from her ultimate goal.

When Casey’s sister Sutton goes missing, everyone around her is devastated and Casey can’t tell the truth about how they fought before Sutton went missing. In fact, everyone thinks Sutton is so perfect, but Casey knows otherwise. However, she’s not about to reveal that. So when Sutton reappears, Casey knows she should be relieved…except something is off about Sutton. She’s nice. She doesn’t seem to remember her life before. Something is very wrong, and Casey has a feeling it might be connected to the string of other missing girls in their area.

Aurelie is a baker’s apprentice who doesn’t have grand dreams of adventure and romance — she just wants a stable, happy future. But when a stranger hands her a set of Seeking stones, Aurelie discovers a rare skill she didn’t know she had…and that same stranger asks her to help recover the prince, who is lost to the Underwood. This is more of an adventure than Aurelia bargained for, especially when she finds she might lose her heart along the way.

Leach and her childhood best friend Elissa did everything together, including get into some relatively innocent trouble. But after one incident, their private school expelled Elissa, and she was sent away, into a program for “troubled youth.” These programs are largely unregulated and full of secrets. Less than a year after graduation from one of these programs, Elissa died. As Leach struggled to cope with her grief, she found Alyssa and Alisa, Elissa’s closest friends at the program — and both of them also died, years later. Leach dives into these programs and what she dubs the Troubled Teen Industry, and why all three young women met the same fate.

On September 6, 1970, Hodes and her older sister were coming back to the States from visiting their mother and grandparents in Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They were forced to land in the Jordan desert, and she spent six days and nights as a hostage. More than 50 years later, she realized her memories weren’t clear, and she wondered whether it was trauma, repression, or something else. Using archival information, conversations with friends, family, and fellow hostages, diaries, and her childhood memories, she looks at not just her experience but what it was like for her family, and the effects of that experience.

Blending memoir and nature writing, Masud writes about landscapes and how flat places often get overlooked. She lives with complex post-traumatic stress disorder due to an extremely traumatic childhood, and therefore her emotions are sometimes flattened and her memory is affected — similar to a “flat place.” Writing about her personal experiences and how trauma affects her life, as well as her observations about the nature around her, this is a compelling and beautifully insightful look at place, healing, and emotions.

El-Badry Nance, an Egyptian American astrophysicist and women’s health advocate, shares about her lifelong love of science, the racist and misogynist barriers she faced wanting to go into the field, the impacts of intergenerational trauma and anxiety, and much more. She writes about being a woman of color in a field that isn’t always welcoming to women in general, not to mention women of color, and how she found her way, nurturing her career and interests and how, like the stars, life is full of change.

Stanger has long seen the impact of nature on people as an outdoorswoman and surf teacher, and in this book she shares not only plenty of stories of how people changed their lives after being in nature more, but also how to change your life. If this sounds impractical, don’t worry — these are things that even the least outdoorsy person can do to take the first step to make a change. Even if you’re not inclined to get outside, these stories will inspire you to push your own limits, however that might look.

This is a sharp, insightful collection of essays looking at pop culture, covering her ’90s childhood until now, and combining personal essay with cultural criticism. She explores the origin story of her own name, complete with surprises and unexpected findings; looks at how the “Black friend” trope has evolved over time; and provides commentary for various shows and movies. It’s full of cultural touchstones and humor, but also thought-provoking observations that reinforce how important pop culture is in our lives and how our identities can be shaped by it.

Grover would not necessarily consider her childhood as “Appalachian.” Raised in Southeast Ohio, Appalachia brought to mind much more rural areas than her hometown. She went back to the place she was raised to reconcile her identity with the culture in which she grew up and figure out where she belonged in such a label, and found that identifiers like “Appalachian” and “transgender” may be more alike than initially thought. She explores areas of overlap and threads of similarities of experience, and reflects on the experiences of stigmatization with both labels, as well as how these labels are seen, experienced, and understood. It’s an essay collection that feels fresh and thoughtful, drawing you in with its observations.

Nature writer Gessner’s new book is a haunting one, but one you’ll definitely want to add to your list. He was 42 when his daughter was born, and in this book he looks at what the world will likely be like when she is his age right now — in 2064. He looks at the future of weather, and what it will mean for geographic areas, and what things have been like so far for his family. If this sounds catastrophic, rest assured, it’s not. While he doesn’t shy away from truths, he also writes with humor and sensitivity, and plenty of anecdotes and discussions with people. It’s a highly readable, thought-provoking book that’s very relevant for right now.

Gannon, who is part Lakota, writes about his more than 50 years birding, what it has brought to his life, and how it has helped him heal, along with finding literature, especially Indigenous literature. He writes about the racism he experienced in schools, the trauma of his time in an Indian boarding school, and the Indigenous erasure present in science and nature. While the topics he writes about are serious and painful, he also manages to retain humor and wry wit in his writing, often musing on the irony of his interests and how they overlap with the painful aspects of Indigenous history and colonialism. It’s a sharply observant memoir and chronicle of nature, one’s life, and experience.