An explosive thriller that is all too timely in the #MeToo era.
A grieving teen joins up with a sophisticated vigilante sisterhood.
Austin, Texas, high school junior and talented runner Thea Soloman is still grieving after the murder of her cousin and best friend, Natalie. When Thea is invited to join a secret group called the Black Coats, she finds new meaning. Thea and her teammates are trained to take vengeance on men who have wronged women and gotten away with it, with the promise of exacting revenge of their own. Thea becomes consumed by the Black Coats and also finds love with handsome fellow student Drew Porter. But soon the dangerous missions, called Balancings, blur the line between justice and torture, and Thea soon discovers the Black Coats are much more than they seem. Readers must suspend disbelief to allow for the existence of a decades-old secret society of teen harbingers of vengeance who have largely managed to get away with so much for so long, but this satisfying feminist tale is so fierce they likely won’t care. Thea is biracial (her mother is black and her father white), Drew is white, and most supporting characters, except for one Black Coat of Middle Eastern descent, are assumed white. Oakes (War of the Cards, 2017, etc.) asks readers to seriously consider the sometimes-destructive nature of grief as well as justice, vengeance, and the many moral shades of gray between the two.
An explosive thriller that is all too timely in the #MeToo era. (Thriller. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-267962-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A character-focused entry that will satisfy fans.
Romantic complications between a trained killer and one of her captors drive this sequel to Watch Me (2025).
Appealing to readers who prefer their romantic dramas to be light on action and heavy on long passages of banter, bitter sibling arguments, and tortured reflections, Mafi continues the tale of Rosabelle Wolff, the flaxen-haired assassin from the dystopic Reestablishment, and magnetic, “impossibly stunning” James Anderson, her nemesis-turned-lover who’s still trying to take down the regime. Now desperate to accomplish several secret missions, Rosa easily escapes from one of The New Republic’s prisons, where she was left in the series opener, and, dressed in “a little kid’s cat onesie,” eludes all pursuers except for James, who can seemingly find her at will. Enigmatic Rosa responds unpredictably to many human contacts—including with violence, temporary death (one of her abilities), or a sudden panic attack. Along with the central pair of rivals and lovers, James’ older brother, Aaron, shares the narration. Bestseller Mafi tucks in several subplots, including, notably, a cameo from Juliette Ferrars, the protagonist of the original Shatter Me series, who’s undergoing a scarily difficult pregnancy. Amid the slowly simmering rising action, the author delivers a revelation and a twist that set up a potential series climax. Some ethnic diversity is present in the supporting cast.
A character-focused entry that will satisfy fans. (Dystopian. 14-adult)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780063419056
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
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