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10+ YA Mystery (or Mystery-Adjacent) Novels You Must Investigate*



by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books)


*pun intended


This month, our Unabridged Podcast Book Club pick is Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious, which is highlighted in this post, so I thought it would be a great time to update this list of YA mystery (and mystery-adjacent) books! New recommendations are marked with an asterisk.



Last week, Sara and I chatted about the pilot of the adaptation of Karen McManus's One of Us Is Lying (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)—you can check out the episode here—so I thought I'd dive into some other YA mysteries (or YA books with mystery elements) I've enjoyed recently. (I'm excerpting a lot of these reviews from my Instagram account!)


Jennifer Lynn Barnes's The Inheritance Games (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm),The Hawthorne Legacy (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), *The Final Gambit (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

One warning: while I definitely recommend that you read Barnes's trilogy, don't make the mistake I did. Please wait until book three comes out (in August) before starting. I am so, so sad to have to wait until book three.


*I'm pleased to report that book three is now out, as are several books in linked series! They all live up to my expectations. "Here's the setup: Avery Grambs is living out of her car when she finds out that she's inheriting the bulk of billionaire Tobias Hawthorne's wealth. The strange thing? She doesn't know who he is. While she's trying to figure out the connection—she thinks it lies with her mother, who died a while back—she's required to live in his mansion along with his understandably frustrated family, including his two daughters and four very different, very appealing grandsons. "This book is packed full with puzzles and word games, courtesy of Hawthorne; romance and intrigue and brushes with death saturate this story. I did both of these alternating between the ebook and the audiobook, and both formats worked really well, primarily because they meant that I rarely had to stop reading. Let me tell you, when I clicked through to find book three and found out that it wasn't available yet, I was devastated."


*Jennifer Lynn Barnes's The Naturals series (Bookshop.org [boxed set] | Libro.fm [book 1])

Jennifer Lynn Barnes's The Naturals was an Unabridged Podcast Buddy Read pick last year, and it turned out to be a fabulous choice. The Naturals centers on a group of teenagers whose life circumstances have resulted in a series of special talents: uncanny abilities to read facial expressions, to tell when someone is lying, to profile. They're recruited by the FBI for training and as consultants on cold cases, a task that quickly escalates into an involvement in current cases.


Cassie, the main character, is a teenager profiler whose profiling talents were nurtured by her mother (a con artist) and heightened by the disappearance—and likely murder—of that same mother.


The series as a whole, which I immediately put on hold and then devoured, focuses on an array of cases that are related, in varying degrees, to each of the Naturals' own complex and traumatic pasts. If you're looking for some fantastic summer reading and are drawn to mystery-thrillers, I highly recommend checking out Barnes's series, which consists of four full-length novels and one novella.


*Brittany Cavallaro's A Study in Charlotte series (book 1 - Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

What a series! These four books—A Study in Charlotte, The Last of August, The Case for Jamie, and A Question of Holmes—offer a spin on the original Sherlock Holmes series. Here, Sherlock was a real person, the great-great-grandfather of Charlotte, a teenage girl attending a private boarding school in New England.


In book one, Charlotte meets Jamie Watson, the descendant of John Watson. Jamie is immediate intrigued by Charlotte, drawn in both by their families' histories (every Holmes has had a Watson) and by Charlotte herself. Charlotte is . . . well, she's less taken with Jamie.


Each book has its own mystery, and there are ideas running through the series, many centered on the ways that the Holmes and Moriarty families vie with each other to both families' detriment. We also watch Charlotte and Jamie contend with the highs and lows of having such famous names.


I highly recommend these on audio: the alternating perspectives are read by Graham Halstead and Julia Whelan, both fabulous.


Joya Goffney's Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

So, this book is not predominantly a mystery, but it does have mystery elements. At the center of the mystery is Quinn's journal, where she keeps lists of everything, including some potentially embarrassing material . . . and the fact that she has been faking her acceptance to college. When the journal goes missing, Quinn's first suspect is Carter, the last person to have it and one of the few other Black students at their school. He denies having it, and, even more, when someone starts blackmailing Quinn with the release of its contents, they work together to uncover the blackmailer. Their partnership is a great deal of fun, and it also allows Quinn to confront some elements of her identity that she's not been comfortable considering, including the way her friends have been making her feel. This one has mystery and so, so much more!


*Alexa Donne's The Ivies (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

The Ivies was one of our buddy read picks earlier this year—it's a fun, frothy book centered on the cut-throat (perhaps literally) competition to get into the best colleges. The Ivies are a group of friends bonded by their shared dedication to getting into Ivy League schools.


Set at an exclusive boarding school, the novel is narrated by Olivia, an outlier in the group who is trying to work her way out of her impoverished upbringing, which stands in contrast to the extreme lives of privilege of her fellow Ivies.


Murder, conspiracy, betrayal, and so many twists and turns made this plot a joy on audio as narrated by Phoebe Strole.


*Claudia Gray's The Murder of Mr. Wickham (book 1 in the Mr. Darcy and Ms. Tilney series) (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

This first novel is a delicious murder mystery centered on a house party that includes (almost) all of Austen's main characters. You've got Pride and Prejudice's Darcy and Elizabeth and their son Jonathan; newlyweds Marianne and Col. Brandon from Sense and Sensibility; the Wentworths; the Bertrams; and Juliet Tilney, the daughter of the stars of Northanger Abbey. They're all invited to stay with Emma Knightley and her family. When Wickham crashes the party, his connections to someone in each family become clear, making everyone a suspect when he's murdered.


Oh, I loved this so much. Gray is incredibly clever in the way she takes these various characters, remaining true to the way Austen envisioned them, and throws them together. So, Fanny Price of Mansfield Park, for example, disapproves of Elizabeth Darcy's boldness and unconventional nature . . . as she *totally* would.


Juliet and Jonathan become the detectives who vow—for different reasons—to uncover the truth of Wickham's murder, and watching them navigate the rules of polite society while trying to get past the facades is glorious.


I picked up book two on sale and can't wait to read it!


Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), Good Girl, Bad Blood (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), and As Good as Dead (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

Here's my review of book one (I also loved book two and am currently reading the third book!):


"I listened to this one, and it was a great audio experience featuring a full cast.⠀

"The [first] book centers on high school senior Pip who, for her senior project, decides to solve a murder that happened in her small town five years before. Sal Singh, a popular teenager who everyone thought was a good guy, murdered his beautiful girlfriend Andie Bell and then killed himself. But Pip has always thought there was something not quite right about the way it all happened.⠀

"The book covers Pip's investigation and is written to include transcripts from her interviews (where the full cast is a great touch) and her own reflections in her journal.⠀

"There are definitely hints of Serial, season 1, here, and I appreciated the consideration of the racism that was at the heart of many townspeople's acceptance of Sal being cast as a villain. Pip convinces his brother to be a part of the investigation, which added depth to the focus on the alleged murderer and his victim.⠀

"A Good Girl's Guide to Murder was a fun, twisty, and ultimately satisfying mystery . . . and I'll definitely be reading the rest of the trilogy!"


*There is a series adaptation of book one, which was good but also so, so different from the novels!


*Tiffany D. Jackson's Monday's Not Coming (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

Monday's Not Coming is the third book I've read by Tiffany D. Jackson (after Allegedly and The Weight of Blood, which remains my favorite!). As in her other novels, this one features complex teenage characters, storylines that center social justice issues, and incredible twists. While I didn't love the final twist in Monday's Not Coming, I highly recommend this book.


The book centers on Claudia whose best friend, Monday Charles, doesn't show up on the first day of school. Claudia was gone all summer, and she can't wait to be reunited with her bestie. But days, then weeks, then months go by with not a word from Monday.


Jackson shares her inspiration, the plague of missing Black girls whose absence does not get the attention that it should. Monday and Claudia's story offers a powerful evocation of this persistent issue with vibrant characters and an edge-of-your-seat plot.


Maureen Johnson's The Box in the Woods (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), *Nine Liars (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), and the Truly Devious trilogy (Bookshop.org)

I'd been saving Maureen Johnson's The Box in the Woods. Why? Because I loved the original Truly Devious trilogy so much, and I just didn't want the series to end. [You can read my review of the trilogy here.] This fourth book sort of bridges the gap between being part of the series—it still focuses on Stevie Bell, the young woman who solved the murders in the original trilogy—and standalone—it takes place away from Ellingham Academy, and the mystery at its heart spans only this book. Early in the book, Stevie receives a call from someone who wants her to solve a mystery from the 1970s: the brutal murder of four teenagers working at a camp. To get her close to the investigation, he hires her to work at the camp, which he has bought, and gives her full access to both the camp and the small town where the victims lived. Stevie is just a great character. She's smart and awkward and prickly, and seeing her reunited with her best friends and boyfriend is super satisfying. The mystery is also great and twisty, and I love both the way Stevie figures out everything and the way the mystery itself is laid out in flashbacks. This was a satisfying read, though I am so sad that the series is over. (Maybe Johnson will write some more?)


*Nine Liars review:


I will read Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series as long as she'll publish it.


These are brilliant mysteries, yes.


But really, they're about the person who's solving these mysteries, Stevie Bell, and the way that they become her obsession. They speak to her brilliance, but they also pull her away from other important things (like schoolwork and friends and her boyfriend).


Nine Liars is book five. The initial trilogy was more tightly woven, and books four and five have been sort of standalones, but also definitely part of the series.


I imagine that the ending of this one had every reader howling. (I was howling, anyway.)


Bring on book six.


Emma Lord's When You Get the Chance (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

This is another one with mystery elements, centered on protagonist Millie's investigation of the identity of her birth mother. As with Goffney's book, the mystery elements are secondary . . . but they are fun! You can read my full review here.


*Mindy McGinnis's A Long Stretch of Bad Days (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

Mindy McGinnis is on a short list of authors for me: they're the ones whose entire backlists I'm determined to read. Whether it's desolate dystopia or lush historical fiction or gritty contemporary realism, McGinnis always delivers complex protagonists navigating some sort of uphill battle.


In A Long Stretch of Bad Days, Lydia Chass is the incredibly ambitious, high-achieving, only daughter of her town's royal family . . . and the royal family has fallen on hard times. Her father is a defense attorney who is currently defending someone everyone in town hates, meaning that he's not picking up quite as much business as he used to. But Lydia is absolutely determined to graduate at the top of her class, to gain admission to an Ivy League school, and to (somehow!) make sure she can afford the tuition.


To that end, she's been putting together a podcast about the town's history, trying to make her mark for prestigious journalism programs. And then, Lydia finds out that her counselor made an error in helping her with her schedule, and she's short a history credit. The solution? Lydia should boost the level of her research.


Lydia is not alone in the credit-short camp, and on a whim, she invites a member of the town's most notorious (in the worst possible way) family, Bristal Jamison, to join her in earning this extra credit. Bristal is known for doing everything Lydia never would: she'll cause a ruckus, fight back without a filter, and be as crass as she wants. Bristal will be the first member of her family to graduate from high school, so she jumps into the project with Lydia.


The two girls couldn't be more different, but they eventually settle on a topic for their research: the town's Long Stretch of Bad Days from a few decades before, when both a tornado and a horrific flood hit Henley and a man was found, murdered, in the aftermath.


As Lydia and Bristal dig into that week, town secrets begin to rise to the surface, and the girls have to navigate their very different approaches to these stories while trying to find the truths at their heart.


McGinnis's storytelling here is as compelling as ever, and Lydia and Bristal are characters who seem to be opposites but who have similarly tough centers. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just recommend that you read this (and every other book by McGinnis!) as soon as you can.


*Courtney Summers's The Project (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

If you haven't read Courtney Summers, add her to your TBR. She writes fierce, contemporary YA that ranges from completely realistic to zombies but always features complex protagonists who are dealing with the inequities of society by fighting for their own visions of who they want to be.


The Project centers on two sisters, their stories told years apart. After their parents die in an accident, older sister Bea is drawn into a cult, leaving Lo on her own to recover from her horrible injuries. After the cult forces a separation between the two, Lo is determined to reconnect with her sister. Part mystery, part thriller, The Project is a compelling, thought-provoking read.


(A note to our readers: click on the hashtags above to see our other blog posts with the same hashtag.)


Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page.


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