New #LoveOzYA books to read in 2023

I always love reading Aussie books and right now there is a rapidly growing list of Australian young adult books that I just can’t wait to get my eyes on. Today I thought I’d share a bit about some of the titles coming out in the next couple of months in case you would like to add them to your list as well.

Four new Australian YA books I can’t wait to read in 2023

Nightbirds by Kate J Armstrong

Magic may be illegal in Simta, but you can find it if you know which whispers to heed. None as tantalising as the ones about the Nightbirds, Simta’s best kept secret. These privileged girls have the ability to gift their magic to others with a kiss – something the church would have them killed for. But protected by the Great Houses, their identities safe behind masks, the Nightbirds are well-guarded treasures.

Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer spend their nights bestowing their unique brands of magic to well-paying clients. But this Season’s Nightbirds find themselves at the heart of a political scheme that threatens their secrets and their safety. When they discover that their magic is far more than they were ever told, they see the carefully crafted Nightbird system for what it is: a gilded cage.

Now they must make a choice – to remain kept birds or take control, remaking the city that dared to clip their wings.

Kate J Armstrong’s Nightbirds is out 28 February from Allen and Unwin.
You can find Nightbirds on Goodreads here, and pre-order here.

A Hunger of Thorns by Lili Wilkinson

Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic—and her best friend.

These days, magic is toothless, reduced to glamour patches and psychic energy drinks found in supermarkets and shopping malls. Odette has always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she’s missing, and everyone says she’s dead. Everyone except Maude.

Storytelling has always been Maude’s gift, so she knows all about girls who get lost in the woods. She’s sure she can find Odette inside the ruins of Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant built over an ancient magical forest—a place nobody else seems to remember is there. The danger is, no one knows what remains inside Sicklehurst, either. And every good story is sure to have a monster.

Lili Wilkinson‘s A Hunger of Thorns is out 18 April from Allen & Unwin.
You can find A Hunger of Thorns on Goodreads, and pre-order here.

We Could by Something by Will Kostakis

Seventeen-year-old Harvey dreams of breaking free from his life. But when the relationship between his dads breaks down, he’s hauled across Australia on a red-eye flight from Perth to Sydney to live on top of a café with the extended Greek family he barely knows – a family who are about to get some very sad news.

Sotiris has achieved his dream. He’s a published author at seventeen. But in reality, the dream … kind of sucks. When he meets a cute, wise-cracking bookseller named Jeremy, however, he discovers a new and unexpected dream. One he’s not sure he’s prepared for.

Harvey’s and Sotiris’s stories converge on the same street in Darlinghurst, in this beautifully heartfelt novel about how our dreams shape us, and what they cost us.

Will Kostakis‘ We Could be Something is out 2 May from Allen & Unwin.
You can find We Could be Something on Goodreads here, and pre-order here.

The Isles of the Gods by Ami Kaufman

Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails off to adventure. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician’s marks on his arm commandeers her ship. He is Prince Leander of Alinor and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods.

Selly has no desire to escort a spoiled prince anywhere, and no time for his entitled demands or his good looks. But what starts as a leisure cruise will lead to acts of treason and sheer terror on the high seas, bringing two countries to the brink of war, two strangers closer than they ever thought possible and stirring two dangerous gods from centuries of slumber…