Hillary Monahan

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: N/A

Ethnicity: Romani

Nationality: Welsh / American

There’s a first time for everything.

First time playing quarters. First time spinning the bottle. First totally hot consensual truck hookup with a superhot boy whose digits I forgot to get.

First time getting pregnant.

Surprised you with that one, didn’t I?

Surprised me, too. I’d planned to spend senior year with my bestie-slash-wifey, Devi Abrams, graduating at the top of my class and getting into an Ivy League college. Instead, Mom and I are moving in with my battle-ax of a grandmother and I’m about to start a new school and a whole new life.

Know what’s more fun than being the new girl for your senior year? Being the pregnant new girl. It isn’t awesome. There is one upside, though—a boy named Leaf Leon. He’s cute, an amazing cook and he’s flirting me up, hard-core. Too bad I’m knocked up with a stranger’s baby. I should probably mention that to him at some point. But how?

We have four books on our radar for these last days of April. Are any of them on your TBR pile?

Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali Salaam Reads

A marvel: something you find amazing. Even ordinary-amazing. Like potatoes—because they make French fries happen. Like the perfect fries Adam and his mom used to make together.

An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are.

But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry.

When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar, for an early start to spring break.

Fueled by the guilt of getting her friends in trouble, she resolves to try out a newer, “nicer” version of herself in a place where no one knows her.

Then her path crosses with Adam’s.

Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in November, Adam’s stopped going to classes, intent, instead, on perfecting the making of things. Intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister.

Adam’s also intent on keeping his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father.

Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals.

Until a marvel and an oddity occurs…

Marvel: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

Oddity: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak by Adi Alsaid Inkyard Press

The summer after senior year is not going as eighteen-year-old Lu Charles expected: after her longtime boyfriend unexpectedly breaks up with her, Lu can’t write a single word, despite the fact that her college scholarship is tied to her columnist job at hip online magazine Misnomer. Then, she meets Cal.

Cal’s ever-practical girlfriend Iris is looking ahead to her first year of college, and her plans do not include a long-distance boyfriend. When Lu learns that Cal and Iris have planned to end their relationship at the end of the summer, she becomes fascinated and decides to chronicle the last months the couple will spend together.

The closer she gets to the couple, the more she likes them, and the more she wants to write about them. The summer unfurls, and Lu discovers what it really means to be in love. On the page, or off it. The book is touching exploration of love and how it shapes us both during a relationship and after it has ended.

Belly Up by Eva Darrows (Hillary Monahan) Inkyard Press

When 16 year old Serendipity Rodriguez attends a house party to celebrate the end of sophomore year, she has no intention of getting drunk and hooking up with a guy she’s just met, let alone getting pregnant. To make matters worse, she has no way of contacting the father and she and her mother are about to move to a new town and in with her grandmother.

It’s hard enough to start your junior year as the new kid in school, but at 5-months pregnant it’s even harder. So when Sara meets Leaf, who asks her out and doesn’t seem to care that she’s pregnant, she finds herself falling.

Juggling the realities of a pregnancy with school and a new relationship are hard enough, but when Jack, the father of her baby, turns back up, Sara’s life goes from complicated to a complete mess. With the help of her overbearing mother and grandmother, Sara will learn to navigate life’s challenges and be ready for anything, as she prepares for the birth of her baby.

This Place: 150 Years Retold Highwater Press

Explore the last 150 years through the eyes of Indigenous creators in the graphic novel anthology, This Place: 150 Years Retold. Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through magic realism, serial killings, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact.

New Releases: April 2019

Maiden & Princess by Daniel Haack & Isabel Galupo/ill. Becca Human (2nd)

Once in a faraway kingdom, a strong, brave maiden is invited to attend the prince’s royal ball, but she’s not as excited to go as everyone else. After her mother convinces her to make an appearance, she makes a huge impression on everyone present, from the villagers to the king and queen, but she ends up finding true love in…

Forget what you know about those so-called evil stepsisters! These fierce ladies are wholly misunderstood and deserve some extra credit. They’re strong, ruthless and a force to be reckoned with—what’s not to love about that? We have a lineup of not-so-evil stepsisters from amazing YA books that will rock your world! Breaking the mold isn’t for the faint of heart!

1)      The Impossible Vastness of Us by Samantha Young

For India Maxwell, Boston has none of the sunny-California vibe she’s used to, especially since she’s at the bottom of the social ladder. Her stepsister, Eloise, doesn’t give her much of a helping hand, but behind that cool facade there’s a tender side and a huge secret. #besties or #frenemies?

2)      Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows

Emma’s life is turned upside down when her new stepsister, Quinn, moves in with them. Quinn is a vicious mean girl. But when she tragically dies, Emma begins to realize there was more to her than anyone realized.

Better Know an Author: Hillary Monahan aka Eva Darrows aka Thea de Salle

Well, I think it’s clear from the headline that we’re ending the year with an author who wears a whole lot of hats, and I’m very grateful at how many of them are queer ones! You may know Hillary/Eva/Thea from YA (including her New York Times-bestselling Mary), or from fantasy, or from her brand-new Western, or contemporary romance…or you might not, in which case, settle in and better know an…

Fave Five: MGs and YAs with Queer Moms

This Would Make a Good Story Someday by Dana Alison Levy (Contemporary MG) The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions) by Amy Spalding (Contemporary YA) Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally (Contemporary YA) The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli (Contemporary YA) Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows (Contemporary YA) Bonus, coming in October: 27 Hours by Tristina Wright (Sci-Fi YA)…

When Eva Darrows sat down to write her new YA novel Dead Little Mean Girl, it was because she wanted to change the way we think about the setup of girl versus girl in our favorite novels. Why are those mean girls so awful? Is anyone ever just what they appear? Mean girls are people too, and some of our favorite YA mean girls prove there is more going on than meets the eye.

 Quinn Littleton – Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows

In Dead Little Mean Girl, we only see Quinn through the eyes of our loveable protagonist, Emma. Quinn is mean, shallow and frequently cruel. But, as the story progresses, Emma unravels the threads of Quinn’s life and reveals her stepsister’s truth: that Quinn was struggling and felt lost for reasons Emma only begins to uncover after Quinn’s death, and she couldn’t find a healthy outlet for the emotional turmoil inside of her.

Pansy Parkinson – The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

Pansy is as mean as they come—but being the daughter of a prestigious Death Eater family couldn’t have been easy. We’d guess that Pansy probably felt pressure to conform to her family’s dark beliefs, and didn’t have the benefit of being raised in the loving embrace of an open-minded, supportive environment, like some of our heroes. Harry didn’t either, but there’s no accounting for the positive impact of the Weasley family, great friends and a strong support system to make sure he turned out all right. All Pansy had were the Death Eaters.