Hello again! We’re excited to share more of our clean book finds with you! Since we have so many new subscribers, we decided to make this newsletter as detailed as possible so you’re equipped to stuff those stockings with clean books for the holidays. Take a look. ⤵️
-Sara & Stacy  

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**This newsletter is part of the section of our website called “Clean YA Books for Teens, Tweens, or anyone.” Sign-up to receive our updates if you haven’t already! (This list is different from our general Book Series Recaps newsletter.)

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Clean Reads for your holiday enjoyment

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if you’re having a hard time finding books without all the language, sex, or mature situations for you and your teens, you’re not alone. (New subscribers, scroll down if you want to know more about my search for clean books.) 

Also, I’ve noticed several new subscribers with school-related email addresses. Welcome EDUCATORS. I see you! I hope I can help you find what you are looking for. 

In this email, I plan to give lots of suggestions for clean books for the holiday. Some you may have seen before, some already listed on our website, some I have read, and some I plan to read soon based on trusted recommendations.

**Don’t forget to forward this to anyone who might find it helpful.

Without further delay, here are my book recommendations for your holiday, what I’m reading now, and the books I plan to read soon! 

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What I’m reading now:

Synopsis from Amazon:

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fright…”

The Quarrel of Sword and Bone was a death sentence for anyone who stepped into the arena with the deranged Queen, whose soul had crisped to frost in an age long since past.

What if St. Nicholas was really a young, mad trickster and you had the one thing he wanted? What if the only person who agreed to protect you from him had a dark past of letting those he’s meant to protect die? What if one day you’re walking in the city and suddenly you can see a whole other world tucked into the cracks of your own?

Sixteen-year-old Helen Bell understood tragedy better than most kids growing up. She knew what it was like to wear clothes from donation bins and be mocked in school. She thought those brutal experiences made her ready for anything, but when an encounter leaves her able to see a species of invisible people walking among us, and a young, handsome Winter guardian appears to aid her in a crisis, all the holiday legends she heard as a child begin to haunt her. After magical happenings infiltrate her daily life, and a train horn begins calling to her from across the city, she finds herself in the middle of a war of good versus evil.

A Soul as Cold as Frost is Jennifer Kropf’s debut novel, ideal for fans of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms by Meredith Rusu and Ashleigh Powell.

Clean books for the holidays by Genre:

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*Reminder: Our site contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases….hey, we had to upgrade our hosting due to our amazing number of readers…we’re just trying to pay for it! ;)*

Clean YA Fantasy

Synopsis from Amazon:

Watchers, Guardians, Strength Wielders, Water Movers, and, of course, THE DREAMER

Evie grows restless observing mortals from the safety of her desk in the Control Room. When a friend offers to smuggle her by portal into the human world, she jumps at the opportunity. Secretly, though, she also hopes to observe Adan, the human Dreamer. Only a glimpse, she promises herself.

But trouble awaits after her captivating adventure and delayed return. Not only did she take an unsanctioned trip to the ground, but the boy, the Dreamer, is missing. Worse still, her director believes she is to blame.

Evidence soon places Adan in another sector, where Gifted humans are forbidden.

Donning a human body and wielding a golden blade, Evie’s orders are to travel to this uncharted territory, find Adan, and take care of the problem.

As she attempts to keep the human emotions at bay, she discovers this intriguing boy was smuggled here for a reason, and perhaps the culprit—the Deceiver—is a threat to them all.

Synopsis from Amazon:

Around Agatha Sea, princesses are poised, magically gifted, and betrothed.

So, when seventeen-year-old Princess Beatriz still fails to secure a betrothal, her parents hold a ball. Forming an alliance could mean the difference between peace and war, but Beatriz doesn’t want just any suitor. She’s in love with her best friend, Prince Lux. Marrying Prince Lux will always be a silly dream as long as she has no magical gift.

Princess Beatriz will do whatever it takes to obtain a touch of magic, including making a deadly oath to go on a quest to Valle de Los Fantasmas. A valley where no one comes out alive.

If she can manage to succeed, Princess Beatriz could have everything she desires and secure peace for her kingdom. If she fails, she’ll lose not only her greatest dream but also her kingdom, and maybe even her own life.

Unbethrothed, a 2022 new release title, is a young adult fantasy that encourages young women to embrace their self-worth. Exploring themes of redemption, the story takes place in a tropical seaside kingdom complete with a castle, flat-roofed houses and a mountainous jungle land. The authors’ own Latin background gives her young adult novels a Latin twist causing the most avid reader to be surprised.

Synopsis from Amazon:

Solve the clues. Face your fears. Survive the Trials.

All Alice Liddell wants is to escape her Normal life in Oxford and find the parents who abandoned her ten years ago. But she gets more than she bargained for when her older sister Charlotte is arrested for having the infamous Wonder Gene—the key to unlocking the curious Wonderland Reality.

Soon, Alice receives a rather cryptic invitation to play for Team Heart in this year’s annual—and often deadly—Wonderland Trials. Now she has less than twenty-four hours to find her way into Wonderland where nothing is impossible . . . or what it seems.

The stakes are raised when she discovers players go missing during the Trials each year. Will she and her team solve the clues and find the missing players? Or will betrayal and distrust win, leaving Alice alone in a world of her own? Follow the White Rabbit into this topsy-turvy fantasy where players become prey, a sip of the wrong tea might as well be poison, and a queen’s ways do not always lead one where they ought to go.

Synopsis from Amazon:

The truth about Neverland is far more dangerous than a fairy tale…

Claire Kenton believes the world is too dark for magic to be real—since her twin brother was stolen away as a child. Now Claire’s desperate search points to London…and a boy who shouldn’t exist.

Peter Pan is having a beastly time getting back to Neverland. Grounded in London and hunted by his own Lost Boys, Peter searches for the last hope of restoring his crumbling island: a lass with magic in her veins.

The girl who fears her own destiny is on a collision course with the boy who never wanted to grow up. The truth behind this fairy tale is about to unravel everything Claire thought she knew about Peter Pan—and herself.

Synopsis from Amazon:

A realm of monsters. A world of lies. She belongs to both.

My name is Emberly, and everything I’ve ever been told is a lie.

Monsters don’t exist. Wrong.
The nightmarish spectrum world is just my imagination. Wrong.
In a few months, I’ll finally be free. Wrong.

It takes being dragged to a secret training academy in the mountains to unravel the truth. My captors–an elite race of angel-born warriors called Nephilim.

Clean YA Historical Fiction

Synopsis from Amazon:

Evalina Cassano’s life in an Italian-American family in 1941 is quiet and ordinary … until she falls in love with Taichi Hamasaki, the son of Japanese immigrants. Despite the scandal it would cause and the fact that interracial marriage is illegal in California, Evalina and Taichi vow they will find a way to be together. But anti-Japanese feelings erupt across the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Taichi and his family are forced to give up their farm and are incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp.

Degrading treatment at Manzanar Relocation Center is so difficult, Taichi doubts he will ever leave the camp alive. Treasured letters from Evalina are his sole connection to the outside world. Embracing the boldest action she can to help Taichi, Evalina begins to radically speak out at school and at home, shining a light on this dark and shameful racial injustice. 

With their future together on the line, Evalina and Taichi can only hold true to their values and believe in their love against all odds to have any hope of making it back to one another.

Synopsis from Amazon:

My name is Anastasia. The history books say I died. They don’t know the half of it.

Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.

Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are either to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.

That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.

Clean Young Adult Science Fiction

Synopsis from Amazon:

The Consortium is All. But Recorder Can No Longer Obey.

Recorder has no family, no friends, and no name. Donated to the Consortium before birth, her sole purpose is to maintain and verify the records. A neural implant and drone ensure compliance, punishing for displays of bias.

Suddenly cut off from controlling technology, Recorder tastes what it means to be human. But if the Consortium discovers her feelings, everyone she knows will be in danger.

With no name, no resources, and only an infinitesimal possibility of escape, Recorder’s time is running out.

Synopsis from Amazon:

Spensa’s world has been under attack for decades. Now pilots are the heroes of what’s left of the human race, and becoming one has always been Spensa’s dream. Since she was a little girl, she has imagined soaring skyward and proving her bravery. But her fate is intertwined with her father’s–a pilot himself who was killed years ago when he abruptly deserted his team, leaving Spensa’s chances of attending flight school at slim to none.

No one will let Spensa forget what her father did, yet fate works in mysterious ways. Flight school might be a long shot, but she is determined to fly. And an accidental discovery in a long-forgotten cavern might just provide her with a way to claim the stars.

Synopsis from Amazon:

There’s a price on her head, and it has everything to do with the brand on her arm.

Tertian Space Coalition has blessed every planet in the quadrants with high technology, save one: Drosero. But in spite of their tenuous treaty with the ruling clans, TSC has plans for the backward planet. And they’re not alone.

After a catastrophic explosion, Kersei Dragoumis awakens in a derelict shuttle, alone, injured, and ignorant of the forbidden technology that has swept her into a nightmare. The brand she’s borne since childhood burns mysteriously, but the pain is nothing to that when she learns her family is dead and she is accused of their murders.

Across the quadrants, Marco Dusan responds to the call of a holy order—not to join them, but to seek a bounty. Gifted—or cursed—with abilities that mark him a Kynigos, a tracker sworn to bring interplanetary fugitives to justice, Marco discovers this particular bounty has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with prophecy. One that involves the hunter as much as the hunted.

Clean Contemporary Books

Synopsis from Amazon:

Some memories are better left forgotten.

Darby and Morgan haven’t spoken for two years, and their friend group has splintered. But when the body of their former science teacher is found in the marsh where they attended camp that summer, they realize they have more questions than answers . . . and even fewer memories.

No one remembers—or no one is talking.

The group of reunited friends suspects that a murderer is stalking the coastal highway 30A, and they are desperate to recover their memories as quickly as possible . . . before their history they can’t remember repeats itself.

Everyone has a secret.

As tensions rise and time runs out, Darby and Morgan begin to wonder if they can believe one another . . . or if they can even trust themselves.

Synopsis from Amazon:

A summer in Italy turns into a road trip across Tuscany in this sweeping New York Times bestseller filled with romance, mystery, and adventure.

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.

But then Lina is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything Lina knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.

Synopsis from Amazon:

When Gia Montgomery’s boyfriend, Bradley, dumps her in the parking lot of her high school prom, she decides to do the unthinkable…convince the cute guy waiting to pick up his sister to pretend to be her boyfriend for the night. The task is simple: two hours, zero commitment, a few white lies.

The problem is that days after prom, she can’t stop thinking about her fill-in boyfriend. But can Gia turn her fake boyfriend into a real one without exposing her lie and possibly destroying her friendships and her newfound relationship?

Smartly observed and wonderfully romantic, Kasie West’s talent shines in this tale of one girl’s unexpected quest to find love…and possibly herself.

Clean Reads for Boys:

I realize this is not exactly a genre, but we get many requests for ideas. I mainly read fantasy that leans toward my daughter’s interests–and mine–so I haven’t read any of these. They all came recommended as clean reads.

Synopsis from Amazon:

How far would you go for revenge if someone killed your father?
If someone destroyed your city?
If everything you ever loved was taken from you?
David Charleston will go to any lengths to stop Steelheart. But to exact revenge in Steelheart’s world, David will need the Reckoners—a shadowy group of rebels bent on maintaining justice.
And it turns out that the Reckoners might just need David too.

Synopsis from Amazon:

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Synopsis from Amazon:

After Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he’s left with two choices: wither away in juvenile detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs an overseas climbing company.

But Peak quickly learns that his father’s renewed interest in him has strings attached. Big strings. As owner of Peak Expeditions, he wants his son to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit—and his motives are selfish at best. Even so, for a climbing addict like Peak, tackling Everest is the challenge of a lifetime. It’s also one that could cost him his life.

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My TBR and books releasing in 2023:

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More info for new subscribers:

It’s not difficult to find clean book ideas for older books and classics, but what if your teens and tweens want to read newer fiction? My kids do, and that’s why I began a broader search.

Many people are looking for these books, and they ARE out there. You just have to know where to find them. The big publishing companies aren’t backing clean books as often right now, so I started searching in smaller publishing houses or from indie authors. I’ve found some great reads this way.

Because of this, some of these may not be at your local library, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get them there. In fact, if you want your library to offer more clean books, you should request more clean books, so they’ll know what their community wants. You can request books at your library on their website, in person, or over the phone.

Also, I’d love your feedback and suggestions. You can reply to this email if you have recommendations. Keep in mind that I’m looking for more recent releases, books published in at least the last five years. (Or a series that finished up in that time, even if the first book is a bit older.)

Haven’t subscribed yet? Do it now!

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We are looking for recap contributors

Many readers have responded to our call to write for Book Series Recaps. Whether you’re an aspiring author who wants to flex those writing muscles or an avid reader who wants to help us out, click here to request more information, including our current recap wish list!

Want to see what a contributor recap looks like? Check out this great recap of The Hunger Games by a regular contributor. We include a shout-out with a link to her blog at the beginning of the post and then links to her bookish social media accounts at the end.

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