A Reality Show Murder Mystery, A Poe Legacy, and More New YA Book Releases for April 8, 2026

The first in a series releasing simultaneously in hardcover and paperback, this story follows 16-year-old Ellen Poe, whose family claims to be descendants of the infamous Edgar Allan Poe. But when Ellen moves into her aunt’s Poe-themed B&B, what had been nightmares inside her head start to become part of her everyday reality. This only becomes worse when she finds a journal in the B&B, and Edgar Allan Poe begins to visit her.

Filled with questions about what’s happening, Ellen begins to discover that she and Edgar have something wild in common: they can interact with spirits. The bad news? This is likely what caused Edgar all kinds of problems. Is that Ellen’s fate, too?

The Escape Game is an escape-room-themed reality show, and last season’s finale was the most explosive yet. Contestant Alicia Angelos was found murdered on the set.

But the show goes on, and season five is now being filmed. It’s a great cast, made up of a cryptographer, a math genius, a game mastermind, and Sierra, the sister of the girl found murdered last season. Everyone thinks she’s the one who did the deed, but she’s on the show to prove her innocence.

The teens are now working together to figure out who killed Alicia, and the clues they’re finding are leading to far more questions than answers. One thing is becoming clear, though: whether or not the murderer was Sierra, the lives of everyone on the show are in danger until the killer is caught.

It’s a twisty, turny thriller for readers who love puzzles, escape rooms, and reality TV stories.

Destiny has always had to rely on herself. She grew up with a mother who struggled with addiction and who had a parade of bad boyfriends. Destiny’s lived in more places than she can count, but finally it looks like her mother is on the right path, and Destiny herself can settle down. Good news for her is that she finds herself falling in love, too.

But soon, Destiny’s heart is broken. She decides in the heat of the moment to tell one little lie to keep hope for a better life alive. That little lie, though, continues to grow, and now Destiny’s struggling to figure out what’s true and what’s part of the fiction she’s created.

Now, Destiny has to figure out how to step into the truth and stick to it before her life unwinds even further.

Speaking of stories built upon lies, here’s another one for fans of stories where lies are central. Mira Kyler has been leading the court of Virdei from the shadows, as she helped her cheating stepbrother, Luc, become Virdei’s leader. Mira has lie-powered magic, and she’s been collecting secrets from people across the court to keep Luc in power.

Kaidren Vale has magic, too, and his is that, by touching anyone, he knows their secrets. He’s desperate for the throne of Virdei, and Mira knows that if he touches her, he’ll know her secret and be in the position to get what it is he’s after.

Kaidren and Luc are facing off in The Trials, a series of three deadly challenges, and whoever wins will take the throne. Realizing that whatever the outcome is, she’ll have to continue doing someone else’s work, Mira decides she wants to fight for the throne herself. Now she’s fighting harder than she could have ever imagined, betraying both her stepbrother and Kaidren.

But she’s realizing that one of those boys may hold the key to her win–and it’s not who she expects.

Chianti, who is 15, just learned that her dad isn’t her biological dad, and it tears her family apart. She goes to live with her maternal grandmother, who was once a freedom fighter in Zimbabwe’s civil war.

Pretty quickly, Chianti’s new neighbors take her under their wing. The three friends work as business partners and want Chianti to help with their work of upcycling secondhand clothing. When she’s not working, Chianti discovers a box of her grandmother’s photographs, which prompt more questions about what family does and doesn’t look like.

This is a short little book, coming in at under 200 pages. Musariri debuted a few years back with All That It Ever Meant, which I hope more people will pick up. If you’re itching for YA written by people outside of the US and set outside the US, these two books should be on your TBR.

Hazel doesn’t have a great relationship with her twin sister Beth. Things are made rockier when Beth abandons Hazel at a party that she didn’t want to go to in the first place. But Hazel will make the best of it. She’s not the social twin, but she’s flirting and decides she can have fun by telling ghost stories over a Ouija board.

But Beth doesn’t come home after the party, and now, Hazel’s worried. Beth comes back a day later, claiming to be Veronica Green–a teen who went missing and was killed in their town years ago. Hazel knows her sister isn’t possessed. At least, she thinks she knows this.

Now, Hazel has to figure out what really happened to Veronica years ago, as it might help unlock the clues for what her party antics may have accidentally unleashed on her sister. The challenge will be that Hazel and Beth can’t take each other out first.

Reality shows are a theme this week. This one follows Seyoon Shin, who loves to win, and Dean Parker, who is far less about competition when it comes to speed and strength and far more about using smarts to get ahead. When the chance to take part in a wilderness reality show competition arises, they both jump at the opportunity. Though Seyoon is in it to win, Dean is in it to prove himself.

The two of them quickly realize that to win, they’ll need to ally. The show’s producers see this not as a strategic collaboration. They see it as a chance to spin a rivals-to-lovers storyline for the audience.

The problem? Now, Seyoon and Dean are feeling some feelings for one another, and they can’t untangle what’s real from what’s been manufactured for the show. Worse, their alliance is making them realize that no matter how well they work together (and no matter how much chemistry there is between them), only one of them can win.

You can pick this one up in hardcover or in paperback.