Jessica Khoury – författare

In the Clandoms, everyone is born with wings, though not all the clans are treated equally. Ellie Meadows longed to become a Goldwing—the knights who protect the people—but because she came from the humble Sparrow Clan, her dream faced almost insurmountable resistance.

Nox Hatcher has it even worse. Nox is a Crow, a shattered clan. They can't own businesses or run organizations, all due to mysterious betrayal made hundreds of years ago. Nox has had to steal and scrape just to survive, but a single goal has kept him going, even when it felt like all the Clandoms were against him. Years ago, his mother was imprisoned for a crime she didn't commit. Now, finally, Nox is going to save her.

But there’s more to Nox’s story than even he realizes, a secret that’s been kept buried for centuries. And the king of the Clandoms himself is so desperate to conceal it that he’s sent a ruthless assassin after Nox and his friends.

The four young fugitives must watch every shadow. If they aren’t careful, they’ll be cut down before they can rescue anyone.

Humor and heart shine in this middle grade fantasy about a girl who attends a boarding school to learn how to use music to create magic, perfect for fans of Nevermoor and The School for Good and Evil series.

Amelia Jones always dreamed of attending the Mystwick School of Musicraft, where the world’s most promising musicians learn to create magic.

So when Amelia botches her audition, she thinks her dream has met an abrupt and humiliating end—until the school agrees to give her a trial period. Amelia is determined to prove herself, vowing to do whatever it takes to become the perfect musician. Even if it means pretending to be someone she isn’t.

Meanwhile, a mysterious storm is brewing that no one, not even the maestros at Mystwick, is prepared to contain. Can Amelia find the courage to be true to herself in time to save her beloved school from certain destruction?

In the Clandoms, every person is born with wings, along with the ability to fly. But there has always been one deadly restriction to this gift -- a rule that must never be broken. Flying in cloudy skies summons gargols, vicious stone monsters that will tear any poor trespassers apart.

History doesn't tell where the gargols came from, or why they're so intent on punishing those who soar too high. But now Ellie Meadows thinks she knows why. An aspiring knight turned wanted fugitive, Ellie has seen the truth with her own eyes. The Clandoms' history has been taken from them, along with their ancestral homes.

Only one person can return the Clandoms back where they belong. Nox Hatcher is the key to the skies, if only Ellie can get him to believe it.

Bullied at school and home, Ash finds respite from his unhappy life in virtual reality games. One night, he spends his meager savings to help a stranger, who thanks him with a copy of an old fantasy game called The Glass Realm.

While exploring the game, Ash meets a seemingly humble shopkeeper named Ruby. But from the start, Ruby seems different than the other townsfolk—especially when she and Ash stumble across an in-game quest designed not for the player, but for Ruby to solve. When Ruby begins developing powerful abilities that can rewrite the very code of the game, they realize she is far more than a pre-programmed side character.

Following the quest left for her in The Glass Realm, the pair discover that Ruby is actually a sentient AI who’s been hidden inside the game. Originally built as a weapon, her developer stole her from his employers and hid her away, hoping to keep her safe.

That safety vanishes when Ash and Ruby are targeted by the powerful shadow organization who funded Ruby’s development, and who would use her to spark a world war to rack up huge profits. Caught in a deadly game that blurs the lines between real and virtual, Ash and Ruby must flee for their lives. If they lose this game—they might just doom the world.