Exclusive Cover Reveal: We Were Never Here by Sophia Hannan

Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Sophia Hannan to reveal the cover of her debut, We Were Never Here, a lesbian YA Horror releasing July 28, 2026 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers! Here’s the story:

In July, Georgia Perry and Jules Park—secret girlfriends, covert art thieves, and cohosts of a popular YouTube ghost hunting show—step into a haunted house to steal a priceless painting. A few short hours later, there’s a knife in Jules’s chest and Georgia is waking up in a pool of blood with no memory of how she got there.

Now it’s October, and Georgia is underwater. She hasn’t been to class in weeks, she’s avoiding her old crew and only friends like the plague. But when the three remaining thieves get a call from the man who paid a hefty sum to keep them out of jail, demanding that they return to finish the job, Georgia has no choice but to return to her old life.

As the estranged friends scramble to steal the painting with no cover story and no leader, they quickly realize that something is very, very wrong, and it’s not just the suffocating memory of Jules or the prying eyes of their viewers. Between the strange shadows that begin to trail them and the nightmares plaguing Georgia’s sleep, only one thing is certain: Something followed them home from De Lys manor, and it will do anything to keep them from going back.

And here’s the gorgeously chilling cover, designed by Laura Eckes with art by Elizabeth Wakou!

A painting with a golden frame of a girl sitting in front of old teal wallpaper. Half of her face is blank and dead, with black hair and a black dress, and the other half is alive with dyed green hair, a white sweater, and a scared expression. She holds a bouquet of half-dead flowers.

Buy it: Bookshop | B&N | Amazon | Indigo | S&S

Jackie Hall Photography

Sophia Hannan is a Canadian author of YA fiction. When she’s not writing about ghosts and the girls they haunt, she can be found studying English literature and forcing her friends to watch horror movies with her. We Were Never Here is her debut novel.

Fave Five: Graphic Novel YA Reimaginings

Tragic by Dana Mele and Valentina Pinti (Hamlet)

Northranger by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo (Northanger Abbey)

Mismatched by Anne Camlin and Isadora Zeferino (Emma)

Dan in Green Gables by Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre (Anne of Green Gables)

Angelica and the Bear Prince by Trung Le Nguyen (“East of the Sun and West of the Moon”)

Bonus: These all reimagine single works, but for a series reimagining multiple Shakespearean works, check out Arden High by Molly Horton Booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm, and Jamie Green (Shakespeare)