Tag Archives: The Assassin’s Guide to Babysitting

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fiction: January-June 2025

Today’s post is sponsored in honor of the upcoming paperback release of Sydney Taylor Honor book Going Bicoastal, coming May 27th from Wednesday Books!

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The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold (January 7th)

The world is about to end. Again.

Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization as we know it, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore in suburban New Jersey where she used to work, trading books for supplies with the few remaining survivors. It’s the one place left that feels safe to her.

Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes.

Enter Maeve, a prickly and potentially dangerous out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night. Though the two girls are immediately at odds, Maeve has what Liz needs—the skills to repair the dilapidated store before the next climate disaster strikes—and Liz reluctantly agrees to let her stay.

As the girls grow closer and undeniable feelings spring up between them, they realize that they face greater threats than the impending Storm. And when Maeve’s secrets and Liz’s inner demons come back to haunt them both, they find themselves fighting for their lives as their world crumbles around them.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fiction: January-June 2025

Exclusive Cover Reveal: The Assassin’s Guide to Babysitting by Natalie C. Parker

Today on the site, I’m delighted to reveal the cover of Natalie C. Parker’s The Assassin’s Guide to Babysitting – a YA adventure billed as John Wick meets Adventures in Babysitting with superpowers, found family, and enemies-to-lovers sapphic romance – releasing January 7, 2025 from Candlewick! (Fun fact: Adventures in Babysitting is the first movie I ever saw in theaters, and Natalie C. Parker wrote one of my favorite books from my author debut class, so this is extra fun on multiple levels!) Here’s the story:

Tru has been hiding all her life. Her parents taught her to conceal her bastion Talent: indestructible skin, muscles, and bones. In a world where Talents are common and varied, no one trusts a bastion—they’re too powerful. Hiding failed to keep Tru’s parents alive, but moments before their murder, Tru’s mom pointed her to Logan Dire, a famed recluse assassin who adopted and trained orphaned Tru. At seventeen, she’s still hiding. Not even her closest friends know her true name or Talent, or that she’s balancing high school with knife and stealth training (while crushing on her BFF’s older sister). When assassins interrupt a mundane babysitting job booked through BountyApp—where lethal hunters find work and babysitters for their kids—Tru flees with a one-year-old strapped to her chest and spiraling questions: Who killed her parents? Whom can she trust? What does it mean to be a bastion? And is it ever OK to kiss a girl who’s trying to hunt you down? 

From an award-winning author comes a masterfully plotted thriller that holds character and relationship on a par with action and nail-biting suspense.

And here’s the electric cover, designed by Maria Middleton with art by Jonathan Bartlett!

A teenage girl climbs a fire escape with a baby in a sling on her back

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | Books-A-Million | PRH

(c) Georgia Shae Photography

Natalie C. Parker is the author and editor of several books for young adults, among them the acclaimed Seafire trilogy. Her work has been included on the NPR Best Books list, the Indie Next List, the TAYSHAS Reading List, and Junior Library Guild selections. Natalie grew up in a Navy family, finding home in coastal cities from Virginia to Japan. Now she lives with her wife on the Kansas prairie. Find her at nataliecparker.com.