With the dubious announcement of a YA version of The Da Vinci Code yesterday along with all the political coverage going on within an election year, what better time is there to create a political thriller booklist of actual teen and ya books? The best thing is that political thriller books don’t have to stay in current times to fit within the political thriller genre. Below I’ve put together a booklist of political thrillers including contemporary, historical, and futuristic settings. Have some favorites that I missed? Share in the comments!
The Conspiracy of Us series by Maggie Hall. [The Conspiracy of Us (January 2015) and Map of Fates (March 2016)]: In the first book of the series, Avery has never known her father and has never lived in a home for more than a few months- always due to the mandate that she thinks is due to her mom’s contractor job. Until she decides the night before the next move to break the house rules just once and go to the school prom, and is whisked away to a hidden world that is the power behind everything that happens. It turns out that Avery may be the key to everything, or to the undoing of it all. In The Map of Fates, Avery has found her other family, but things are still complicated. The Order, a faction opposing everything her new family stands for, has her mom and is forcing Avery to betray her new family to get her back. Can Avery and her allies outwit not only the Order but the Circle as well in order to save her mom, or are things getting too deep?
The Fixer series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. [The Fixer (July 2015) and The Long Game (June 2016)]: In the first book, when Tess is sent to live with her sister in Washington, D.C. she doesn’t know that her sister has a life in the shadows, fixing the problems of the most prominent people within the country and the world. When Tess starts paralleling her sister’s life at her high school, secrets start to build up between them until they crash together and put the sisters into terrible danger. The Long Game has Tess being asked to run a classmate’s campaign for student council, with everyone hiding secrets in closets. Meanwhile her guardian has taken on a terrorist taskforce case, which casts doubt on who can and cannot be trusted, and those shadows reach deep into Tess’s world as well.
An Ember in the Ashes series by Sabaa Tashir. [An Ember in the Ashes (April 2015) and A Torch Against the Night {August 2016)]: When Laia’s brother is arrested for treason to the empire, she chooses to help spy for the rebels and risk her life for them in order for them to help rescue her brother. Elias is the Empire’s finest warrior, a general’s son, and wants nothing to do with a soldier’s life. When their lives intersect within the Academy, they’re forever changed- but can they change the Empire? Or will their actions cause only their downfall? A Torch Against the Night picks up where An Ember in the Ashes leaves off, with the Masks hunting Laia and Elias throughout the Empire.
Winner’s Trilogy series by Marie Rutkoski. [The Winner’s Curse (March 2014), The Winner’s Crime (March 2015) , and The Winner’s Kiss (March 2016)] In The Winner’s Curse, Kestrel is the general’s daughter, her people having conquered the island she lives on over ten years previously. Arin’s people have been made into slaves to serve the Valorians, and when she sees him on the auction block, something makes her buy him. Yet that one move can undo everything- for both of them. In The Winner’s Crime, Kestrel is engaged to the Valorian’s heir to the empire while Arin is the governor of his former home. Both are playing a dangerous game within the empire and with each other. Can they get through to each other or will both get burned? In The Winner’s Kiss, war has begun and Arin finds himself with untrustworthy allies on one side and his mind occupied with the puzzle of Kestrel. Meanwhile, Kestrel has been shipped to the north for the crime of treason, and both find themselves caught in the middle of the conflict between the Empire and the rest of the world. Can anyone win, let alone survive?
Embassy Row series by Ally Carter. [All Fall Down (January 2015) and See How They Run (December 2015)]. In All Fall Down, Grace knows she’s not crazy. She knows that her mom was murdered. And she knows that she’s going to find the killer and get her revenge. Yet no one seems to believer her, not even when her past comes back with a vengeance. Can she convince her new friends before things get too dangerous for everyone involved? In See How They Run, Grace realized that finding out the truth about her mom’s death didn’t bring her the peace she hoped for- all it did was make her a target. Secrets must be brought to light very carefully when you live on Embassy Row, and you have to be very careful about whom you trust. Can Grace figure out who to put her faith in, or will she fall like her mom?
Singular Menace series by John Sandford and Michele Cook. [Uncaged (May 2014), Outrage (July 2015), and Rampage (July 2016)] In Uncaged, Shay is running away from a bad situation with less than $60 in her pocket and trying to find her brother. The only lead she has is a few cryptic messages- until the authorities start asking questions, and she starts seeing news stories about labs bring broken into. Then it’s a race: can Shay find her brother before the authorities do, and before the lab goons find Shay and her friends? In Outrage, Shay has struck a blow to the Singular Corporation, and rescued her brother Odin as well as a girl who’s been experimented on. Can Shay and the others use Odin and this new girl’s knowledge to expose and escape the reaches of the Singular Corporation or will others die before they can figure things out? In Rampage, Shay and her friends think they have Singular on the run. But are they really safe?
Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi. (October 2014): According to her stalker, everything Alix knows is a lie- from what her father does to how she lives to her family. Who can she trust, who should she trust, and what should she do? What lines should she cross, and how far do you go for family?
Unknown Assassin series by Allen Zadolf. [I Am the Weapon (also known as Boy Nobody) (June 2013), I Am the Mission (June 2014), and I Am the Traitor (June 2015)] In I Am the Weapon (aka Boy Nobody) he’s the perennial new kid in school. He blends in everywhere, makes a friend, and that friend just happens to have a tragic death within the family, and he disappears. Then he reports to “Father” and “Mother” for his next move. Over and over again, until he’s assigned to take out the Mayor of New York, and he starts to get too close to the Mayor’s daughter. Then the perfect weapon starts to think for himself, and that is never allowed. In I Am the Mission, the perfect weapon is haunted by his last assignment. He screwed up, and everything went wrong. Now he knows that he’s being watched and tested, and one false move can mean his death. Can he walk the tightrope until he figures out his next move, or will he fall? In I Am the Traitor, the perfect weapon has gone rogue, and now he has allies in Howard and Tanya, friends he’s rescued along the way. With these new recruits, will the three of them be enough to take out the The Program, or will they teach him a new lesson from “Father” and “Mother”?
Proxy & Guardians by Alex London. [Proxy (June 2013) and Guardians {May 2014)]. In the future, patrons are never hurt, they never work, and they never want. Their proxies take the blame, the prison sentence, the beatings; when Knox kills a person in a car accident, his proxy Syd is sentenced to death. Yet Knox and Syd’s lives are intertwined in ways they can never imagine, and when they try to escape the system their whole world starts looking for them. In Guardians, Syd is the figurehead of the Revolution- he’s the one who started the Reboot and reset the system. Yet when Syd starts to see signs of corruption in the new system and even worse signs that the old system is coming back, will anyone be willing to listen? Or will Syd have to risk his life and everything he fought for in order to take down corruption again?
Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson. (September 2014). Emily was raised not to question things- after all, she needs to be perfect and needs the perfect future with the perfect education, and already has the perfect boyfriend. Yet when she wakes up in a hospital after what is supposed to be another perfect party, and a deadly bird flu is raging across the nation, Emily’s perfect facade starts to fracture. The only one she can trust runs outside the perfect world her parents and friends approve of, and as they dig deeper what Emily remembers and puts together could bring down an entire government.