The Next Twilight

4. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. 448 pgs. Simon Pulse. $10.79 Author Scott Westerfeld has already tried his hand at a variety of YA genres, from the vampire novel Peeps to the futuristic sci-fi series Uglies. His newest series, Leviathan, is a steampunk reimagining of WWI Europe. War is brewing between people divided between two distinct schools of thought. One side, the Clankers, believe machinery will be the salvation of mankind. The other side, the Darwinists, power their world with living creatures that have evolved into fantastic creations, from carriages pulled by enormous half-wolf tigers to whales-turned-airships. The first book follows a pair of reluctant allies, young Clanker Prince Aleksandar, son of the recently slain Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and a young Darwinist, Deryn Sharp, who disguises herself as a boy to join the British Air Service. The meaty book, beautifully illustrated throughout by Keith Thompson, will appeal to fans of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy for its steampunk imaginings and exquisitely immersive worldbuilding. The next book in the series, Behemoth, will come out in October 2010.

5. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. 320 pgs. Delacorte. $11.55 Zombies have already shambled into literature with recent surprise hits like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and World War Z. Now, the YA romance genre gets its own taste of the undead with The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Mary has grown up in a village ringed by a giant fence, which is the only thing protecting the living from the Unconsecrated, who roam the forest around them. When the zombies break through the fence and invade the village, Mary leads a ragtag group, including her fiancé, Harry, and the man she really loves, his brother Travis, through the forest in search of something she’s only heard of in stories—the ocean. Unrelentingly bleak and beautifully rendered, The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a haunting debut from a promising author. Seven Star Pictures recently picked up the film rights, and a screenplay is already in the works. Readers will be able to devour the second book in the trilogy, The Dead-Tossed Waves, in March 2010.

6. The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith

The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith. 512 pgs. HarperTeen. $9.99 Everything old is new again in YA genre lit. This Twilight craze is old hat to the generation that grew up reading L.J. Smith’s Vampire Diaries almost 20 years ago. Smith’s original four-book series centers on a love triangle between human Elena and two warring vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon. The series, initially planned as a trilogy until fan outcry convinced Smith to pen a fourth, was first published in 1991, but was brought back into print in in 1999 and again in 2007. Now, buoyed by the success of the CW’s Vampire Diaries television adaptation, Smith has stepped back into the world of Fell’s Church with a new trilogy. Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall was published in February, and the next hits stores in March 2010. Zareen Jaffery, a senior editor at HarperTeen, says the Twilight craze alone was not responsible for Smith’s return. “There was—and it’s hard to talk about vampire books without being punny—there was an insatiable thirst for vampire books, and there are people who read these books when they were younger and really wanted more of these memorable characters,” she says.

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Shannon Donnelly is a video editor at The Daily Beast. Previously, she interned at Gawker and Overlook Press, edited the 2007 edition of Inside New York, and graduated from Columbia University. You can read more of her writing here.

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