7 Popular Book Series for Teens

Make way, Nancy Drew—Stevie Bell is our new favorite girl detective, and she and the gang at Ellingham Academy are here to take us on a ride of epic proportions. Founded by Albert Ellingham, the school is designed precisely for kids like Stevie—students who think out of the box—inspired by the unsolved disappearance of his wife and daughter. 

But Stevie takes the school mission one step further when she determines to solve the infamous Ellingham case, and finds it a far more dangerous—and ongoing—mission than she ever imagined. (The best part of falling for this series? Once the original trilogy ends, we get a bonus standalone fourth book, The Box in the Woods, which sets the teen mystery story at summer camp.) 

Already read and loved Johnson’s quartet? Take a gander at YA’s other best contemporary detective series, Charlotte Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro.

Witches are having a massive moment in YA right now, most notably in this debut trilogy that follows refugee Louise le Blanc, who’s starting over in Cesarine living a life without magic. 

In hiding to save her own life, she certainly never plans to cross paths with a man of the church, let alone to marry one. But when she finds herself wed to holy witch hunter Reid Diggory, it forces both her heart and her life on the line. 

Combining both history and witches, Maniscalco follows up her wildly popular Stalking Jack the Ripper series with this new Venetian-inspired fantasy trilogy about a teenage strega on a hunt for her twin sister’s murderer. 

At a loss for answers, Emilia turns to exactly the person she shouldn’t: Wrath, who’s one of the princes of hell (i.e. the Wicked) that she’s always been warned about. But desperation makes people lose all sense, and if Emilia really is placing her faith in the wrong person, she risks losing far more. 

Few series have debuted with the splash of Adeyemi and Children of Blood and Bone, which takes its origins in Yoruba mythology. It stars Zélie, who, as the daughter of a Reaper, grew up with magic. Then it’s all gone in a flash as a new, murderous king comes to power and changes all the rules. 

Now Zélie must restore magic—and hope—to her people, even if means fomenting a dangerous rebellion and outwitting the prince who would see magic destroyed for good. But when she gets too powerful and too wrapped up in the last boy she should, she threatens to become the greatest danger to herself and her world.

Barnes has long been a master of the YA thriller, but this is the first of her series to truly receive the recognition she deserves. (Pause to pour one out for The Fixer, possibly the best political YA thriller of our time, which absolutely deserved a third book to the series.) It stars a girl named Avery, who’s just inherited an absolutely obscene amount of money from a dead billionaire she’s never met, but it comes with some strings, including a requirement that she move into his mansion. 

Unfortunately, that mansion is also occupied by family members who just got shafted by the very will that put Avery in the house, including two Hawthorne brothers who are both managing to worm their way into her heart. This bestselling series is full of wild twists and turns you’ll never see coming, and it all comes to a close next year in The Final Gambit.

Kicking off with The Cruel Prince, this fae-centric trilogy follows Jude, a human who was orphaned and kidnapped at a young age along with her sisters and brought to the High Court of Faerie. Now she’s trying her hardest to belong, but it’s impossible to blend in when almost everyone, including Prince Cardan, hates humans. Or is it? Jude has plans to ingratiate herself and find her place, and she doesn’t care how big an enemy she makes of the prince, or what else she has to do to get ahead. This series has it all, from a highly shippable romance to glorious court intrigue.

Spread out over the course of a decade, this series began in 2011 with main character Sunny at twelve years old, a New York-born albino girl living in Nigeria and desperate to find her place. When she finally does, it’s among the Leopard People, where she and her new friends form an empowering coven younger than any other in the people’s history. 

As the series continues, Sunny develops her powers and faces her destiny, traveling through magical worlds to save humanity. And in January 2022, Sunny will return again, this time in Akata Woman, where she’s on a new quest with plenty of practice and experience behind her. But what awaits her, and how will she defeat the guardians who stand in her way? We’ll find out soon enough!