July 21, 2026 by Simon & Schuster BYR
E ARC Provided by Edelweiss Plus
After their adventures in The House of Found Objects, Bea and Céline are planning on touring New York City. Aunt Juliette has an assignment to interview famous French actress Eva Rousseau, and is being put up in the fancy Kingston hotel. Eva is starring in a production of Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train, and she is being loaned the Tiffany Yellow Diamond necklace by the famed jewelry store. Not long after the girls meet the star, the necklace is stolen, and Aunt Juliette is the primary suspect, since she was the last person in Eva’s hotel room. Bea’s dad, a pastry chef, picks the girls up, but is convinced to stay at the hotel, since the girls want to investigate. Bea’s father is applying to jobs in London, but Bea doesn’t want to move, even though Céline is excited that the two could spend more time together. With a little help from Zane, whose mother owns and manages the hotel, the girls start to uncover evidence to help their aunt. Someone leaves them notes that suggest going to certain places in the city, and they see a guard from the hotel working at the Empire State Building, check out security footage, hunt down a former guard whose key card was used to get into the room, talk to other residents, and even follow Eva to a photo shoot in Central Park and talk to her assistant several times. They have several theories and even more suspects. It looks like Aunt Juliette was framed, but will they gather enough evidence to save her?
Strengths: Even though it is terrible that Aunt Juliette is in police custody (she has an ankle monitor so can stay at the hotel), this is a generally upbeat book centered around seeing the sights in New York City and empowering the girls to solve the mystery. There’s even a little light romance between Zane and Céline. The girls are given a decent amount of freedom, but it is mentioned that the father is tracking them. The mystery is well developed, and the perpetrator is really rather clever, if misguided. There are plenty of New York City details; the author is clearly fond of the city.
Weaknesses: I didn’t quite buy the red herrings, and found it difficult to believe that the girls really thought someone was leaving them useful clues. Younger readers might not worry about that aspect of the book, but may question mysteries where expensive artwork and jewelry are lying about to be stolen. What I’d like to see is a school based mystery where there is perhaps cell phone or expensive tennis shoe theft. THAT would intrigue my students!
What I really think: This felt a bit like a classic Nancy Drew mystery and is a good choice for readers who enjoyed McDunn’s Trouble at the Tangerine or McLean’s Jewel Society series.
July 28, 2026 by Penguin Workshop
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Adam moves to Little Pine with his mother and stepfather, but is leery of meeting other students. He is forced to talk to Molly, and gets roped in to helping her with the annual Pumpkin Festival that her grandfather hosts on his farm. This is not great, since Adam has had a traumatic experience with a pumpkin and is afraid of them. When students and teachers start getting pumpkins, they start acting weirdly, and secrets about the town's history are revealed.
I don't want to spoil the plot twists, but this was a little similar to Beware the Jacks by Laura Lavoie.There's a harvest festival, town secrets, and some pumpkin related zombification. Both books, interestingly enough, are being published in paperback. Both are more like Stine's Goosebumps books than his Fear Street ones; my students would love Fear Street if the almost forty year old paperbacks didn't smell "like grandma's living room".
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