Celebrating its fifth birthday this month, Harlequin TEEN—Harlequin’s dedicated imprint for young adult books—has quite a few things to be excited about. Launched in 2009 with four titles, the commercial YA program will be publishing 40 books this year alone. The expansion isn’t just about numbers, either. Executive editor Natashya Wilson said that while the program has stayed true to its roots, it has been consistently expanding the breadth and scope of its output.
“Initially, we looked to our own list of authors,” Wilson explained, noting that some of Harlequin TEEN’s first titles were written by the publisher’s star adult authors, like Gena Showalter and Rachel Vincent. This summer and fall the imprint’s lineup includes the launch of a new series called Talon by bestselling author Julie Kagawa (who’s behind the popular Iron Fey series), a celebrated road trip novel by newcomer Adi Alsaid, and a probing examination of desegregation, set at a Virginia school circa 1959, by debut novelist, Robin Talley.
Wilson, who thinks Talley’s Lies We Tell Ourselves falls into the vaunted category of “the most powerful books I’ve ever read,” said that, ultimately, what makes a book right for Harlequin TEEN is what she found in Talley’s novel. “When I’m looking to acquire a book, I don’t just consider whether it’s a good, entertaining story. I want to find something deeper, that resonates throughout the book, that leaves the reader with something to think about.” Of course Wilson’s has certain leanings—she often goes for the romantic, commercial stories, while her colleague, editor T.S. Ferguson (who acquired Lies We Tell Ourselves), is the more “literary one”—and admits to being a sucker for stories about the power of unconditional love. But, for Wilson, it all comes back to discovering stories that linger in readers' minds long after they stop reading. “What is it that someone once said?" she asked. “Everyone has one life to live, but readers can live thousands of lives through the books they read.”
