Welcome to another edition of Must Read Monday!

This feature is where I spotlight older, recent, or upcoming releases I am looking forward to. The lists will include all genres I like to read, everything from picture books to comics, children’s lit to adult fiction!

This week: Julie Berry‘s The Passion of Dolssa and Leila Sales‘s Once Was a Time. I was absolutely enthralled by Julie Berry’s gripping young adult title All the Truth That’s In Me– the year I read it, it was a top YA read of year for me- so I am very much looking forward to read her latest, an historical fiction title. Tagged as medieval, dark and thrilling, with a number of terrific reviews already out there, I can’t wait to dive in. Popular YA author Leila Sales (a must-read author for me!) moves into the middle-grade/children’s genre with the upcoming Once Was a Time. Described as a time-traveling historical title, I am very curious to read what Sales does with this new genre foray! As I mentioned in my review of Janet B. Taylor’s Into the Dim, I have had a pretty wobbly relationship with time travel fiction. But! I really enjoyed Into the Dim, and given the fact that I am a fan of Sales’ writing, I think Once Was a Time holds great promise!

The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry
Expected publication: April 12, 2016 by Viking Books for Young Readers

Buried deep within the archives of a convent in medieval France is an untold story of love, loss, and wonder and the two girls at the heart of it all.

Dolssa is an upper-crust city girl with a secret lover and an uncanny gift. Branded a heretic, she’s on the run from the friar who condemned her mother to death by fire, and wants Dolssa executed, too.Botille is a matchmaker and a tavern-keeper, struggling to keep herself and her sisters on the right side of the law in their seaside town of Bajas.

When their lives collide by a dark riverside, Botille rescues a dying Dolssa and conceals her in the tavern, where an unlikely friendship blooms. Aided by her sisters and Symo, her surly but loyal neighbor, Botille nurses Dolssa back to health and hides her from her pursuers. But all of Botille’s tricks, tales, and cleverness can’t protect them forever, and when the full wrath of the Church bears down upon Bajas, Dolssa’s passion and Botille’s good intentions could destroy the entire village.

From the author of the award-winning All the Truth That’s in Me comes a spellbinding thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final page and make you wonder if miracles really are possible.

Once Was a Time by Leila Sales
Expected publication: April 5, 2016 by Chronicle Books

In the war-ravaged England of 1940, Charlotte Bromley is sure of only one thing: Kitty McLaughlin is her best friend in the whole world. But when Charlotte’s scientist father makes an astonishing discovery that the Germans will covet for themselves, Charlotte is faced with an impossible choice between danger and safety. Should she remain with her friend or journey to another time and place?

Her split-second decision has huge consequences, and when she finds herself alone in the world, unsure of Kitty’s fate, she knows that somehow, some way, she must find her way back to her friend. Written in the spirit of classic time-travel tales, this book is an imaginative and heartfelt tribute to the unbreakable ties of friendship.