If the way Miel’s roses unfurl from her wrist and Sam’s painted moons turn a town into a galaxy stole your breath, you’ll sink right into the lyrical spell of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. Walton’s prose shimmers with the same sensory richness, following a girl born with wings through a family history where love and longing become literal. It’s that same feeling you had when the Bonner sisters circled Miel for her roses—beauty edged with danger, told in language that blooms on the page.

When When the Moon Was Ours let magic seep in at the edges—the water tower origin no one could explain, the moons Sam hung like talismans—you trusted the wonder without needing a rulebook. The Ocean at the End of the Lane offers that same hush of mystery: a farm at the edge of town, a pond that might be an ocean, and powers that protect without ever pausing to be defined. If you loved how Miel’s roses simply are, you’ll love how Gaiman’s magic is felt in your bones more than it’s explained.

If Samir’s journey toward himself—his name, his body, his moons—moved you, Cemetery Boys will feel like coming home. Yadriel is determined to be recognized as a brujo by his traditional Latinx family, and when he summons a ghost, he finds an unexpected love that’s as soft and steady as Miel and Sam under the pumpkin-field skies. It carries that same heart: claiming who you are, navigating family expectations, and letting magic make space for love.

If you were drawn to Miel and Sam growing into themselves—her guarding the roses that mark her past, him choosing the future written in his own hand—The Astonishing Color of After offers a similarly intimate metamorphosis. Leigh believes her mother turned into a bird and journeys to Taiwan to untangle love, loss, and heritage. Like the truth hidden in the water tower and the roses the Bonner sisters coveted, the answers here are revealed in symbols and tenderness, until identity unfurls like a petal.

If what you loved most was how close the story felt—Miel and Sam stealing moments beneath painted moons while the town whispered—The Weight of Feathers keeps the focus tight on two teens from rival performing families whose lives are stitched with strange, delicate magic. The romance is as hushed and aching as Miel’s roses, the stakes as personal as resisting the Bonner sisters’ demands, and the setting wraps around you like a secret.