Cemetery Boys

Yadriel is a trans boy in a Latinx community of brujx in East Los Angeles, and he wants his family to see him as the brujo he is. His traditionalist father and his aunts and uncles refuse to let him go through the ritual that would make him a full brujo. So he decides to prove himself without their blessing.

With his cousin and best friend Maritza beside him, Yadriel sets out to summon a ghost and use his new powers to find his missing cousin Miguel. The spell works, but it brings back the wrong person. Julian Diaz, the school troublemaker, is freshly dead and cannot remember how he died.

There is a deadline. Yadriel must release Julian into the afterlife before time runs out, and as the days shorten the two are pulled into each other's lives. Their search for answers leads into a mystery much deeper than either expected.

The book is a young adult ghost story, a mystery and a love story in one, steeped in Día de los Muertos tradition and set in a close-knit neighborhood. It won the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award and was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The tone leans warm, with the mystery driving the plot forward.