*Win­ner of the 2026 Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Award Hon­or in the Young Adult cat­e­go­ry!
Part his­tor­i­cal mys­tery, part sweep­ing romance, The Rebel Girls of Rome brings the sto­ries of two young women to bril­liant life: Lilah, a col­lege stu­dent look­ing to under­stand her grandfather’s mys­te­ri­ous past, and Bruna, a queer Jew­ish woman who joins the resis­tance dur­ing World War II.

From Jor­dyn Tay­lor, author of The Paper Girl of Paris, this dual-con­tem­po­rary and his­tor­i­cal tale — where heart­break, hope, and find­ing light in times of dark­ness are inevitably inter­twined — is per­fect for read­ers of Ruta Sepetys and Mon­i­ca Hesse.

Now: Griev­ing the loss of her moth­er, col­lege stu­dent Lilah is hop­ing to recon­nect with a grand­fa­ther who refus­es to talk about his past. Then she receives a mys­te­ri­ous let­ter from a fel­low stu­dent, Tom­ma­so, claim­ing he’s found a lost fam­i­ly heir­loom, and her world is upended.

Soon Lilah finds her­self in Rome, try­ing to unlock her grandfather’s his­to­ry as a Holo­caust sur­vivor once and for all. But as she and Tom­ma­so get clos­er to the truth — and their rela­tion­ship begins to deep­en into some­thing sweet­er — Lilah real­izes that some secrets may be too painful to unbury… 

Then: It’s 1943, and nine­teen-year-old Bruna and her fam­i­ly are doing their best to sur­vive in Rome’s Jew­ish quar­ter under Nazi occu­pa­tion. Until the dread­ed knock comes ear­ly one morn­ing, and Bruna is irrev­o­ca­bly sep­a­rat­ed from the rest of her family.

Over­come with guilt at escap­ing her family’s fate in the camps, she joins the under­ground rebel­lion. When her mis­sions bring her back to her child­hood crush, Elsa, Bruna must decide how much she’s will­ing to risk — when ful­ly embrac­ing her­self is her great­est act of resistance.