As YallWest 2025 was getting started, I noticed a blue piece of paper on the ground that said something along the lines of ‘open me’ or ‘read me’. I picked it up and it said to turn it in at the Sourcebooks booth for a free book. However, a publicist later let me know that the books didn’t arrive for the event, but they’d send a copy of the book my way.

That book was Secrets of the Blue Hand Girls by Rowana Miller and the Sourcebooks Fire team did follow through. Fast forward to the fall, and Rowana was on the New York Comic Con guest list, so I decided to dive in on the story.

Secrets of the Blue Hand Girls [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] follows a girl named Kay as a letter sends her on an interesting journey. It says that author finds her intriguing and she should dye her hand blue on a certain day and not talk about it. We meet Kay while she’s using pen ink for the dye job, and then she discovers she’s not the only one with a blue hand. The letter writers want more information, especially about a student who died, forcing Kay to dig up past pain and question what’s really going on at her school… all while she might have feelings for someone involved in the master plan.

This book is getting a lot of comparisons to Bunny [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] which I haven’t read, so I can’t speak to that, but it does make me more interested in picking up Bunny at some point. This blend of academia (I wouldn’t quite call it dark academia) and secret society is a fun basis for the story. There’s plenty of tense moments to keep the reader turning the pages.

I was reading another book at the time I started this, and I definitely found myself reaching for this over the other. When chatting with Rowana about the start of this book, she presented a reasoning for why she started the story where she did and how social media has changed how we read, which I found thought-provoking and will definitely be looking for in other stories to see if it holds true. Learn more about it in our interview below.

However, as the story progressed, some of the antics felt a little too much to be believable. I’ll give the author credit for creating a wild situation, but I just couldn’t buy all of it. I also wanted a little more uniqueness in the voices of the characters. They felt a little too similar at points.

Overall, this is a solid debut novel and worth picking up, especially if you love a good YA mystery.

102: ROWANA MILLER: Secret societies, teen thrillers, and why kids make interesting writers – LiteraryHype Podcast

Send us a textThis week on LiteraryHype Podcast, we have a whole bunch of firsts! This is Rowana Miller's first interview! We're talking about her debut novel, Secrets of the Blue Hand Girls, which is being compared to Mona Awad's Bunny, but for teens. It's also Rowana's first time at New York Comic Con, so join us for some fun.FOLLOW ROWANABUY THE BOOKBookshopAmazonLibroFMSupport the showSupport the podcast by shopping:EtsyMy Bookshop.org listsLibroFM audiobooksTry Audible Plus Gift Audible Membership Glocusent LED Neck Reading LightTry Shameless Snacks10% Off at Once Upon a Bookclub10% off Goli VitaminsTWO FREE AUDIOBOOKS with new LibroFM Membership: Kindle Unlimited FREE FOR THREE MONTHS!Prime Television FREE TRIALJoin the fun!WebsiteInstagramTiktok…