Jeff Zentner lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He came to writing through music, starting his creative life as a guitarist and eventually becoming a songwriter. Hes released five albums and appeared on recordings with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan, and Lydia Lunch, among others.
Now he writes novels for young adults. He became interested in writing for young adults after volunteering at the Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and Southern Girls Rock Camp. As a kid, his parents would take him to the library and drop him off, where he would read until closing time. He worked at various bookstores through high school and college.
He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived in the Amazon region of Brazil for two years.
The Book of Luke (2025) Lovell Holder "The Book of Luke is as intriguing, propulsive, sexy, entertaining, and compulsively bingeable as your favorite reality show (and don't pretend you don't have one). Lovell Holder is the rare breed of storyteller who can pull off twists that will make you gasp."
Next Time Will Be Our Turn (2025) Jesse Q Sutanto "A moving and strikingly original love letter to love in its varied forms. Yes, swooning, heady romantic love. But also the trying, stormswept love shared between family. Even the primal love for a bite of perfect food gets many a moment. This book will remind you why love stories matter."
Shampoo Unicorn (2025) Sawyer Lovett "Shampoo Unicorn is a fiercely loving ode to queer rural America and the young people who build oases of joyful community in a world that tries to deny them sustenance. This is the sort of book that saves lives."
A Catalog of Burnt Objects (2025) Shana Youngdahl "A Catalog of Burnt Objects assures us, in the most heart-wrenching and lyrical terms, that even as our world burns in ways both figurative and literal, love and hope will survive the dark night and rise from the ashes."
The Faculty Lounge (2024) Jennifer Mathieu "As important as teachers are, their lives have been largely absent from popular culture. The Faculty Lounge remedies this with a warm, profoundly moving, vividly drawn, and hilarious ode to educators. This book brims to bursting with dignity and love."
The Wilderness of Girls (2024) Madeline Claire Franklin "This book pulses with untamed lupine energy and intelligence, filled with lyrical sentences honed sharp as canines and fiercely alive characters. A beguiling, vital debut from a manifest talent."
The Breakup Artists (2024) Adriana Mather "The Breakup Artists is a hilarious, smart, and swoonworthy book that will have you cheering, laughing out loud, and falling in love."
The Notes (2024) Catherine Con Morse "Compellingly readable. Make room in the boarding-school book canon for a new classic."
Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair (2024) Laura Piper Lee "Add another name to the Romcom Writers' Hall of Fame. Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair is laugh-out-loud funny, dead sexy, charming, as Southern as chess pie and twice as sweet. Get ready to fall in love!"
I Loved You in Another Life (2023) David Arnold "With every book, David Arnold's prodigious imagination expands the bounds of storytelling and how we relate to each other. I LOVED YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE is a stirring, lyrical, and breathtakingly ambitious ode to love that endures across ages."
All That Shines (2023) Ellen Hagan "If you want to read something that will break your heart with poetry and then make it feel like you're falling in love on the cool bluegrass under a warm Kentucky summer night sky, All That Shines is the book for you."
Borderline (2023) Sorboni Banerjee "This Book will leave tou breathless it starts at a humming fever pitch and just goes up from there."
Hurt You (2023) Marie Myung-Ok Lee "Hurt You reads like something written by a master's hand, a powerful and heartbreaking story that resonates with the force of love and legend."
The Sharp Edge of Silence (2023) Cameron Kelly Rosenblum "The Sharp Edge of Silence is a thrilling story of the courage necessary to effect change at a vividly drawn boarding school. Cameron Kelly Rosenblum writes with a crackling, lyrical voice that takes root in your heart and echoes in your mind long after you're done turning pages."
The Half-Life of Love (2023) Brianna Bourne "Brianna Bourne offers us a moving and enthralling story that reminds us that love lights our way as we all travel in death's shadow."
Free Radicals (2023) Lila Riesen "ree Radicals is a deeply moving and keenly drawn story of courage, resilience and familial love, filled with tenderness, heart, romance, and hilarity. Lila Riesen is a talent to watch."
Remind Me to Hate You Later (2023) Lizzy Mason "A luminous, masterfully drawn story of surviving grief, love, and seeing people's truth. Get out your tissues for this one."
American Afterlife (2022) Pedro Hoffmeister "American Afterlife is a taut, gripping, and prescient exploration of survival and clinging to humanity in the wake of natural disaster, rendered to harrowing perfection by one of our finest writers."
Dark Room Etiquette (2022) Robin Roe "DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE is an utterly harrowing, enthralling, and ultimately hopeful exploration of survival and the journey of recovery from trauma. This book will make you think, but more importantly, it will make you feel."
The Edge of Summer (2022) Erica George "Reading The Edge of Summer feels like spreading your arms wide and letting the summer sun warm your face and the wind off the ocean almost lift you off the ground. A gorgeous, evocative story of love, friendship, new beginnings, and navigating the valley of grief."
The Words We Keep (2022) Erin Stewart "The Words We Keep is a luminous exploration into the restorative power of love and art. The only thing it contains more of than poetry is raw, unfiltered hope. This book is a healing balm to a wounded heart."
This Golden State (2022) Marit Weisenberg "This Golden State is that rarest combination of a page-turning, gripping plot that will keep you enthralled for hours, and a soul-stirring, coming-of-age story that will set your heart aflame."
Sunny G's Series of Rash Decisions (2022) Navdeep Singh Dhillon "This book, written in a voice that feels like the wind in your hair, is a love letter to the many Americas that make one country, to heritage, and to love itself. Reading Sunny G's Series of Rash Decisions is the best decision you could make."
Hello (From Here) (2021) Chandler Baker and Wesley King "Years from now, when asked what lifeduring COVID was like, I’ll recommend Hello (From Here), because of what a witty, hilarious, heart-filled, and romantic reminder it is that love and light can emerge from the most trying times."
Take Me With You When You Go (2021) David Levithan and Jennifer Niven "What happens when you team up two unrivaled masters of storytelling at the height of their powers? You get a story glowing and triumphant with love and hope. You get 1 + 1 = 10. You get this book."
When We Were Strangers (2021) Alex Richards "When We Were Strangers is a sparkling, stirring ode to love, art, and unexpected human connection. It reminds us that while the valley of grief may be long, we can emerge from it into the light."
Paradise, WV (2021) Rob Rufus "Paradise, WV strikes like a copperhead, filled with dark hilarity, crackling Appalachian gothic mystery, and buzzsaw punk rock energy. Fans of Elmore Leonard, Harry Crews, and Daniel Woodrell, take note."
Smoke (2021) Darcy Woods "A compelling chronicle of a small-town American family navigating an economic hurricane in a rowboat filled with holes. You’ll cheer for them."
Indestructible Object (2021) Mary McCoy "A moving and masterfully drawn love letter to art, found family, and all of the messy but always wonderful shades of love, filled with as much soul as the city of its setting."
Not My Problem (2021) Ciara Smyth "A joyous, hilarious, big-hearted book with the kind of electric, rollicking voice that makes you want to live in its pages forever."
Indivisible (2021) Daniel Aleman "Indivisible is a heartbreakingly poignant and timely coming-of-age story of the human cost of a morally bankrupt immigration policy. This book is an unforgettable chronicle of the fiercest, indomitable love and devotion."
Tell Me My Name (2021) Amy Reed "A harrowing, prescient vision of the near future. Amy Reed delivers a compelling and propulsive thriller with sentences that gleam like polished steel."
Fadeaway (2021) E B Vickers "A compelling, propulsive read, filled with dark twists and turns and buried secrets. If you start reading, clear your schedule for the day."
Mayhem (2020) Estelle Laure "A beguiling, lyrical, beach-gothic page-turner."
Ghost Wood Song (2020) Erica Waters "Ghost Wood Song sings a high and lonesome love song to family, to place, to music, and to love itself. It will make your heart dance."
Sorry for Your Loss (2019) Jessie Ann Foley "Luminous, wise, lyrical, and hilarious. Pup Flanagan is the best sort of underdog hero. This book’s pages can barely contain the hugeness of its beating heart."
A Sky for Us Alone (2019) Kristin Russell "A stirring, powerful, and heart-wrenching story of coming of age, falling in love, and trying to lead a life of dignity."
The Gravity of Us (2019) Phil Stamper "The Gravity of Us speaks poignantly of the things that will attend every human endeavor: family, struggle to know one's self, and the kind of love that makes you feel like you're hurtling to the stars."
A Breath Too Late (2019) Rocky Callen "An exquisitely played love song to life, in all of its hurts, wonders, memories, and loves. This book will remind you that you are needed, in this big and often messy world."
Damsel (2018) Elana K Arnold "Arnold is a master of writing the struggles of young women and the violence they endure. In Damsel, she gives us a suitably masterful, darkly gorgeous modern fairy tale of a young woman passing through fire to protect what is hers. You will not be able to look away."
The Looking Glass (2018) Janet McNally "Janet McNally’s writing glows like your best memory, sensuous and alive with moonlight and the smell of flowers."
Before We Were Sorry (2018) Kit Frick "Kit Frick combines the hand of a consummate storyteller with the heart of a master poet to craft an intriguing, suspenseful, and compelling story of love, lies, and complicated friendship."
Tradition (2018) Brendan Kiely "Brendan Kiely's Tradition is a searing literary call-to-arms in the most powerful and just sense: it takes a sledgehammer to our rotten, dangerous, and deeply ingrained traditions, so that we can build something new and beautiful in their place."
Twelve Steps to Normal (2018) Farrah Penn "Step one: Pick up this compulsively readable book and fall in love with its richly drawn characters and deeply empathetic reminder that none of us are broken beyond repair. Step two: Repeat."
The Beauty That Remains (2018) Ashley Woodfolk "The Beauty That Remains burns warm and bright with the fires of loss, love, and longing, and hums with poetry and song. This is the sort of book that pieces a broken heart back together, stronger than before."
Love, Hate & Other Filters (2018) Samira Ahmed "Love, Hate & Other Filters heralds a dazzling new talent. Samira Ahmed creates a masterful alchemy of heart, humor, profundity, poetry, romance, and humanity. Through the eyes of the richly drawn Maya Aziz, we get a powerful, timely-yet-timeless, and poignant story about the delicate dance of coming of age in two cultures."
A Short History of the Girl Next Door (2017) Jared Reck "In the blink of an eye, A Short History of the Girl Next Door goes from hilarious to haunting to harrowing to heartbreaking to hopeful and back. You’ll never be sure exactly what kind of tears you’re crying. The riotously funny and achingly authentic voice of this gorgeous coming-of-age story will break your heart, but have no fear: it will piece it back together with the glue of love, hope, and humor, and it will be stronger than before."
Dress Codes for Small Towns (2017) Courtney C Stevens "Courtney Stevens firmly reasserts herself as a master storyteller of young adult fiction; crafting stories bursting with humor, heart, and the deepest sort of empathy."
A Million Junes (2017) Emily Henry "A Million Junes is intricate, strange, ecstatic, and spellbinding. The sheer poetry and imagination of Emily Henry's writing won't take your breath away--you'll give it up willingly."
