When Sunny St. James receives a new heart, she decides to set off on a New Life Plan: 1) do awesome amazing things she could never do before; 2) find a new best friend; and 3) kiss a boy for the first time. Her New Life Plan seems to be racing forward, but when she meets her new best friend Quinn, Sunny questions whether she really wants to kiss a boy at all. With the reemergence of her mother, Sunny begins a journey to becoming the new Sunny St. James.

As with Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, the sophomore middle grade novel by Ashley Herring Blake adds to the slowly growing, but still small list of queer MG titles. The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James is a gorgeous follow-up to Ivy Aberdeen as a novel about grief, loss, discovery, friendship, and the power in being oneself, no matter what.