This summer, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing will reintroduce its Simon Pulse imprint with a new crop of young adult books, spanning a variety of genres. Six titles, including mysteries, thrillers, horror stories, and romantic comedies, will comprise the initial roll-out, with additional releases slated for the fall and beyond.
In 2001, the Pocket Pulse imprint was moved into the Simon & Schuster children’s group and renamed Simon Pulse, initially as a paperback-only imprint for young adult books. The imprint went on hiatus in 2021; S&S declined to offer a reason for the hiatus.
Promoting Page Turners
The statistics surrounding teens and books are discouraging these days. According to the 2025 Walton Family Foundation and Gallup Voice of Gen Z study, 35% of students surveyed said they dislike reading, and 43% reported rarely or never reading for pleasure. But rather than relying on numbers alone, the team at Simon Pulse decided to ask teens themselves about what books they were reading, what they were interested in, and why they didn’t enjoy reading.
“We got a lot of rolled eyes, which meant we were talking to the right market,” publisher Valerie Garfield, who leads the imprint with director Kara Sargent, told PW. “But what we realized is that most teens didn’t see reading as a form of entertainment. If they had an extra hour, they weren’t picking up a book.”
It was around this same time that Garfield, who was on vacation, noticed many people reading the same book and talking to each other about it. Back in the office, she and the Pulse team talked about how buzz-worthy books can promote conversation and that generating this type of interest happens organically—something they could encourage.
“This age group knows and appreciates content; our ‘content’ is a book, and we want our books to engage them as much as anything they post on social media,” Garfield said. While acknowledging the challenge, she stands behind the imprint’s mission to appeal to young adults with fast-paced, hard-to-put-down stories that they can share with their friends.
Kicking off the Pulse’s return line-up is Until Next Summer by Allison Ashley and The Beckett Effect by Nashae Jones (both May 5), followed by Vampire Beach by Alex Duval (June 9), You Jump First by Myah Ariel (June 30), Killing Sadie by Rachel Peterson (Aug. 4), and The Season of Light and Darkness by Jillian Cantor (Aug. 18). Books from Shannon Messenger and Meg Cabot are also in the works.
“With a wide variety of great reads, we’re out to prove that books can be entertaining, engaging, and moving as any screen,” Garfield said in a statement. “This is not a lineup that you have to read for an assignment; these are the books you want to read.”
