Jessica Khoury Books

Jessica Khoury, of Syrian and Scottish descent and born in Toccoa, Georgia, has quietly built one of the more genre-hopping careers in young adult and middle grade fiction, with over a dozen books published in many languages. She debuted in 2012 with Origin, a jungle-set science fiction thriller about a girl engineered to be immortal, and completed the loosely connected Corpus trilogy with Vitro and Kalahari. From the start her trademark was full-immersion settings: Amazon research compounds, remote deserts, places that function as characters.

For romantasy readers, one book towers over the rest of her catalog: The Forbidden Wish (2016), her Aladdin retelling narrated by the genie. And the genie is a girl. Zahra, an ancient jinni bound to her lamp, falls for the street thief who frees her, and the result is one of the most quietly beloved forbidden love stories in YA fantasy. Khoury writes it in lyrical second-person address, Zahra telling her story to a long-dead queen, and the prose is genuinely gorgeous without tipping into purple. If you like your romance ancient, doomed, and aching, this is a one-sitting read.

Her later career splits into two tracks. On the YA side: Last of Her Name (2019), an Anastasia retelling in space, and The Ruby Code (2023). On the middle grade side she became a powerhouse, with the Mystwick School of Musicraft series (2020 through The Dark Refrain in 2025), where magic is performed through music, and the Skyborn trilogy (Sparrow Rising, Call of the Crow, Phoenix Flight). Her newest, The Moorwitch (November 2025), continues the streak. She also works as an illustrator, and her visual sensibility shows in how precisely she stages scenes.

Heat-wise, set expectations correctly: Khoury writes YA and middle grade, so everything sits at 0 to 1 on our spice scale. The Forbidden Wish contains kisses and yearning, and the yearning is the point. This is slow burn in its purest form, where a hand touch carries more charge than another book's entire third act. Nothing in her catalog is written for adult heat seekers.

Why include her on a romantasy site? Honestly, as ancestry and as a palate cleanser. The Forbidden Wish belongs to the fairy-tale retelling lineage that feeds directly into modern romantasy, and it does the master-servant power imbalance, the immortal-loves-mortal tragedy, and the wish-with-a-price mechanics better than many adult books that borrowed the same toolkit. When the algorithm has you drowning in shadow daddies, Zahra's lamp is a beautiful place to recover.

There is also a craft dimension worth knowing: Khoury designs fantasy maps professionally, and that cartographer's brain is all over her fiction. Her settings have working geography, travel takes real time, and cities feel planned rather than painted on a backdrop. In The Forbidden Wish, ancient ruined Neruby matters as much as any character, a buried city Zahra remembers alive, and the book's most affecting passages are archaeology as grief. Few YA fantasies use physical place to carry emotional weight this well. It is the kind of quiet craftsmanship that does not trend on BookTok but explains why the book has never gone out of favor with readers who found it, a full decade of steady word of mouth after publication.

Start with The Forbidden Wish; for most readers here it is the whole reason to know her name, and it stands completely alone. If you enjoy her voice, Last of Her Name offers the same lush escapism in a space-opera key. Parents and teachers should look at Mystwick for the young readers in their lives. You can find our full write-up at The Forbidden Wish, and if genie romances are your thing, her book remains the standard.