Today on Pop! Goes The Reader, I’m honoured to host the exclusive cover reveal for Winter White by Annie Cardi, a modern YA reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale being published by Union Square & Co. on January 27th 2026! Don’t miss all the exciting details below!
About Annie Cardi
Annie Cardi is the author of Red (UNSQ, 2024) and The Chance You Won’t Return (Candlewick, 2014). Her books have been included on the Kids’ Indie Next List, the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults List, and named among the Bank Street College of Education Best Books of the Year. She has an MFA from Emerson College and currently lives with her family in the Boston area.
Author photo by Sarah Cramer Shields
I’d been struggling to work on a different manuscript when I got the idea for Winter White. Immediately, I was pulled in by Pia — her resilience, her strength, her love, and her hope. Raised essentially in isolation and told that the outside world is a cruel, dangerous place, Pia is used to following her father’s orders. But on the rare occasions that she gets to go to town, there’s one place she can’t resist going, even though her father disapproves of it — the town library.
Early in the drafting process, it became apparent that Pia was a reader. Even though she spends most of her time sequestered on a farm with her father and younger brother, she’s able to experience the outside world through the books she smuggles home. Her life circumstances differ from the characters she reads about, but she’s still able to see her own struggles and hopes and desires in those stories. When she starts questioning her family’s way of life, she finds inspiration from the characters she’s read about. Books are a true lifeline for readers like Pia and we need to ensure that young people have access to the stories they need.
I’m so excited for readers to meet Pia and, hopefully, to find solace for themselves in these pages, too.
Cover design by David Curtis
Title Winter White: A Modern Retelling of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale
Author Annie Cardi
Target Audience Young Adult
Publication Date January 27th 2026 by Union Square & Co.
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● Blackwell’s ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
A bold and authentic reimagining of The Winter’s Tale full of tragedy, triumph, and an unforgettable voice.
Pia and her brother, Max, live on an isolated farm in rural Maine, and it’s the only life they remember. Their father says the only way for them to stay protected is to stay on the farm. Pia doesn’t question it. Pia’s entire world turns upside down when her father breaks his leg, and she must be the one to venture into town to make farm deliveries. And then she sees him. Felix, a boy who is both a stranger and somehow familiar, makes her question everything she thought she knew about herself, her past, and her family. But no matter how she feels about Felix, she must always obey her father, above all else.
But Pia’s feelings are too big to ignore, and the more she engages with Felix, the more she begins to see that there’s promise for her beyond the isolated world to which she’s grown accustomed. And the more she dreams about a better life, the more she wonders if her father is telling the truth about their family’s past. Pia knows her father and his friend Anthony are hiding something, and soon Pia must reckon with the damage her father is doing to their community and the damage he has done to their own lives.
Winter White is an astonishingly told and searingly authentic reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale for fans of Sabaa Tahir, Kathleen Glasgow, and Sarah Dessen.
