They’re back! For those times when you just need a short break from reading.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few amazing book trailers for just some of the books releasing in June and July, a peek at a few of those coming out in August, a look back at those we may have missed, and a glimpse at a few authors talking about their books.

While I may have already included a few of those June trailers in the May peeks, some were just too good not to repost.

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All These Lives by Sarah Wylie

Release date: June 5, 2012

(sarahwyliebooks)

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Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Release date: June 5, 2012

(fiercereads)

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Mirage by Kristi Cook

Release date: June 5, 2012

(VLCPhotoProductions)

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Arise by Tara Hudson

Release date: June 5, 2012

(harperteen)

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Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Release date: June 5, 2012

(fiercereads)

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Transcendence by C.J. Omololu

Release date: June 5, 2012

(bloomsburykids)

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Surrender by Elana Johnson

Release date: June 5, 2012

(elanajohnson)

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The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

Release date: June 12, 2012

(PenguinYoungReaders)

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Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown Release date: June 12, 2012

(AnneGreenwoodBrown)

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Rapture by Lauren Kate

Release date: June 12, 2012

(RandomBooks)

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Tokyo Heist by Dianna Renn

Release date: June 14, 2012

(Dianna Renn)

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This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Release date: June 19, 2012

(StMartinsPress)

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A Midsummer Tights Dream by Louise Rennison

Release date: June 26, 2012

(harperteen) – English to English

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Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Release date: July 3, 2012

(harperteen)

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Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Release date: July 3, 2012

(harperteen)

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Waking Storms by Sarah Porter

Release date: July 3, 2012

(hmhbooks)

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52 Reasons to Hate My Father by Jessica Brody

Release date: July 3, 2012

(MacmillanChildrens)

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Insignia by S.J. Kincaid

Release date: July 10, 2012

(harperteen)

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Never Enough by Denise Jaden

Release date: July 10, 2012

(denisejadenauthor)

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So Close to You by Rachel Carter

Release date: July 10, 2012

(harperteen)

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Small Damages by Beth Kephart

Release date: July 19, 2012

(bethkephart)

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Cold Fury by T.M. Goeglein

Release date: July 24, 2012

(tmgoeglein)

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Endlessly by Kiersten White

Release date: July 24, 2012

(harperteen)

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Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Release date: July 24, 2012

(harperteen)

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Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Release date: July 31, 2012

(harlequinbooks)

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For just a peek at what’s coming in August….

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Release date: August 7, 2012

(bloomsburykids)

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Glitch by Heather Anastasiu

Release date: August 7, 2012

(heatheranastasiu)

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The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore

Release date: August 21, 2012

(PuffinBooks) – This is the Puffin Books edition

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Heaven by Alexandra Adornetto

Release date: August 21, 2012

(MacmillanChildrens)

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Defiance by C.J. Redwine

Release date: August 28, 2012

(harperteen)

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And for a look back at one or two we may have missed….

Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

Release date: May 29, 2012

(harperteen)

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Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Release date: November 29, 2011

(VLCPhotoProductions) – trailer produced July 6, 2012

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Here’s what the authors are saying…

Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr

Release date: September 4, 2012

(harperteen) – the author talks about her upcoming book

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Cold Fury by T.M. Goeglein

Release date: July 24, 2012

(tmgoeglein) – the author talks about his book

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We hope you enjoyed the lovely distractions. Stay tuned…we’ll be back with our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

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There are so many amazing books out there – released or soon-to-be-released – that have certain passages that just captivate.

Here are just a few of those that caught my attention in the past few months.

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I have so many favorite passages in Unravel Me that if I were to include them all I’d practically be reprinting the book. Which, contrary to popular belief, would not be good. So I had to choose just one favorite, which proved impossible to do.

And so I chose two. Both with just enough to tease, but that are not too revealing – though my very favorites are the most spoiler-y of them all. And both that definitely made me sigh.

And yes, I left off just who was sharing either or both moments with Juliette.

And because one just wasn’t enough….

I am so in love with this sequel to Wildefire. Embers & Echoes is definitely a book I’d call epic. But it’s so much more than that. There are so very many passages that are absolutely gorgeous.

My favorites, of course, are completely spoiler-y. Especially the one about… Oops. Nope. Sorry.

So I chose this one from a scene I absolutely adore that is beautiful and intriguing.

This Is Not a Test is a surprisingly beautiful and heartbreaking story for a book that involves zombies. I never anticipated finding a passage to love let alone the very many that I did.

One of my most favorite is completely spoiler-y and one of them I included with my review. But as there were so many to choose from, I couldn’t help but tease this one. Though I am not going to reveal the two people in the scene.

There is so very much to love about Demon Eyes. Talk about a seriously amazing follow-up to a wickedly awesome book. And with the way this book ends…. Well, that’s the biggest teaser of them all, so I couldn’t possibly reveal that here.

I have a ton of passages that I think are beautifully written that teased me throughout the read. But I think this one is the perfect one to tease with. Especially since I know who is asking the question and I know what happens next.

I have nearly fifty passages marked as favorites in Before I Wake. Most of them are total spoilers for If I Die so I’ve been hesitant about talking about them. But it’s long past release date for IID and Before I Wake has been out for a couple of weeks, so I figure I can be just a tiny bit spoiler-y for If I Die.

Of course choosing a passage to tease with was oh so tough. I already teased one with my review that was intense and beautiful. So I thought I’d go with something just a little bit more fun and a lot more grin-worthy.

I expected Cold Fury to be a story with action-packed sequences and so I did not anticipate finding one, let alone several, passages that I could call favorites. But the way the author talks about Chicago throughout the book is absolutely beautiful and I found so many passages that pulled me in simply from the pictures he painted.

I have one of my favorite passages earmarked for my review that talks of betrayal, but this passage just clings to me.

I am reading Onyx right now and I can say with absolute certainty that there are so many awesome passages in this book. I think I already have at least twenty marked down and I’m not very far along in the read. This bodes very, very well.

Of course the passage I chose just has to include Daemon Black. It wouldn’t be a teaser without him. And I decided to tease this one for just a little bit longer.

Grave Mercy is an absolutely beautifully written book. I found myself lost in the words and the world from the very start. And I knew from the author’s writing that I’d be enchanted by nearly every word that was written. And I was.

I had an absolute favorite passage, which I included with my review, along with another passage I loved. But they were most definitely not the only ones. Passages like this one also held me captive.

And yes, the very next paragraph is even more….

This was my most challenging teasers post yet. All of the eight books I chose to tease from had writing that was just so amazingly awesome that almost every word was a tease. So selecting just a few favorites was impossible.

Add to that the fact that I wanted to tease and not spoil made creating this post almost cruel.

For me that is. I hope the passages I chose aren’t too torturous for you.

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This  Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers was released in the U.S. on June 19, 2012 in paperback and eBook formats. It is currently available to order online in both formats at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Published by St. Martin’s Griffin, the print edition is 336 pages.

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When the end of the world comes, what will you do? Will you fight to stay alive or will you just give up?

When all hope seems lost, when everyone you love is gone, when the end seems inevitable will you give in to despair? Or will you fight with everything you have to survive, even if it’s just for one more day?

And if the end is coming for you, will you stand up to it or will you put someone else in its path? If it’s you or them, who will you choose?

When surviving is all you have left and your humanity is put to the test, is it a test you will fail or one you will pass?

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Author Courtney Summers’ This Is Not a Test is a gorgeously written, hauntingly beautiful, chilling and heartbreaking story of survival in the face of incredible odds where only the faintest glimmer of hope remains.

Set in a world that may very well be at its end – where the dead have risen, driven only by their mindless hunger, where just one bite will infect the living, turning them into zombies with the same need, and where the only way to survive is to be strong, to be smart, to have luck on your side, to be willing to sacrifice someone else to save yourself, and most important of all to have the will to live – this story is riveting, fragile, gruesome and unendingly sad.

Through each of the six characters in the story, This Is Not a Test shows humans at their best and worst. It shows their strengths, their cruelty, their kindness, their fears, their determination, their need for togetherness, their loyalty and their capacity for both love and hate. And it shows just how delicate that balance is between being willing to fight to survive and being ready to give up.

The story is told through the eyes of the main character, Sloane Price, a girl who is full of sorrow and despair and who has already lost the will to live at the outset of the story, before the world has fallen to pieces. A girl who is willing to give up her own life, but does not want to be responsible for costing someone theirs. Especially if that someone has something to lose, has someone to love, who still has hope and is willing to fight to stay alive.

This is not your typical zombie story. There are no obvious heroes. There are no characters who go down in a blaze of glory. This is not an action-packed, zombie-filled adventure with a blistering pace. The characters are real. They’re young. They’re afraid. They’re vulnerable. The story has a realistic quality to it. It is frightening. It is horrific. And the end of the world setting provides a bleak and chilling backdrop. But its focus is on the characters and their reactions to this new reality they find themselves in.

Courtney Summers does an exceptional job in developing her characters, on creating the dynamic and then changing that as circumstances change, and on writing a story that connects readers to a main character who could be seen as difficult to relate to, to understand. Her writing style is achingly beautiful and haunting, with passages that are drenched with the emptiness, confusion and loneliness of the main character. Passages that don’t shout, but nevertheless deliver their messages loud and clear.

The easy flow and simply stunning writing are a wonderful contrast to the horrors in this story and world. And within this incredibly popular genre with so many stories that lack originality, the author has managed to create one that is wonderfully different and truly sets itself apart.

This Is Not a Test is an absolute must read for fans of zombie stories with a bit more depth, contemporary young adult fiction with a darker edge, and for readers who are simply looking for a brilliantly written, character-driven story of just what people will be willing to do to survive when the world falls down around them.

Reviewer gives this book…

Like In-N-Out Burger‘s infamous secret menu this one deserves my off-the-menu 6 star rating.

On a personal note:

This book was such a complete and total surprise. I expected it to be amazing. I didn’t expect it to be as amazing as it was. Or the kind of amazing it was. I expected horror. I expected fear. I expected it to be gruesome and terrifying.

I did not expect it to have the kind of brilliant writing it did. I did not expect to make a connection with this story. I did not expect to be left with the feeling that I do when reading those contemporary stories that have an underlying misery, sadness, depression, despair. I did not expect to feel the kind of hopelessness I felt for the main character, Sloane, as I did. And I did not expect to be hopeful for her.

While this story’s setting was a world overrun by the dead, it was much more a character story than I thought it would be. Even with all the hints that the description gave. But I had not read this author’s writing before, so I didn’t know her style when I started reading. And I didn’t know it would be the kind of style that resonates with me. Clings to me.

I read this book in one sitting. I couldn’t get enough. When I put it down, all I could say was, “Wow.” I was stunned. My mind was blown. I was utterly drained, wrung-out, desolate, forlorn. Yes, I did feel a sense of emptiness when I finished reading this book. And I still feel that emptiness.

I cannot get over how incredibly amazing and brilliant this story was. With the typical framework for a zombie story – a small group of people, trapped and fighting for survival – I did not expect it to stand out. I just expected it to be entertaining in a gory sort of way. That’s it.

But the writing took me so far away from noticing that the structure was similar to those other stories. The dynamic was so very different between the characters because of the main character’s distance. And this story made me so sad in the way that contemporary stories with tragic and broken characters do. I did not anticipate that element in a story about the world coming to an end.

So, yeah, this book was beautiful and horrific. It was gruesome. It was tragic. It was devastating and heartbreaking. And this story will stick with me because of the writing, because of the main character, for a very long time.

***

Favorite passage:

I fell in love with the author’s writing. There were way too many passages that stuck with me to say that I have just one favorite. And quite a few were just too revealing to spoil them here. But this one I find to be absolutely gorgeous…

They also don’t tell you about how you can share your deepest secrets with someone, kiss them, and the next hour it’s like there’s nothing between you because not everything can mean something all the time or you’d be crushed under the weight of it. They don’t tell you how you will float through days. You autopilot, here but not really here, sleepwalking, and then every so often you are awake.

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And because I love this book trailer, which is completely awesome in a totally different way….

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Below are the YA books coming out this week that I am spotlighting for my “Book Watch: Releasing This Week” post.

These are books for the week of June 19th-June 25th that I have pre-ordered.

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers was released today, June 19, 2012, in the U.S. in paperback and eBook formats. It is currently available to order online in both formats at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Published by St. Martin’s Griffin, the print edition is 336 pages.

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Finally! I am so excited that This Is Not a Test is out today. I’ve been dying to read this for weeks and weeks. I even tried to start reading it late last night after my pre-order downloaded, but sleep won out. I will definitely be reading it tonight, though. This is not a book that will sit on the pile.

As I spotlighted it – and all the reasons I wanted to read it – in my Book Watch post a few weeks back, I won’t do so again. Well, not too much anyway….

But I will just highlight the things I’m most excited for from the description. “It’s the end of the world.” The dead are “pounding on the doors.” All it takes is “one bite” to turn you into a monster. And of course the fact that there are “unpredictable and violent bids for life–and death.”

Yeah. Definitely exciting. And with that parting line – “When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?” – I couldn’t help but become hooked. There is no doubt that I will be reading this book tonight. I just hope I’ll be able to finish it tonight, too.

Blood Moon by Alyxandra Harvey was released today, June 19, 2012, in the U.S. in hardcover, paperback and eBook formats. It is currently available to order online in all formats at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Published by Walker Childrens, the print edition is 320 pages.

Blood Moon is the fifth book in author Alyxandra Harvey’s Drake Chronicles. The sixth book, Blood Prophecy, is slated for release in January 2013.

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I am such a huge fan of author Alyxandra Harvey. I have loved her Drake Chronicles for awhile and I loved Haunting Violet. And I am so excited that this series is continuing with another installment.

I pre-ordered it ages ago and I saw that the next book is available to order but not yet in eBook format, so I’ll have to wait for just a bit for that. Yes, I’m already excited for the next book and I haven’t even read this book. But I love the series, love the author’s writing and love, love, love the cover.

I have to catch up on this series as I haven’t read the previous book, but I’m super excited to hear that this book is told by Solange, Lucy and Nicholas’ point of views. Which is even more motivation for me to read. I love those characters and I can’t wait to find out what happens next. And I am super curious to learn all about the Blood Moon ceremony.

The book’s brief description promises a “mysterious stranger,” “secrets” and “forbidden magic” which are more than enough to have piqued my curiosity about this installment. So much so that I will definitely be reading Bleeding Hearts and Blood Moon in July.

 Soulbound (Legacy of Tril #1) by Heather Brewer

Pub. Date: June 19, 2012

Published by: Dial

(Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

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It is a quiet release week. At least in terms of books I’m adding to my collection. Though next week isn’t nearly as quiet, this week I only have two new books for the pile. But I am seriously tempted to buy Soulbound by Heather Brewer and make that number a three. I have an ARC that I received through a trade and wanted to check that out first before buying, but I think I may not be able to avoid making that one click purchase.

This Is Not a Test won’t be sitting on the TBR pile as I will be reading it tonight. And this latest installment of the Drake Chronicles also won’t be there for long because I miss the world and characters and don’t want to get any further behind on the series.

I really hope I didn’t miss any “must buy” books, and I will take a peek around to see if I have, but for now it’s just the two. But if you know of something and want to share….

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As always, I would love to hear what you’re hoping to add to your collection this week!

And if you have any great suggestions of “must read” books to buy that are releasing this week, please let me know!

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They’re back! For those times when you just need a short break from reading.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few amazing book trailers for just some of the books releasing in May, a peek at a few of those coming out in June and beyond and a glimpse at a few authors talking about their books.

While I may have already included a couple of those May trailers in the April peeks, I just couldn’t resist including them again this month. And if you missed the early teaser peeks at The Golden Lily, be sure to check out the April Trailers post, HERE.

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Destined by Aprilynne Pike

Release date: May 1, 2012

(harperteen)

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Revived by Cat Patrick

Release date: May 1, 2012

(LittleBrownBooks)

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Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Release date: May 1, 2012

(harperteen)

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Black Dawn by Rachel Caine

Release date: May 1, 2012

(MorganvilleTV) – U.K. Trailer

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City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

Release date: May 8, 2012

(SimonSchusterVideos)

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Until I Die by Amy Plum

Release date: May 8, 2012

(harperteen)

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Endure by Carrie Jones

Release date: May 8, 2012

(BloomsburyPublishing)

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Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

Release date: May 8, 2012

(harperteen)

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Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

Release date: May 8, 2012

(fiercereads)

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A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix

Release date: May 15, 2012

(Allenandunwin) – Teaser Trailer #1

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A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix

Release date: May 15, 2012

(Allenandunwin) - Teaser Trailer #2

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Of Poseidon by Anna Banks

Release date: May 22, 2012

(fiercereads)

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Fated by Alyson Noel

Release date: May 22, 2012

(authoralysonnoel)

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And for just a peek at what’s coming in June and August….

Arise by Tara Hudson

Release date: June 5, 2012

(harperteen)

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Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Release date: June 5, 2012

(fiercereads)

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Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Release date: June 5, 2012

(fiercereads)

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Surrender by Elana Johnson

Release date: June 5, 2012

(elanajohnson)

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Rapture by Lauren Kate

Release date: June 12, 2012

(RandomBooks)

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The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

Release date: June 12, 2012

(BloodlinesBooks) – Teaser #3

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The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

Release date: June 12, 2012

(BloodlinesBooks) – Teaser #4

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The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

Release date: June 12, 2012

(BloodlinesBooks) – Teaser #5

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The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

Release date: June 12, 2012

(BloodlinesBooks) – Teaser #6

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This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Release date: June 19, 2012

(StMartinsPress)

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Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Release date: August 7, 2012

(bloomsburykids)

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Here’s what the authors are saying…

A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix

Release date: May 15, 2012

(harperteen) – the author talks about his book

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Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti

Release date: May 29, 2012

(susanecolasanti) – the author talks about her book

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Dark Frost by Jennifer Estep

Release date: May 29, 2012

(cosproductions) – the author is interviewed about her book

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Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Release date: July 24, 2012

(harperteen) – the author talks about her book

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We hope you enjoyed the lovely distractions. Stay tuned…we’ll be back with our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

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