8 Most Anticipated July 2016 Releases!

CRYSTAL CROWNED
Author: Elise Kova
Series: Air Awakens #5
Publisher: Silver Wing Press
Publication Date: July 12, 2016

Summary:
Long live Solaris.

One bloodthirsty ruler has been overthrown by another, casting the shadow of death over the Solaris Empire. Vhalla Yarl stands upon the stage of fate, prepared to do battle one final time. Fragile alliances will be tested and new bonds will be formed as the world is reshaped. She fights as the champion of peace, but when the night is darkest will she be able to pay the price of a new dawn?

Preorder:

Amazon

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THE KILLER IN ME
Author: Margot Harrison
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication Date: July 12, 2016

Summary:
Hasn't he lived long enough? Why not? I could take him like a thief in the night.

This is how the Thief thinks. He serves death, the vacuum, the unknown. He’s always waiting. Always there.

Seventeen-year-old Nina Barrows knows all about the Thief. She’s intimately familiar with his hunting methods: how he stalks and kills at random, how he disposes of his victims’ bodies in an abandoned mine in the deepest, most desolate part of a desert.

Now, for the first time, Nina has the chance to do something about the serial killer that no one else knows exists. With the help of her former best friend, Warren, she tracks the Thief two thousand miles, to his home turf—the deserts of New Mexico.

But the man she meets there seems nothing like the brutal sociopath with whom she’s had a disturbing connection her whole life. To anyone else, Dylan Shadwell is exactly what he appears to be: a young veteran committed to his girlfriend and her young daughter. As Nina spends more time with him, she begins to doubt the truth she once held as certain: Dylan Shadwell is the Thief. She even starts to wonder . . . what if there is no Thief?

From debut author Margot Harrison comes a brilliantly twisted psychological thriller that asks which is more terrifying: the possibility that your nightmares are real
. . . or the possibility that they begin and end with you?

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

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Waiting on Wednesday: STEEPLEJACK by A.J. Hartley

I am making my friend Dani from Dani Reviews Things read this because she is from South Africa and I feel like if she says it is a good book, it will be a good book. Say hello to...

STEEPLEJACK by A.J. Hartley

Title: STEEPLEJACK

Author: A.J. Hartley

Waiting on Wednesday: UNPLUGGED by Donna Freitas

Did you know I love Science Fiction? I think it's pretty clear based on the majority of my reading choices. So it should come as no surprise that this book is on my anticipated reads for this year...

UNPLUGGED by Donna Freitas

Title: UNPLUGGED

Author: Donna Freitas

Top 10 Releases I'm Excited For In The Second Half of 2016!

I am sure this is a Top Ten Tuesday topic at some point, but I am writing this in March and will not have time for Top Ten Tuesday during June and July so I am doing this prompt now! Here are the books that are releasing in the second half of the year (July to December) that I am really excited about! You can look at my Goodreads page to see others and I will still have my monthly release feature on here that you can check out, but these are ten that I think you should put on your radar right now.

CRYSTAL STORM

Author: Morgan Rhodes
Series: Falling Kingdoms #5
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: December 13, 2016
Summary:
An epic clash between gods and mortals threatens to tear Mytica apart . . . and prove that not even the purest of love stands a chance against the strongest of magic.

MAGNUS and CLEO are forced to test the strength of their love when Gaius returns to Mytica claiming he's no longer the King of Blood but a changed man seeking redemption.

LUCIA, pregnant with the child of a Watcher, has escaped the clutches of the unhinged fire god. Her powers are dwindling as she goes forth to fulfill a prophecy that will keep her baby safe . . . but could mean her demise.

JONAS treks back to Mytica with a plan to overtake Amara, but fate takes hold when he runs into the beautiful Princess Lucia and joins her on her perilous journey.

AMARA has taken the Mytican throne, but with no way to unleash the water magic trapped within her stolen crystal, she'll never be able to seize glory and get sweet revenge.

And what kind of darkness will descend--and who will be safe--after Prince Ashur reveals the dangerous price he paid to cheat death?

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

GAP LIFE

Author: John Coy
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: November 22, 2016
Summary:
Cray got into the same college his father attended and is expected to go. And to go pre-med. And to get started right away. His parents are paying the tuition. It should be an easy decision.

But it's not.

All Cray knows is that what's expected of him doesn't feel right. The pressure to make a decision—from his family, his friends—is huge. Until he meets Rayne, a girl who is taking a gap year, and who helps him find his first real job, at a home of four adults with developmental disabilities. What he learns about himself and others will turn out to be more than any university could teach him—and twice as difficult. 

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

BEAST

Author: Brie Spangler
Publisher: Knopf Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: October 11, 2016
Summary:
A witty, wise, and heart-wrenching novel that will appeal to fans of Rainbow Rowell and David Levithan.

Tall, meaty, muscle-bound, and hairier than most throw rugs, Dylan doesn’t look like your average fifteen-year-old, so, naturally, high school has not been kind to him. To make matters worse, on the day his school bans hats (his preferred camouflage), Dylan goes up on his roof only to fall and wake up in the hospital with a broken leg—and a mandate to attend group therapy for self-harmers.

Dylan vows to say nothing and zones out at therapy—until he meets Jamie. She’s funny, smart, and so stunning, even his womanizing best friend, JP, would be jealous. She’s also the first person to ever call Dylan out on his self-pitying and superficiality. As Jamie’s humanity and wisdom begin to rub off on Dylan, they become more than just friends. But there is something Dylan doesn’t know about Jamie, something she shared with the group the day he wasn’t listening. Something that shouldn’t change a thing. She is who she’s always been—an amazing photographer and devoted friend, who also happens to be transgender. But will Dylan see it that way?

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

CLANLESS

Author: Jennifer Jenkins
Series: Nameless #2
Publisher: Month9Books
Publication Date: October 4, 2016

WHEN THE MOON WAS OURS

Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: October 4, 2016
Summary:
When the Moon Was Ours follows two characters through a story that has multicultural elements and magical realism, but also has central LGBT themes—a transgender boy, the best friend he’s falling in love with, and both of them deciding how they want to define themselves.

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town.

But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

THE GRACES

Author: Laure Eve
Publisher: Amulet Books
Publication Date: September 6, 2016
Summary:
In The Graces, the first rule of witchcraft states that if you want something badly enough, you can get it . . . no matter who has to pay.

Everyone loves the Graces. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace are captivating, wealthy, and glamorous. They’ve managed to cast a spell over not just their high school but also their entire town—and they’re rumored to have powerful connections all over the world. If you’re not in love with one of them, you want to be them. Especially River: the loner, new girl at school. She’s different from her peers, who both revere and fear the Grace family. She wants to be a Grace more than anything. And what the Graces don’t know is that River’s presence in town is no accident.

This fabulously addictive fantasy combines sophisticated and haunting prose with a gut-punching twist that readers will be dying to discuss. Perfect for fans of We Were Liars as well as nostalgic classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the 1996 movie The Craft, The Graces marks the beginning of a new wave of teen witches. 

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

THE BOY WHO KILLED GRANT PARKER

Author: Kat Spears
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Publication Date: September 13, 2016
Summary:
Luke Grayson's life might as well be over when he's forced to go live in rural Tennessee with his Baptist pastor father. His reputation as a troublemaker has followed him there, and as an outsider, Luke is automatically under suspicion by everyone from the principal at his new school to the local police chief. His social life is no better. The new kid in town is an easy target for Grant Parker, the local golden boy with a violent streak who has the entire community of Ashland under his thumb.

But things go topsy-turvy when a freak accident removes Grant from the top of the social pyramid, replacing him with Luke. This fish out of water has suddenly gone from social outcast to hero in a matter of twenty-four hours. For the students who have lived in fear of Grant all their lives, this is a welcome change. But Luke’s new found fame comes with a price. Nobody knows the truth about what really happened to Grant Parker except for Luke, and the longer he keeps living the lie, the more like Grant Parker he becomes.

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

THIS SAVAGE SONG

Author: Victoria Schwab
Series: Monsters of Verity #1
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publication Date: July 5, 2016
Summary:
There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from acclaimed author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books, This Savage Song is a must-have for fans of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and Laini Taylor.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives. In This Savage Song, Victoria Schwab creates a gritty, seething metropolis, one worthy of being compared to Gotham and to the four versions of London in her critically acclaimed fantasy for adults, A Darker Shade of Magic. Her heroes will face monsters intent on destroying them from every side—including the monsters within.

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

CRYSTAL CROWNED

Author: Elise Kova
Series: Air Awakens #5
Publisher: Silver Wing Press
Publication Date: July 2016
Summary:
Long live Solaris.

One bloodthirsty ruler has been overthrown by another, casting the shadow of death over the Solaris Empire. Vhalla Yarl stands upon the stage of fate, prepared to do battle one final time. Fragile alliances will be tested and new bonds will be formed as the world is reshaped. She fights as the champion of peace, but when the night is darkest will she be able to pay the price of a new dawn?

Purchase:

Amazon

EVERYONE WE'VE BEEN

Author: Sarah Everett
Publisher: Knopf Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: October 4, 2016
Summary:
For fans of Jandy Nelson and Jenny Han comes a new novel that asks, can you possibly know the person you’re becoming if you don’t know the person you’ve been?

Addison Sullivan has been in an accident. In its aftermath, she has memory lapses and starts talking to a boy that no one else can see. It gets so bad that she’s worried she’s going crazy.

Addie takes drastic measures to fill in the blanks and visits a shadowy medical facility that promises to “help with your memory.” But at the clinic, Addie unwittingly discovers it is not her first visit. And when she presses, she finds out that she had certain memories erased. She had a boy erased.

But why? Who was that boy, and what happened that was too devastating to live with? And even if she gets the answers she’s looking for, will she ever be able to feel like a whole person again? 

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

Have you heard of any of these? 

Which July to December 2016 releases are you looking forward to?

Waiting on Wednesday: MY BRILLIANT IDEA by Stuart David

The book I'm waiting on this week SCREAMS for my attention. It is a mix of everything I have ever had to deal with in my life. I am really excited for it's release so I can read...

MY BRILLIANT IDEA by Stuart David

Title: MY BRILLIANT IDEA

Author: Stuart David

Waiting on Wednesday: IVORY AND BONE by Julie Eshbaugh

This week I'm waiting on a book that I first heard about during the FAC16 chat back in July 2015! It's been almost a YEAR and I am still waiting on this book! Time sure flies when you're having fun! I really enjoyed this one and loved the way it was written. I really connected with the story! 

So now I'm waiting for you guys to be able to read...

IVORY AND BONE by Julie Eshbaugh

Title: IVORY AND BONE

Author: Julie Eshbaugh

8 Most Anticipated June 2016 Releases!

WE WERE NEVER HERE
Author: Jennifer Gilmore
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: June 14, 2016

Summary:
In this exquisitely written, emotionally charged young adult debut, Jennifer Gilmore explores the bond that is formed between a hospitalized girl and the secretly troubled boy she falls in love with.

Did you know your entire life can change in an instant?

For sixteen-year-old Lizzie Stoller that moment is when she collapses, out of the blue. The next thing she knows she’s in a hospital with an illness she’s never heard of.

But that isn’t the only life-changing moment for Lizzie. The other is when Connor and his dog, Verlaine, walk into her hospital room. Lizzie has never connected with anyone the way she does with the handsome, teenage volunteer. However, the more time she spends with him, and the deeper in love she falls, the more she realizes that Connor has secrets and a deep pain of his own . . . and that while being with him has the power to make Lizzie forget about her illness, being with her might tear Connor apart. 

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

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WHAT HAPPENS NOW
Author: Jennifer Castle
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: June 7, 2016

Summary:
"I know what it is to want something so badly, you feel like your cells aren’t properly bonded together without it.
I also know what it’s like to get that something.
And honestly, I’m still not sure which is worse..."

Ari Logan is battling to win her war against depression and the dark night she hurt herself on purpose. It’s not easy: her best friend is drifting away, her mom’s emotionally checked out, and she spends her days playing caregiver to her handful of a half-sister, Danielle. But it’s summer, and anything is possible...

That’s when Camden Armstrong steps onto the beach of Ari’s local swimming lake.

At first, Ari quietly longs for Camden from afar, seeing in him everything she wants to be. When the two discover a true connection the following summer, Ari lets herself fall not just for the quirky and self-assured Camden but also his friends, tumbling into their world of independence, adventure, and shared sci-fi fandom. As Ari’s romantic dreams come true, she must unlock the mysteries of the very real and troubled boy behind her infatuation, while also struggling with her own demons, obligations, and loyalties.

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD 

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AUTOFOCUS
Author: Lauren Gibaldi
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: June 14, 2016

Summary:
Family.

It’s always been a loaded word for Maude. And when she is given a senior photography assignment—to create a portfolio that shows the meaning of family—she doesn’t quite know where to begin. But she knows one thing: without the story of her birth mother, who died when Maude was born, her project will be incomplete.

So Maude decides to visit her best friend, Treena, at college in Tallahassee, Florida, where Maude’s birth mother once lived. But when Maude arrives, she quickly discovers that Treena has changed. With a new boyfriend and a packed social calendar, Treena doesn’t seem to have time for Maude—or helping Maude in her search.

Enter Bennett, a cute guy who lives in Treena’s dorm. He understands Maude’s need to find her mother. And as Bennett helps Maude in her search, she starts to find that her mother’s past doesn’t have to define her own future.

Lauren Gibaldi has crafted a beautiful and timely coming-of-age story that poses the question: Is who we are determined at birth, or can we change as we grow?

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

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CHANGE PLACES WITH ME
Author: Lois Metzger
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: June 14, 2016

Summary: 
From Lois Metzger, acclaimed author of A Trick of the Light, comes a work of speculative fiction set in the near future about a teen girl who finds a new, mysterious perspective on her life.

Rose has changed. She still lives in the same neighborhood with her stepmother and goes to the same high school with the same group of kids, but when she woke up today, something was just a little different than it was before. The dogs who live upstairs are no longer a terror. Her hair and her clothes all feel brand-new. She wants to throw a party—this from a girl who hardly ever spoke to her classmates before. There is no more sadness in her life; she is bursting with happiness.

But something still feels wrong to Rose. Because, until very recently, Rose was an entirely different person—a person who is still there inside her, just beneath the thinnest layer of skin.

A bold and original work of speculative fiction set in a familiar future, Lois Metzger’s latest novel is a profoundly authentic and heartbreaking tale of the things we keep locked away inside us, even from ourselves.

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

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HOW TO DISAPPEAR
Author: Ann Redisch Stampler

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: June 14, 2016

Summary:
This electric cross-country thriller follows the game of cat and mouse between a girl on the run from a murder she witnessed—or committed?—and the boy who’s sent to kill her.

Nicolette Holland is the girl everyone likes. Up for adventure. Loyal to a fault. And she’s pretty sure she can get away with anything...until a young woman is brutally murdered in the woods near Nicolette’s house. Which is why she has to disappear.

Jack Manx has always been the stand-up guy with the killer last name. But straight A’s and athletic trophies can’t make people forget that his father was a hit man and his brother is doing time for armed assault. Just when Jack is about to graduate from his Las Vegas high school and head east for college, his brother pulls him into the family business with inescapable instructions: find this ruthless Nicolette Holland and get rid of her. Or else Jack and everyone he loves will pay the price.

As Nicolette and Jack race to outsmart each other, tensions—and attractions—run high. Told in alternating voices, this tightly plotted mystery and tense love story challenges our assumptions about right and wrong, guilt and innocence, truth and lies.

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

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THE BOMBS THAT BROUGHT US TOGETHER
Author: Brian Conaghan
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children
Publication Date: June 7, 2016

Summary:
Fourteen-year-old Charlie Law has lived in Little Town, on the border with Old Country, all his life. He knows the rules: no going out after dark; no drinking; no litter; no fighting. You don't want to get on the wrong side of the people who run Little Town. When he meets Pavel Duda, a refugee from Old Country, the rules start to get broken. Then the bombs come, and the soldiers from Old Country, and Little Town changes for ever.

Sometimes, to keep the people you love safe, you have to do bad things. As Little Town's rules crumble, Charlie is sucked into a dangerous game. There's a gun, and a bad man, and his closest friend, and his dearest enemy.

Charlie Law wants to keep everyone happy, even if it kills him. And maybe it will... But he's got to kill someone else first.

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD 

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AMERICAN GIRLS
Author: Alison Umminger
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: June 7, 2016

Summary:
She was looking for a place to land.

Anna is a fifteen-year-old girl slouching toward adulthood, and she's had it with her life at home. So Anna "borrows" her stepmom's credit card an runs away to Los Angeles, where her half-sister takes her in. But LA isn't quite the glamorous escape Anna had imagined.

As Anna spends her days on TV and movie sets, she engrosses herself in a project researching the murderous Manson girls—and although the violence in her own life isn't the kind that leaves physical scars, she begins to notice the parallels between herself and the lost girls of LA, and of America, past and present.

In Anna's singular voice, we glimpse not only a picture of life on the B-list in LA, but also a clear-eyed reflection on being young, vulnerable, lost, and female in America—in short, on the B-list of life. Alison Umminger writes about girls, sex, violence, and which people society deems worthy of caring about, which ones it doesn't, in a way not often seen in YA fiction.

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

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BEFORE WE GO EXTINCT
Author: Karen Rivers
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Publication Date: June 28, 2016

Summary:
Grief can sometimes feel like being caught in the jaws of a great white shark.

J.C., who goes by the nickname Sharky, has been having a hard time ever since his best friend died in front of him in a what might or might not have been an accident. Shell-shocked, Sharky spends countless hours holed up in his room, obsessively watching documentaries about sharks and climate change—and texting his dead friend.

At her wits end, Sharky’s mom sends him to visit his father on an abandoned island in Canada, where his dad is the caretaker. Over the course of an unforgettable summer, Sharky gets to know his dad . . . and he meets a girl who teaches him how to shows him how to live—and love—again.

Preorder:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

What are your most anticipated releases of June 2016? Which of these are you going to add to that list?