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The Hard Kind of Promise
Gina Willner-Pardo
Synopsis:

Sarah promised Marjorie when they were five years old that they would be best friends forever. But that was before seventh grade, when everything changed—everything except Marjorie. While Sarah wants to meet new people and try new things, Marjorie still likes doing the same things they always did. It seems the more time the two girls spend together, the more time Sarah wants to spend apart. How did a promise that was so easy to make become so hard to keep?

With beautifully drawn characters and vivid details, this incisive novel portrays middle school in all its complexity—both the promise of what is to come and the pain of what must be left behind.

Publication Date: 06/07/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone
Synopsis: You would think Petronella’s sixteenth birthday would be cause for celebration. After all, fashionable friends are arriving at her country estate near London, teas are being served, and her coming out party promises to be a resplendent affair. Everything is falling nicely into place, until, suddenlyit isn’t. For Petronella discovers that her guardian, Uncle Augustus T. Percival, has developed a most unVictorian compulsion: He must eat bugs. Worse still, because he is her guardian, Uncle Augustus is to attend her soiree and his current state will most definitely be an embarrassment.
During the festivities, when Petronella would much rather be sharing pleasantries with handsome Lord James Sinclair (swoon), important guests are disappearing, kidnapping notes are appearing, many of the clues are insects, and Uncle Augustus is surreptitiously devouring evidence. It’s more than one sixteen-year-old girl should have to deal with. But, truth be told, there is far more yet to come . . .
Publication Date: 06/07/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Simple Secrets
Nancy Mehl
Synopsis:

Can graphic designer Gracie Temple have it all: the big city life and a job at a successful advertising firm? Just when she feels life coming together she receives an unknown uncle’s inheritance in a quiet Kansas Mennonite community. The house comes with a dark legacy and a cast of interesting neighbors, including farmer Sam Goodrich. Can Gracie shake off the dust of this town or will its secret charms pull her in to stay?

Publication Date: 06/01/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Summer of Moonlight Secrets
Synopsis:

At The Meriwether, Florida's famous antebellum hotel off of Hope Springs, nothing is quite as it seems. Secret staircases give way to servants' quarters and Prohibition-era speakeasies make for the perfect hide-and-seek spot. Allie Jo Jackson knows every nook and cranny of The Meriwether-she's lived there her whole life-and nothing surprises her, until the first time she spots the enigmatic and beautiful Tara emerging from the springs. Tara's shimmery skin, long flowing hair, and strange penchant for late moonlight swims disguise a mysterious secret-and once Allie Jo and her friend Chase discover Tara's secret, nothing will ever be the same.
From the celebrated author of Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning comes another magical summer tale full of memorable characters and a one-of-a-kind setting.

Publication Date: 06/01/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Shiner and King
Nolan Carlson
Synopsis: Book Three of the Shiner Series The only thing better than more adventures with Carley and Troop is sharing the fun with a German Shepherd named King-the best dog in the whole wide world, according to Carley. Hometown shenanigans abound along with a surprise or two with Luke Webster, and with Carley at his side, King shows his true colors as a hero while Shiner roams free in his new life in the wild woods along Blue River. Could a boy's life get any better? Of course, Mick Fuller and his dog, Devil, and Toby Swanson are back, meaner than ever, and Miss Botch's swats still hurt. Carley still seems to spend a bit more time in trouble than he'd like, but he wouldn't trade his life in Belford for anything in the world!
Publication Date: 05/31/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Invisible Girl
Mary Hanlon Stone
Synopsis: When poor Boston girl Stephanie is abandoned by her abusive mother and taken in by Annie?s Beverly Hills family, she feels anything but home. Her dark complexion and accent stick out like a sore thumb in the golden-hued world of blondes and extravagance. These are girls who seem to live life in fastforward, while Stephanie is stuck on pause. Yet when a new rival moves to town, threatening Annie?s queen-bee status, Stephanie finds herself taking sides in a battle she never even knew existed, and that feeling invisible is a wound that can only be healed by standing up for who she is.

Brilliant newcomer Mary Hanlon Stone delivers a compulsively readable insider?s view of growing up in a world where money and privilege don?t always glitter.

Publication Date: 05/27/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Web of Lies
Jennifer Estep
Synopsis: Curiosity is definitely going to get me dead one of these days. Probably real soon.

 

I'm Gin Blanco.

 

You might know me as the Spider, the most feared assassin in the South. I’m retired now, but trouble still has a way of finding me. Like the other day when two punks tried to rob my popular barbecue joint, the Pork Pit. Then there was the barrage of gunfire on the restaurant. Only, for once, those kill shots weren’t aimed at me. They were meant for Violet Fox. Ever since I agreed to help Violet and her grandfather protect their property from an evil coalmining tycoon, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really retired. So is Detective Donovan Caine. The only honest cop in Ashland is having a real hard time reconciling his attraction to me with his Boy Scout mentality. And I can barely keep my hands off his sexy body. What can I say? I’m a Stone elemental with a little Ice magic thrown in, but my heart isn’t made of solid rock. Luckily, Gin Blanco always gets her man . . . dead or alive.
Publication Date: 05/25/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Infinity: Chronicles of Nick
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Synopsis:

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

Publication Date: 05/25/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Windblowne
Stephen Messer
Synopsis: A high-flying fantasy adventure that will blow readers away!

Every kite Oliver touches flies straight into the ground, making him the laughingstock of Windblowne. With the kite-flying festival only days away, Oliver tracks down his reclusive great-uncle Gilbert, a former champion. With Gilbert's help, Oliver can picture himself on the crest, launching into the winds to become one of the legendary fliers of Windblowne.

Then his great-uncle vanishes during a battle with mysterious attack kites—kites that seem to fly themselves! All that remains is his prize possession, a simple crimson kite. At least, the kite seems simple. When Oliver tries to fly it, the kite lifts him high above the trees. When he comes down, the town and all its people have disappeared. Suddenly the festival is the last thing on Oliver's mind as he is catapulted into a mystery that will change everything he understands about himself and his world.

Inspired by the work of Diana Wynne Jones, debut author Stephen Messer delivers a fantasy book for boys and girls in which the distance between realities is equal to the breadth of a kite string.
Publication Date: 05/25/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Sapphire's Promise
Marnie Lester
Synopsis: The Sapphire's Promise is a story straight out of Australia; a novel about a young girl growing up in rural Victoria. Through the chance finding of an antique gold locket, she meets an extraordinary woman, who becomes her friend and mentor. Author Marnie Lester grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and currently lives in Geelong, Victoria. She has long wanted to be a writer. "I have always believed the written word is one of the powerful forms of communication. It can inspire, educate, enthrall, and move people more than any other form of entertainment." She has finished her next book, a fantasy inspired by J.K. Rowling. She adds, "I am inspired by the savage beauty and the people of Australia." http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/TheSapphiresPromise.html
Publication Date: 05/25/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Boneshaker
Kate Milford, Andrea Offermann
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Natalie Minks loves machines, particularly automata—self-operating mechanical devices, usually powered by clockwork. When Jake Limberleg and his traveling medicine show arrive in her small Missouri town with a mysterious vehicle under a tarp and an uncanny ability to make Natalie’s half-built automaton move, she feels in her gut that something about this caravan of healers is a bit off. Her uneasiness leads her to investigate the intricate maze of the medicine show, where she discovers a horrible truth and realizes that only she has the power to set things right.

Set in 1914, The Boneshaker is a gripping, richly textured novel about family, community, courage, and looking evil directly in the face in order to conquer it.
Publication Date: 05/24/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Kiss of the Master Vampire
Synopsis: "I've just been shanghaied by Vampires." Melody is just another "normal" girl. Actually she was a very wealthy girl, but she had no friends or family. But one night Melody runs into someone that will change her life forever. Damian is an unusual Master Vampire...he's allergic to the sun! Confined to the night, Damian begins stalking Melody to make her his prey. But all of that changes when the sun unexpectedly raises throwing Damian into a world of pain, that Melody rescues him from! Torn from having to kill her to protect the Vampire race or allowing her to live as payment for saving him, Damian makes a bargain with Melody. But Melody doesn't realize that when she made the bargain with him she had become the property of a Master Vampire! Join Melody, Damian and his older Master Vampire brother Daren as they live together and they all learn to love life again. Fight alongside the Master Vampires as they fight with a group of Vampires to get Melody back. Fall in love with Melody and Damian who begin to love each other as much as Amadio and Aura. Learn more secrets of the abilities of the Vampire race! But most importantly... Will Melody become the next Master Vampiress?! Bringing back your cast of favorite Vampires and Master Vampires from "The Masters"...Amadio, Aura, Anthony, Kiya, Seti, Victoria, Akhenaten, Selena and Bethany! This is a sequel that you can't afford to miss!
Publication Date: 05/19/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Stringz
Michael Wenberg
Synopsis: Life hasn t been easy for Jace Adams, a mixed-race teen whose mom moves them from one place to another so often that sometimes he's been in four schools in a single year. To cope with all that instability, Jace has vowed to never let himself get attached to anyone or anything--other than his beloved cello. But when his mom takes them to Seattle, where they're living with tough, sassy Aunt Bernice, Jace wonders if this time things might really change. Because money is tight, Jace plays his cello on the street in downtown Seattle, and one evening, someone throws a folded $100 bill with a business card attached into Jace s open cello case while he's serenading. That card changes everything; it's from a famous cello instructor who offers to take him on, giving Jace a shot at winning a large cash prize. Will he make the grade?
Publication Date: 05/17/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Crossed Out
Kim Baccellia, Carole Spencer
Synopsis: Following the light can't be that hard, right? So why don't the dead just do it and leave Stephanie Stewart alone? However nothing is ever as simple as it should be, as Stephanie learns when her hidden 'gift' becomes more than a nuisance, quickly turning into a liability. If she can't learn to trust someone with her secret, the world as she knows it will go to hell. Literally. But if she doesn't choose wisely, she might just end up learning firsthand how hard it is to follow that light. Because she's next on the list to be crossed out.
Publication Date: 05/17/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
My Double Life
Janette Rallison
Synopsis: Her whole life, Alexia Garcia has been told that she looks just like pop star Kari Kingsley, and one day when Alexia?s photo filters through the Internet, she?s offered a job to be Kari?s double. This would seem like the opportunity of a lifetime, but Alexia?s mother has always warned her against celebrities.

Rebelliously, Alexia flies off to L.A. and gets immersed in a celebrity life. Not only does she have to get used to getting anything she wants, she romances the hottest lead singer on the charts, and finds out that her own father is a singing legend. Through it all, Alexia must stay true to herself, which is hard to do when you are pretending to be somebody else!

Publication Date: 05/13/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Restoring Harmony
Joelle Anthony
Synopsis: The year is 2041, and sixteen-year-old Molly McClure has lived a relatively quiet life on an isolated farming island in Canada, but when her family fears the worst may have happened to her grandparents in the US, Molly must brave the dangerous, chaotic world left after global economic collapse?one of massive oil shortages, rampant crime, and abandoned cities.

Molly is relieved to find her grandparents alive in their Portland suburb, but they?re financially ruined and practically starving. What should?ve been a quick trip turns into a full-fledged rescue mission. And when Molly witnesses something the local crime bosses wishes she hadn?t, Molly?s only way home may be to beat them at their own game. Luckily, there?s a handsome stranger who?s willing to help.

Restoring Harmony is a riveting, fast-paced dystopian tale complete with adventure and romance that readers will devour.

Publication Date: 05/13/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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