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Welcome back to Upcoming Titles, our monthly feature where we highlight books releasing this month. As always, this is by no means a comprehensive list of forthcoming releases, just a compilation of titles we think our readers (and our contributors!) would enjoy.

Summer is in full swing and two of our PubCrawl contributors have books coming out this month, including our very own Jodi Meadows and Julie Eshbaugh! Julie’s debut will be coming out this month and we are so, so, so excited for her book to finally be out in the world!

Without further ado:

June 7

• The Leaving by Tara Altebrando
• The Long Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• Tumbling by Caela Carter
• With Malice by Eileen Cook
• My Brilliant Idea (and How It Caused My Downfall) by Stuart David
• Julia Vanishes by Catherine Egan
• The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone
• My Lady Jane by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows*
• Being Jazz by Jazz Jennings
• You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan
• The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder
• How It Ends by Catherine Lo
• True Letters from a Fictional Life by Kenneth Logan
• The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May
• The Way to Game the Walk of Shame by Jenn P. Nguyen
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies by Lindsay Ribar
• All the Feels by Danika Stone
• American Girls by Alison Umminger

June 14

• The King Slayer by Virginia Boecker
• Look Both Ways by Alison Cherry
• The Girls by Emma Cline
• Sea Spell by Jennifer Donnelly
• Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh*
• Autofocus by Lauren Gibaldi
• Cure for the Common Universe by Christian McKay Heidicker
• How It Feels to Fly by Kathryn Holmes
• Change Places with Me by Lois Metzger
• The Geek’s Guide to Unrequited Love by Sarvenaz Tash

June 21

• Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana
• The Marked Girl by Lindsey Klingele
• Never Ever by Sara Saedi

June 28

• The Distance to Home by Jenn Bishop
• Winning by Lara Deloza
• Empire of Dust by Eleanor Herman
• Run by Kody Keplinger
• United as One by Pittacus Lore
• Never Missing, Never Found by Amanda Panitch
• The Bourbon Thief by Tiffany Reisz
• The Darkest Magic by Morgan Rhodes
• And I Darken by Kiersten White

* PubCrawl contributor

That’s all for this month! Tell us what you’re looking forward to reading and any titles we might have missed!

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I just finished Raised by Wolves AND Trial by Fire (the 2nd in the series) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and I LOVED them so much! I love strong girl characters in books–strong emotionally, strong in so many ways, and Bryn in Jenn’s books is *strong*, good-hearted, ethical, fighting against oppression, and tries to protect others, even though she’s “only” human (with an added something) among a bunch of much physically stronger werewolves.

I love fantasy, most especially when it’s well written, but I never thought I’d like werewolves. I’ve never been into reading “monsters”, perhaps because I grew up being tortured by human monsters. But a great author can humanize and make us identify with characters who aren’t totally human, and make us care about them, and I quickly came to care about Bryn AND her world.

I’m so glad I finally read this series, and I highly recommend them! I’m looking forward to the next book Taken by Storm so much that I already pre-ordered it on my Kindle. The last book I did that with was Beth Revis’ A Million Suns.

The second book was the perfect book to get me through the exhaustion after my own book launch. I love finding books that pull me into their story world and don’t push me out, books that I look forward to reading and re-reading. It’s such a great feeling.

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Publisher: EgmontUSA (June 14, 2011)
ARC: 368 Pages
Series: Raised by Wolves #2
Genre: YA Fantasy/Supernatural (werewolves)
Book from Publisher*
Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Website | Blog | Twitter
My Review of Raised by Wolves

From Goodreads. Bryn is now leader of the Cedar Ridge pack of werewolves and she's convinced that her pack is different - it's democratic and fair. Then Bryn finds a battered teenage Were, Connor, bleeding on her front porch. He begs Bryn to protect him from an abusive leader; Bryn takes him into her pack.

But Bryn's Were partner Chase doesn't trust the new boy, and the more time she spends helping Connor, the more aggressive Chase becomes. Bryn is not sure if it's jealousy, or Were possessiveness but for the first time she starts to feel suffocated by the bond she and Chase share.

Filled with action, unlikely allies, and deadly conspiracies, Trial by Fire will change Bryn forever. She is soon to realise that to lead a pack of werewolves, she must give in to her animal instincts and become a little less human. And as hard as it's going to be, Bryn is going to have to do it alone.

There can only be one alpha.

Review by Kate
TRIAL BY FIRE, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, strattles the line of YA and adult fantasy/supernatural. As an avid reader of both levels of this genre, this book really takes YA up a notch and brings the gritty truth of the dangers of the supernatural world to light.

I really enjoyed Raised by Wolves so I was thrilled to receive an early copy of Trial by Fire. The first book highlighted the manifestation of Bryn's abilities, but this book put her to the test over and over in her new Alpha status. I really like how Barnes steps outside the box of the typical supernatural wolf, and keeps Bryn as a human girl while still being a part of the pack. I think it's extremely creative and adds a unique element to the series. I think Bryn is a great example of a strong female YA lead.

Even though Bryn is the obvious lead, I felt this book was more of an ensemble piece. More of the secondary characters were fleshed out and I really enjoyed getting to know about all of them. My favorites of course are still Chase (swoon), Devon, and Lake. I loved the dynamic of the pack how they were very close as friends, but when the pack was threatened they still stuck together in their instinctual mind-set as well.

Overall, this was a great sequel for this series. With the added action and suspense, this book is definitely a contender for my favorite YA fantasy/supernatural book this year. Fans of the series will love it!

*FTC Disclosure: I received this ARC from the publisher. I do not receive payment of any kind in exchange for a review. I do not receive monetary compensation from any book links in my review. Display Comments Add a Comment

How much do I love the Hoedown Throwdown performed by Jackson Pearce (who is promising 30 Days of Vlogging…Jackson, we’re going to hold you to it!) and Jennifer Lynn Barnes?! Just adorable!!

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Golden Jennifer Barnes

All the women in Lissy's family have some sort of psychic ability. Lissy can see auras, and as she starts life at a new high school, she knows her math teacher is up to no good. Meanwhile, she's trying to navigate the crazy social scene. The most popular kids are the "Goldens" the rest are "Nons" and the school takes the distinction very seriously. Luckily, the students realize that it's weird, it's not that Barnes thinks high schools are usually like that. Lissy has to pay even more attention to it because the Queen of the Goldens is her uncle's girlfriend's daughter, so they're often thrown together.

Barnes wrote this book at the age of 19. It's really good for someone who was 19 when she wrote it, but it's no where near as good as her Perfect Cover or Killer Spirit. Being a huge fan of those books, I was disappointed with this one. BUT! I do like that she set it in Oklahoma and Lissy has to quickly realize that Oklahoma is not full of hicks.

Book Provided by... my local library

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You know how I said I was doing a lot of spy book reading lately? Yeah. This is a really long post.

First up,

Down to the Wire Shannon Greenland

Y'all know I loved the first in this series, Model Spy. The Specialists are back, but this time, it's Wirenut's case.

But GiGi is still narrating. The action starts with how Wirenut was conned into joining the Specialists, and then jumps to Gigi's narration of the action picking up where the last book left off. It's a little weird.

Basically, the guy who hacked Wirenut's family to death is hiding some top-secret biological weapon in the handle of the sword that was used to hack his family to death. Wirenut's the only one who can break into the museums to get the clues to lead to the sword, GiGi's the only one who can decode the clues...

Murder. Mayhem, some girls, some kissing, and a whole lot of David-related angst.

All the techno babble is utter crap, and the countries are made up but... I still get totally sucked into these books and can't wait for the rest of the series. Excellent titles for reading while lying in the hammock on a hot day.

The Squad: Perfect Cover Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Toby Klein is the ultimate slacker, so why is she being invited to try out for Varsity Cheerleading?! Something weird is going on, especially since Toby's cheer invites are being written in code.

Fast forward. Toby's on the squad, only cheerleading is a cover for a group of elite teen CIA operatives. Cheerleaders are peppy and dumb, right? Wrong, but it's the perfect cover for girls like Toby with ninja-like martial arts skills and hacker skills to beat GiGi's from The Specialists. Sadly, being on the squad means getting a Level 6 makeover (which means that the cheerleading twins have come in and completely replaced Toby's closet.) Sure, her new trendy belt buckle doubles as a camera, but her new highlights are just that, highlights. And Toby's dorky brother? In loooooooooooooooooove with cheerleaders and thinks he is quite the ladies man. (He's not.)

Toby is now one of those girls. Yes, catching terrorists is cool, but she does still have to learn how to do pyramids and something called a herkie...

Here's why I love this: The technology is vaguely plausible (in that James Bond way). Also, Toby does NOT appreciate going from invisible girl to overnight in-crowd. She doesn't handle it well. Toby's voice is perfect sarcasm. I love her.

Example (Hayley is pissed off that she didn't make the squad and Toby did. She's been spreading gossip and the rest of the squad keeps telling Toby to ignore it.):

"Well, I heard that she's a complete lezbo who's sleeping with one of the other girls on the squad. Can you say casting couch?"

I had to hand it to Hayley Hoffman. She was creative and she must have had an excellent command of acoustics, because she pitched her voice just loud enough so that I could hear her, but not loud enough that Tara, Bubbles, or April could. I thought about just sucking it up and taking my place at the center table, but I couldn't quite bring myself to turn the other cheek, because the fact that Hayley was using that particular term as an insult meant that her words weren't just insulting me. With that in mind, I waled toward the JV table, ready to draw blood, metaphorically speaking. Probably.

That awesome, awesome voice continues in:

The Squad: Killer Spirit Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Check it out:

Less than an hour ago, all I'd wanted was detention. Now, I was nominated for homecoming court and going to the big dance with the hottest guy in the school. Somewhere out there, God was laughing at me. I was sure of it.

And that sets up the plot. There are a ton of baddies in town, and the Squad isn't the only crew tracking them. The Big Guys keep trying to take away the case and Brooke's trying to keep control. Plus, Toby's on homecoming court and Noah's trying to do anything possible to make her queen. Someone's trying to kill Toby. If the mission succeeds and Toby survives, Brooke will take her out if she steals the crown... what's a cheerleader to do?

What I liked about this is the stakes were a little higher, but we also learned some info on Brooke that rounded her out a bit as a character.

I'm looking forward to future volumes, but can't find if any are forthcoming... :(

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You Ally Carter

Cammie Morgan goes to en elite boarding school. Everyone else thinks it's where the daughters of the country's richest go, but really, it's a boarding school for spies in training.

They only take the best and the brightest and they take classes in foreign language and covert operations. When they grow up, the NSA and CIA are ready to take them.

Cammie Morgan may speak over 14 languages, but none of them is "boy." When she starts falling for a boy from town, it's up to her and her friends to use all their training to find out if he likes her not.

This is fun. I really like that Cammie and Co. don't go on any missions to save the world. Unlike these other books, where kids are thrown into hardcore situations with only a month or two of training, Cammie is getting a complete education and not going on any serious missions until then.

Not that she can't find other uses for her skills...

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy Ally Carter

After what happened last semester, something new is coming to Gallagher Academy. Boys. Boys will be taking classes and training with the girls.

But who are these boys and why are they really here? And who's been leaking Gallagher information to the outside world?

And what could be more mortifying than running into your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend while you're wearing a comms unit that your entire class and teacher can hear over?!

If you liked the first, you'll like this. More action, more intrigue, even though I guess the ending, I still liked reading it.

James Bond, you're on. Girls are coming to get you.

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Hugo lives in the train station in Paris, and is the time-keeper. The only thing is, nobody knows. After his own clockmaker father died in a tragic fire, Hugo's gruff Uncle pulled him out of school, and made Hugo his own time-keeper apprentice. Hugo's uncle starts disappearing for longer and longer stretches of time, until one day, he doesn't come home at all.

What can Hugo do, but continue setting the clocks, and living in Uncle's tiny apartment in the station? He collects Uncle's paycheques so that the Station Inspector is none-the-wiser to the situation.

Everything changes for Hugo when one day, while stealing a wind-up mouse from the toy booth, he is caught. The man who runs the toy booth threatens to call the Station Inspector and takes from Hugo the one thing that he has left from his father - his notebook with the illustrations of the automaton that his father found in the museum attic. The man who runs the toy booth, and Hugo, are connected in a way that neither could fathom. With twists and turns too intricate to describe, Selznik takes readers on a journey about history, cinema, and the meaning of family.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret looks like a daunting book. It is as thick as J.K Rowling's works. The pages of Hugo, however, are filled with Selznick's amazing illustrations that call to mind the work of Chris Van Allsburg. Part of the story is actually told through the illustrations, quickening the pace of reading considerably. A beautiful and enchanting story that is destined to become a classic.

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