Monday Morning Book Buzz

Welcome to the Monday Morning Book Buzz, a preview of notable books being released this week. Some of them will be added to the Academy Library collection; if you read about a title that you would like added to the collection, let me know by either commenting on this post or by contacting me directly at the Library.

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This week’s releases are listed by category: Young Adult Fiction, General Fiction and Nonfiction. On-sale dates are indicated in parentheses.

Notable New Releases for the week of July 9th:

Young Adult Fiction

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer (07/10/2012) — In this final installment of the bestselling series, Opal Koboi, after reanimating fairy warriors from thousands of years in the past, plans to destroy all human life on Earth unless Artemis Fowl, teen genius, can stop her, and the Fowl Estate is ground zero for the battle.

Size 12 and Ready to Rock (Heather Wells Series #4) by Meg Cabot (07/10/2012) — Former pop star Heather Wells, finally able to relax into her size twelve body while working as assistant residence hall director at New York College, is busy with the squealing thirteen and fourteen-year-old girls attending the first Tania Trace Teen Rock Camp, when the producer of the reality show starring Tania is found dead, and Heather and her new fiancee, private investigator Cooper Cartwright, have some investigating to do.

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols (07/10/2012) — High school senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying, which allows her to forget her absentee mother and life in a South Carolina trailer park, but when Grayson, the son of her deceased flight instructor, blackmails her into working for him and his brother Alec, the consequences could be deadly.

Dark Water (Siren Trilogy Series #3) by Tricia Rayburn (07/10/2012) — When seventeen-year-old Vanessa reunites with her biological mother, she faces the dilemma of a siren’s existence, that in order to survive she must endanger the lives of those she loves most.

Diva (Flappers Series #3) by Jillian Larkin (07/10/2012) — When Marcus leaves Clara Knowles for another girl, Clara sinks into unhappiness and Lorraine Dyer tries to save Marcus from a loveless marriage, while their fellow flapper, Gloria Carmody, is hiding a deadly secret while living among socialites at Forrest Hamilton’s Long Island villa.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (07/10/2012) — In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents.

The Marked Son by Shea Berkley (07/10/2012) — Left by his mother with his grandparents in Oregon, Dylan encounters Kera who he has seen before in his dreams and ends up going against a magical lord.

The Thing about the Truth by Lauren Barnholdt (07/10/2012) — In this story told from alternating viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Kelsey seeks to redeem her formerly flawless reputation with the help of a senator’s sexy but arrogant son, who has ulterior motives.

Insignia by S. J. Kincaid (07/10/2012) — Tom, a fourteen-year-old genius at virtual reality games, is recruited by the United States Military to begin training at the Pentagon Spire as a Combatant in World War III, controlling the mechanized drones that do the actual fighting off-planet.

Poison Tree by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (07/10/2012) — Alysia has quickly moved to a position of responsibility in SingleEarth, working among shapeshifters and witches who fight against vampires, but she is hiding secret alliances that could put her fellow mediators at risk.

Gift by Andrea J. Buchanan (07/10/2012) — High school sophomore Daisy Jones is just trying to get by unnoticed. It doesn’t help that she’s the new girl at school, lives in a trailer park, and doesn’t even own a cell phone. But there’s a good reason for all that: Daisy has a secret, unpredictable power—one only her best friend, Danielle, knows about.

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge, illustrated by Andrea Dezso (07/10/2012) — Free-verse reveals true stories behind well-known fairy tales, some reset in modern times, as a strung-out match girl sells CDs to drug users, Little Red Riding Hood admits that she wanted to know what it is like to be swallowed whole, and Cinderella’s stepsisters are duped.

Don’t You Wish by Roxanne St. Claire (07/10/2012) — Plain, unpopular Annie Nutter gets zapped by one of her father’s inventions, landing in a parallel universe where her life becomes picture-perfect–until she is offered the chance to leave the dream life and head home to Pittsburgh.

So Close to You by Rachel Carter (07/10/2012) — After growing up with stories of the Montauk Project, an abandoned military base where secret experiments were conducted, Lydia Bentley finds herself transported into a strange and new reality, where she pairs up with a mysterious boy and learns that all the stories were true.

Graphic Novels

Fever Moon by Karen Marie Moning, illustrated by Al Rio and Cliff Richards, adapted by David Lawrence (07/10/2012) — Mackayla Lane is in a battle with Fear Dorcha, an Unseelie who is hunting the loved ones of Mackayla.

Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Gary Frank (07/10/2012) — A re-imagining of Bruce Wayne’s path to becoming Batman, his search for his parents’ true killers, and his meeting Alfred.

General Fiction

Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness (07/10/2012) — Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and Matthew Clairmont, an vampire geneticist, are in the center of the battle over an enchanted manuscript when they are unexpectedly sent on a dangerous journey together.

I, Michael Bennett by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (07/09/2012) — Detective Michael Bennett, having decided to take his ten kids and their nanny on a vacation to his family’s cabin near Newburgh, New York, finds his hometown overrun by gang violence and must choose between protecting the town or trying to save New York City.

Backfire (FBI Series #16) by Catherine Coulter (07/10/2012) — Judge Ramsey Hunt, longtime friend to FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, begins the murder trial of Clive and Cindy Cahill only to have federal prosecutor Mickey O’Rourke suddenly go missing.

Night Watch (Alexandra Cooper Series #14) by Linda Fairstein (07/10/2012) — Soon after New York City prosecutor Alexandra Cooper arrives in France to visit her boyfriend Luc Rouget, a famed restaurateur, the body of a young woman is found with a matchbox from Luc’s restaurant in her pocket.

The Great Escape by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (07/10/2012) — Professional golfer Ted Beaudine, the pride and joy of Wynette, Texas, is preparing to marry Lucy Jorik, the adopted daughter of the former president of the United States, but Lucy flees the church and escapes on the back of a motorcycle with a rough young man to spend a summer at a beach house in search of her destiny.

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (07/10/2012) — The internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Carlos Ruiz Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic Barcelona and creates a rich, labyrinthine tale of love, literature, passion, and revenge in which the heroes of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game must contend with a nemesis that threatens to destroy them.

15 Seconds by Andrew Gross (07/10/2012) — When a random act of violence plunges him into a nightmarish world, Henry Steadman, a successful surgeon accused of murdering two people, must clear his name and discover who is trying to destroy him in order to save himself and his family.

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln: A Novel by Stephen L. Carter (07/10/2012) — From the best-selling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, a daring reimagining of one of the most tumultuous moments in our nation’s past. In this alternate history, President Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Two years later he is charged with overstepping his constitutional authority, both during and after the Civil War, and faces an impeachment trial.

True Believers by Kurt Andersen (07/10/2012) — Celebrated attorney Karen Hollander removed herself from consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her reasons have their roots in 1968, an episode she’s managed to keep secret for more than forty years. Now, with the imminent publication of her memoir, she’s about to let the world in on that shocking secret, as soon as she can track down the answers to a few crucial last questions.

Fireproof (Maggie O’Dell Series #10) by Alex Kava (07/10/2012) — Special agent Maggie O’Dell investigates a string of arsons she suspects are the work of a calculating and controlled criminal, while Jeffery Cole, reporting on the fires, starts digging into her past.

Nonfiction