Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series has been a hit since the first book was released in 2007. The fifth and latest installment, Spirit Bound, comes out May 18. We have an exclusive first look at the book’s trailer, which will air during Thursday night’s season finale of the Vampire Diaries and as a preview before this summer’s highly anticipated movie Eclipse.

Mead spoke with EW.com about the trailer, what fans can expect from her new book, and she’s doing next.

What can you tell us about  Spirit Bound?
Spirit Bound takes place almost entirely outside of the school that gives the series its name, so that’s kind of ironic and funny. The characters are sort of on their own now, so we get to see what they do when they’re not within the confines of teachers and school rules. It’s less of a tearjerker; the other ones had these big sudden shockers that tended to leave people crying, so I would get email for weeks after the books came out that with people telling me how I left them sobbing. I don’t think there will be quite as much as that, but I can’t always tell that. This is going to be more twists in the story of the ‘Oh my God’ variety. People will still be surprised, and there’s still a cliffhanger, buy I think it will be less emotionally traumatic.

How did you create the series?
I’d been writing adult books sort of in the same genre, the paranormal urban fantasy realm, before that. I had two series, one about demons and one about fairies, and at the time I had extra time on my hands and I wanted to try something for young adults. I was kind of running out of paranormal creatures, so I thought, ‘Well, let’s do vampires,’ little knowing what I was getting into at the time with teen vampires. I had no idea it was about to become a phenomenon unto itself. READ FULL STORY »