Holidays are when I catch up on my pleasure reading. I have a big stack of things to read over the next two weeks (and can’t wait to do so). But here are a few of the books I read and enjoyed earlier this year, in no particular order.
Warning: this list is almost certainly incomplete. I should probably start doing periodic lists of stuff I’ve recently enjoyed, if only to keep track of what I’ve been reading for myself….
- Tales from Rugosa Coven, by Sarah Avery – This book consists of three connected novellas about a group of early 21st century Wiccans in New Jersey, and it is awesome.
- Last Song Before Night, by Ilana C. Meyer – This is the kind of fantasy that normally would be a little “high” for me, but the world and music sucked me right in.
- Uprooted, by Naomi Novik – I read this in Warsaw, appropriately enough; it’s got a gorgeous Polish-inspired setting.
- Serpentine, by Cindy Pon – a beautiful Chinese-inspired tale with female friendship at its core.
- The Snow Globe, by Jenna Nelson – a young woman from an alternate Victorian London finds herself in a snow globe. Fun fantasy (and dare I say, perfect for the holidays?)
- The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (see also the Q&A with Scott, here) – I wrote about this when I first read it back in July, so here I’ll just say I’m a sucker for evil librarian stories.
- Our Lady of the Ice, by Cassandra Rose Clarke – recently finished this one too. A PI takes on a gangster in an alternate-history Antarctic enclosed world.
- Trouble is a Friend of Mine, by Stephanie Tromly – Veronica Mars-style caper in the oh-so-aptly named town of River Heights, NY. The whole book is full of nods to those of us who grew up on teenage sleuths – and it is super-fun to boot!
- Blue Birds, by Caroline Starr Rose – Novel in verse about the Lost Colony. Rose was prescient, it turns out, given recent archaeological news about the Lost Colony…
- A Daughter of No Nation, by A.M. Dellamonica – I loved Child of a Hidden Sea; this is a sequel, and though normally I am not a big fan of sequels I loved this book as much as the first.