leah's favorites of 2012

So long, 2012. Hello, 2013! Last year was beyond awesome for books and it was insanely hard to narrow it down to just a handful.

Here are my favorite releases from 2012!

The Gathering Storm (Katerina #1) by Robin Bridges January | My Review → here Our family tree has roots and branches reaching all across Europe, from France to Russia, from Denmark to Greece, and in several transient and minute kingdoms and principalities in between. This tree is tangled with all the rest of Europe’s royalty, and like many in that forest, my family tree is poisoned with a dark evil.

The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe April | My Review → here Of course, it was rather a hard lot, to be cherished. The beloved can so easily disappoint when they inevitably prove to be human.

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy May | My Review → here Prince Charming has no idea how to use a sword; Prince Charming has no patience for dwarfs; Prince Charming has an irrational hatred of capes.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker June | My Review → here There was no footage to show on television, no burning buildings or broken bridges, no twisted metal or scorched earth, no houses sliding off slabs. No one was wounded. No one was dead. It was, at the beginning, a quite invisible catastrophe.

Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace by Kate Summerscale June | My Review → here Oh, thought I, each of these roofs conceals human life with all its mysterious joys and sorrows. Doubtless, many a sojourner in these dwellings has a private history, thrilling, exciting, strange.

The Diviners (The Diviners #1) by Libba Bray September | My Review → here Naughty John has come home. And he has work to do.

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro October | My Review → here “We can only talk about the bad forgeries, the once that have been detected. The good onces are still hanging on museum walls.”

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton October | My Review → here One of the things I have come to know most surely in my work is that the belief system acquired in childhood is never fully escaped; it may submerge itself for a while, but it always returns in times of need to lay claim to the soul it shaped.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills October | My Review → here When you think about it, I’m like my 45. Liz is my A side, the song everybody knows, and Gabe is my B side – not played as often, but the song’s just as good.

River Road (Sentinels of New Orleans #2) by Suzanne Johnson November | My Review → here The plaque on the enormous clock claimed it has been hand-carved of mahogany in 1909, about 130 years after the birth of the undead pirate waiting for me upstairs. They were both quite handsome, but the clock was a lot safer.

Honorable mentions include Spark by Brigid Kemmemer (August) and Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (October)

I also read a bunch of non-2012 books this year and couldn’t resist sharing two of the best.

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope 1971 | My Review → here She sat up, punching her pillow vindictively into shape. It was all very well for a hero in a romance, like Sir Launcelot, to break his heart – how did it go? – “run mad in the wilderness”; but in her opinion Sir Launcelot has behaved very foolishly. Somebody ought to have stopped him.

Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl Decemeber, 2010 | My Review → here “Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures.”

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