Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale is a Russian fairy tale that requires an investment of your time and attention, but the payoff is so worth it! Arden painstakingly creates this world, the characters, the forest, the village, the home, the conflict – all of it, with such detail and ache and emotion.
Katherine Reay’s Dear Mr Knightley is well-written women’s fiction with a lot of heart. The writing is swift and the characters are likable without being saccharine.
For a book with a far-fetched premise, Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me has a very real and believable quality about it.
Naomi Novik’s Uprooted was one of my favorite reads this year. A rich, atmospheric, wonderfully written fantasy for adults with warlocks and witches and kings and court and an enchanted wood.
Marketing for the new young adult book The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey spends a lot of time comparing it to other popular books in the genre, including Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Most early reviews have also noted the similarities. But what I hope doesn’t get lost in the noise of mentioning these other books is that THIS one is very, very good.
Read full review
BOOK:30 