Favorite Books of 2013: Part 1

Hello everyone and welcome to my first post in my top books of 2013. These are books that I read and reviewed this year. They were not necessarily published this year. There will be thirteen books featured in my Favorite Books posts, which will span 3 separate posts, starting today with a post tomorrow and the day after. They are in no particular order because HOW COULD I CHOOSE!?! I found it too hard to just go with 1o that I had to expand to the 13 seeing that it is the end of 2013 after all. Will next year be my top 14 books? What number is the cut-off point when you’re talking about your top? Anyhow, I digress. Without further ado, here are the first four of my favorites from this year. **Note: Main book titles are links that will take you to my full reviews of each book and those reviews in turn have links to Goodreads and Amazon.**

Shiloh by Helena Sorensen

In a world of perpetual darkness, a boy is born who wields remarkable power over fire. Amos is no more than seven when he kills a Shadow Wolf and becomes a legend in Shiloh. He would be destined for great things were it not for the stories his father tells about a world beyond the Shadow and a time before the Shadow. Only madmen hold to such tales, and in Shiloh, they have always come to bad ends.

Amos is fearless. He walks with easy confidence, certain that the Shadow cannot touch him. Even his family is in awe of him. His father marvels at his skill with the bow, his mother thanks the gods that he has all the courage she lacks, and his sister, Phebe, worships him for saving her from an attack of the Shadow Cats.

On a trip to the village of Emmerich, Amos rescues the Magistrate’s son, Simeon, from the village bullies. Simeon, fair-skinned and pale-eyed like other Dreamers in Shiloh’s history, becomes Amos’s constant companion and dearest friend. Simeon becomes a part of Amos’s family, listening to fireside stories told in a way he’s never heard them before and learning to wield a bow and arrow.

The year the boys turn twelve, they are itching to prove themselves. An impetuous plan to steal a beautiful lantern goes miserably awry, and the lantern’s owner prophecies that Amos will be devoured by the Shadow. For the first time, a seed of fear is planted in Amos’s mind, and when his father is killed by a Shadow Wolf on the last day of the Great Hunt, the fear takes hold. If so great and brave a man as his father could fall to the Shadow, what hope has he?

Why I love Shiloh: Shiloh is a story of strength, redemption, loss, growing up, and finding oneself. I immediately fell in love with the characters and got to watch them grow over the 13 years that Shiloh encompasses. The setting is vivid in its shades of gray, and the descriptions of anything light or colorful are stunning. Sorensen uses song to great effect over the course of the book, which is just awesome. I look forward to venturing back into this world.

*****

Inception by Teal Haviland

The world is in danger. Mankind is sinking deeper into darkness it cannot understand.

Demons are easily capturing souls as they lead men and women down dangerous paths from which there is no return, while Javan, one of the Fallen, seeks an ancient book and the power it promises. If he succeeds, humans — and the world as they know it — will be destroyed.

There is someone who is capable of stopping Javan . . .

If she discovers him in time.

Gabrielle is one of the most powerful angels ever created, her job one of the most important. She has come to Earth to learn more about humans and what influences them, and to fight evil she sees growing at an alarming rate. She soon finds herself carelessly distracted with one human in particular, however. Lucas Watkins holds a promise of peace and love for Gabrielle that she never believed she could have again.

As feelings between her and Lucas become more than she can deny, so do the dangers mounting against him. After discovering who Lucas is, and the choice he faces, she realizes Darkness will come for him through demons and fantastical beings he thought only existed in his imaginings — forcing fairytales to become his reality.

Caught between her new mortal ties and ancient immortal responsibilities, Gabrielle must race against what seems to be an ever-quickening clock to learn what she needs to know, protect Lucas, uncover Javan’s plan, and find a way to stop him and all who live in Shadows.

Things become more complex than she ever anticipated, her decisions more critical, and what begins as a quest for information rapidly places her in an even more crucial position within the longest and most important war ever waged.

Join Gabrielle and her allies in a story of love – past and present – fantastical beings, hidden realms, magic, fate, loss, and the fight of good versus evil.

Why I love Inception: With a unique spin on angels, demons, and other fantastical creatures, Inception had a complex and plot that caused me to experience all the feels. Seriously. All. The. Feels. The main characters are dynamic and the secondary characters are among some of the best I’ve met–ever . I had such reactions to this book while reading it that I took to Twitter to chronicle them. I can’t wait to get back into the Reaping Chronicles and all of its realms…particularly the one with the shape shifters.

*****

Lichgates by S.M. Boyce

Kara Magari is about to discover a beautiful world full of terrifying things—Ourea.

Kara, a college student still reeling from her mother’s recent death, has no idea the hidden world of Ourea even exists until a freak storm traps her in a sunken library. With no way out, she opens an ancient book of magic called the Grimoire and unwittingly becomes its master, which means Kara now wields the cursed book’s untamed power. Discovered by Ourea’s royalty, she becomes an unwilling pawn in a generations-old conflict—a war intensified by her arrival. In this world of chilling creatures and betrayal, Kara shouldn’t trust anyone… but she’s being hunted and can’t survive on her own. She drops her guard when Braeden, a native soldier with a dark secret, vows to keep her safe. And though she doesn’t know it, her growing attraction to him may just be her undoing.

For twelve years, Braeden Drakonin has lived a lie. The Grimoire is his one chance at redemption, and it lands in his lap when Kara Magari comes into his life. Though he begins to care for this human girl, there is something he wants more. He wants the Grimoire.

Welcome to Ourea, where only the cunning survive.

Why I love Lichgates (and the whole Grimoire Saga!): Lichgates has everything that makes for a great tale. I was immediately drawn into the story, lost in the beautiful and dangerous world of Ourea beyond the last page. A major book hangover for sure. It’s rare that I use the word “perfect” in my reviews, and it appeared in my Lichgates review more than once. I immediately contacted S.M. Boyce after reading Lichgates so that I could fangirl over it. It is the first time I had ever done that. Treason, Book 2 in the Grimoire Saga, is just as wonderful.

*****

First Frost by Liz DeJesus

For generations, the Frost family has run the Museum of Magical and Rare Artifacts, handing down guardianship from mother to daughter, always keeping their secrets to “family only.”

Gathered within museum’s walls is a collection dedicated to the Grimm fairy tales and to the rare items the family has acquired: Cinderella’s glass slipper, Snow White’s poisoned apple, the evil queen’s magic mirror, Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted spinning wheel…

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Frost wants none of it, dreaming instead of a career in art or photography or…well, anything except working in the family’s museum. She knows the items in the glass display cases are fakes because, of course, magic doesn’t really exist.

She’s about to find out how wrong she is.

Why I love First Frost (and Glass Frost!): It’s a split-worlds book. There’s the one that we live in, the other of living fairy tales. That there are artifacts from one world, full of magical properties, housed in a museum in the other is just awesome. Also a story with one of it’s settings in a museum! I work in a museum, can I go on fairy tale adventures too?! Bianca is a great character and the secondary characters are first-rate too. The situations she and her friends find themselves in throughout both books made them ones that I refused to put down.

*****

Check back tomorrow for the next part of my 2013 favorites! Thanks for stopping by!

What are your favorite books that you read this year?