Reader’s Corner: A Look Back at 2008

There were some notable reads for me this year, mostly in mys­tery and sus­pense. I didn’t read as much as I would have _liked_ but the books I did read and enjoy are worth pimp­ing again.

The grades range from A’s to B’s. I’m hop­ing next year I will be able to read more than I did this year. I had a lot of stuff going on that kept me quite busy. But enough about that — here is my year end list, after the cut.

Mys­tery

“Frac­tured” by Karin Slaugh­ter (2008) fea­tur­ing Will Trent with the Geor­gia Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion in Atlanta, Geor­gia. The first book in the series, Trip­tych, first intro­duced Will Trent and he is one of my favorite heroes. He has a dis­abil­ity that he com­pen­sates for very well work­ing as a cop. I love Will and Slaugh­ter has once again sucked me into another series. The woman can write and I plan to fol­low this series to the fin­ish. Solid A read.

“Sweet­heart” by Chelsea Cain (2008) fea­tur­ing detec­tive Archie Sheri­dan and “Beauty Killer” aka Gretchen Low­ell and the story is set in Port­land, Ore­gon. Sweet­heart is the sec­ond book in the series, fol­low­ing Heart Sick, which was a NY Best­seller. Archie Sheri­dan is a dam­aged cop who was once a vic­tim of Gretchen Lowell’s. She’d tor­tured him in her base­ment before let­ting him go free. The books in the series thus far are very good and well paced. I enjoyed the follow-up just as much as her debut. B read.

“Angel’s Tip” by Alafair Burke (2008) fea­tur­ing homi­cide detec­tive Ellie Hatcher and the story is set in New York. The first book in the series, Dead Con­nec­tion (2007) first intro­duced her. Ellie Hatcher was a breath of fresh air. She’s smart, she does her job very well and can take care of her­self, too. The writ­ing is very pol­ished and the char­ac­ters well fleshed out. This is another series I plan to fol­low. B+ read.

“I Shall Not Want” A Claire Fer­gus­son and Russ Van Alstyne Mys­tery by Julia Spencer-Fleming is the sixth entry in this well writ­ten series. The pub­lisher really pro­moted her books this year by giv­ing away free ebook copies of the first two books in the series. I hope a lot of read­ers got a chance to read her work because for me, this series is one of the strongest out there. There is a strong roman­tic sub­plot in them and in this entry, some things were actu­ally resolved and the end­ing had the char­ac­ters at a cross­roads. This series has been con­sis­tently strong, well writ­ten and one of the best out there. B+ read.

“The Ser­pents Tale” by Ari­ana Franklin, the sec­ond book in the series fea­tur­ing Adelia Aguilar, the foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tor liv­ing in 12^th Cen­tury Eng­land, is yet another strong medieval mys­tery series with a sub­tle roman­tic sub­plot. I love this author’s writ­ing style and have enjoyed many of her books under her real name of Diana Nor­man. A– read.

Urban Fan­tasy or Fantasy

“Cry Wolf” by Patri­cia Briggs intro­duced us to two new char­ac­ters from the Mer­cedes Thomp­son uni­verse, Charles Cor­nick, the son of the Mar­rok and Anna Latham who is a new wolf and an Omega. Cry Wolf was a strong entry that was pre­cluded by the novella in On the Prowl, which was excel­lent as well and intro­duced us to these char­ac­ters. Briggs is a solid writer and it’s no sur­prise that I and many other read­ers enjoyed Cry Wolf, the first book in her new series. B+ read.

“The Host” by Stephe­nie Meyer. Say what you want about her vam­pires but she penned a really good story here. Sure, there’s no orig­i­nal sto­ry­line here and this is not a lit­er­ary mas­ter­piece but this book was a good read and a lengthy one, too. I debated adding it to my list but what the hell, why not. It was good, not great. B read.

YA nov­els

“The Grave­yard Book” by Neil Gaiman. This was a fun read and my first intro­duc­tion to Mr. Gaiman’s work. I plan to tackle some of his adult nov­els next year, start­ing with “Star­dust” which resides in my eLi­brary at the moment. Any­way, the story fol­lows Bod, a young kid who is raised by the dead. He spends most of his for­ma­tive years with the denizens of the grave­yard and has many adven­tures about life, peo­ple and grow­ing up. This was a quick read with illus­tra­tions. B read.

Manga/Graphic Novels/Comics

“Burn Out” by Rebecca Don­nor and illus­trated by Inaki Miranda was one of the more inter­est­ing graphic nov­els released under the MINX imprint. The story tack­led a seri­ous issue: ecoter­ror­ism. B read.

“Token” by Alisa Kwit­ney and illus­trated by Joëlle Jones, is a com­ing of age story about a rebel­lious teen who goes on a shoplift­ing spree in order to get her father’s atten­tion. Fun story and a B read.

“Vam­pire Knight” by Mat­suri Hino, con­tin­ues to move strong and it is one of my favorite manga series right now and it has almost all the ele­ments I love: angst, sus­pense, for­bid­den love, love tri­an­gle, etc. Yes, it’s really, really good. B/B+

“Kin: The Good Neigh­bor” by Holly Black, her first graphic novel about a sub­ject mat­ter she’s writ­ten about often: faeries. The graphic novel is dark, sus­pense­ful and a com­ing of age story. It’s nowhere near as vio­lent as her YA nov­els like Tithe. Kin is the first in a new series. Even though I wasn’t blown away by the story, I thought she did a good job over­all. B read.

Well, that con­cludes my list of favorites for 2008. What’s yours? I’m always in the mar­ket for tak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions as I’m sure I over­looked a lot of good reads this year. Thanks.

For Fur­ther Reading

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Tagged as: 2008 End of Year Lists