Best of 2009

Here’s my top books of 2009, in no real order. (This is of the books I read in 2009, not those published then.)

Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher

We love the Dresden books here at Case de Lee and graphic novels so we were extremely excited when we found this. The art was clean and vivid, the story line was fun, and Harry was as sarcastic as ever. So bonus points go to Welcome to the Jungle for being one of the handful of fiction books to capture my husband’s attention as well as my own, an impressive feat.

Skin Tight by Ava Gray

I got to read this as a first reader (so you won’t see a review here) and I just couldn’t get enough of Mia and Foster. I love the really smart heroine and the tortured, reluctant hero and with this book Ava (aka Ann Aguirre) expands her concept to a whole world mythos while leaving so much more to explore that readers will want to keep sticking with these loose series to find out more. (Skin Tight comes out June 2010)

Magic Strikes & On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

Perhaps it’s unfair of me to both list these together and to take up two slots with Ms. Andrews’ (actually a husband-wife writing team) work. But to hell with it this is my list and I just cannot express my absolute adoration for Andrews’ writing style. She pushes all my buttons in the right way and to top it off On the Edge has the feel of my mother-in-laws’ rural town that’s my hiding place from the world, AND it has a character that everyone say looks like Sesshomaru from the Inyuasha series. You can’t get yummier. Yet Andrews also packs a wallop of dark, sinister fun into her books making them absolutely irresistible to me. Bully Ms. Andrews and keep giving me more!

Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey

Billed as a steampunk adventure it’s actually a lesbian love story urban fantasy with steampunk overtones. It features a Nephilim and her dead lover who stumble upon a secret facility where other Nephilim are being experimented upon for foul reasons, and best of all it’s the first of three novellas. The only problem I have is that I didn’t think to write it first!

Bestial by William Carl

This one shows my roots, my absolute love for horror, despite it’s boxed in, trope heavy current state. Not the most original of tales, it’s the zombie apocalypse novel, but done tongue-in-cheek with a myriad of small additions that make all the difference. Instead of a virus spreading a mind numbing hunger for brains this disease turns people into werewolves at night, only to leave them back to human during the day to deal with the extent of their bestial actions. This book manages to mock the zombie apocalypse–and many other horror tropes as well–while adding unexpected sinister twists and one of the best horror werewolves I’ve read in a long time. I didn’t expect to like Bestial, but I haven’t been able to stop recommending it which makes it a clear winner in my book.

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris

You hear a lot about the Sookie Stackhouse series, with True Blood being such a massive force in TV this year. But this is my favorite Harris series. It’s dark, real dark, with the characters barely holding on to their sanity as they risk their lives trying to help the bereaved families of the missing or the dead to find peace and closure. The paranormal thread is also real delicate. Rather than living in a world of vampires and werecritters, Harper and Tolliver live in our world where her powers are somewhere between believable and crackpot. In this books they face their first serial killer, which isn’t a plot taken as lightly as some horror authors deal with this this way. Powerful and disturbing I cannot get enough of this series.

Prey by Rachel Vincent

Another series I love, I thought for sure that Vincent was going to jump the shark with this one. I mean, she writes this dark world where females are, in a way, prisoners due to their value to the werecat species. Protected and indulged they’re free, but still raised to someday marry and continue the species. It’s easy for their identities as people to get lost. From that comes Faythe, who is determined to be her own person and to marry on her own terms, if at all. This is the fourth book in the series, which is dark but has strong romantic ties too. It’s tighter and more adventure driven than the previous books and I thought for sure this is the point where Vincent caved and the series stopped being hard to handle, emotional urban fantasy and softened to a more romance state of being. And I was so wrong. Vincent still tortures her characters and her readers and clearly keeps the spirit of the series together, managing to make Faythe take a full role in her pride and family, without declawing her to do so. An excellent author, who can keep the conflict and theme going for multiple books, and one I look forward to reading more from.

Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs

Another one I expected to be too romance for my tastes. (For the record I like romance, just not as a stand alone story. I have to have something else to the story to keep my interest.) I picked up these books because 1.) they were urban fantasy and 2.) we needed werewolf titles for Monster Librarian’s Werewolf Month and I was glad I did. After finishing the first, Moon Called, I went out to the stores and grabbed the next two in paperback, but Iron Kissed ended up being my favorite. The third book in I loved this one in part because this is where skinwalker (sort of like a werecoyote) Mercy Thompson admits her love for werewolf alpha Adam, but the real darkness and emotion pain that it takes to get there makes this story a monumental read in this year’s collection. It’s good to see that Briggs is popular enough to make it to hard cover, but alas that means this broke reader will have to wait until the paperback to get more adventures from Mercy the shape shifting VW mechanic and her crew.

Demon Inside by Stacia Kane

So this is the first (and only) book I ever made the acknowledgment page of, but I swear that didn’t influence its inclusion here at all. What did was the raw, emotional power of this story of Megan Chase, a psychologist who just discovered she’s part demon and the demons she’s linked to are ones that feed off the pain of humans. A difficult position to be put in, but it’s made worse when she’s called home, to her unloving family after her father dies only to discover that her childhood stint in an institution and her lifetime of struggle with an uncaring, critical family is a complete farce because her father sacrificed her to a demon for his own profit. Heart breaking and overwhelming this is one of the few books this year that made me cry.

Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder

A last minute winner, this one makes it in by about three days. Jessie Shimmer is akin to a chaos magician and during a spell to summon rain for the farmers of her area instead she and her teacher (and lover) open a dimensional rift and he vanishes. The magical community crashes down on her, despite her losing and arm and an eye defeating the demon that comes through. The man in charge of the area tries, exceedingly forcefully, to make Jessie leave her lover behind. But she refuses even though it costs her her friends, her home, her job, and even her familiar (who is sort of a ferret). But in the process she uncovers a dark secret the community wants to hide, a sense of loyalty and a personalized hell dimension that still has living prisoners. An excellent debut here’s another fantasy world I can’t help but want more of.

The Stats:

Books Read in 2009: 111

Books Reviewed in 2009: 103

39338 word in reviews written in 2009

Below the cut is the list of books I’ve read, if you’re interested.

Grave Peril by Jim Butcher

Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher

Sacred Book of the Werewolf

HellBlazer: Original Sins

Evil Penguins by Elia Anie

Apex January 2009

A Practical Guide to Faeries

Murky Depths #6

HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar

The Lesser of Two Evils by Zoe Whitten

VAMPS by Nancy A. Collins

Pride by Rachel Vincent

Unspeakable Horror

Watchmen

Dead Witness by Joylene Butler

Something Wicked #9

Apex Magazine, February 2009

Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre

Apex Magazine, March 2009

The Blue Mirror by Kathe Koja

Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews

The Black Act by Louise Bohmer

Hollow-Eyed Mary by Andre Duza

Afraid by Jack Kilborn

Bestial by William D. Carl

A Dangerous Climate by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster by Mark McLaughlin & Michael McCarty

Splattered Beauty by Brandon Ford

Apex Magazine April 2009

The Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey

Thin Them Out by Kim Paffenroth, Julia Sevin & R.J. Sevin

Dying to Live: Life Sentence by Kim Paffenroth

Blood Bar by Norm Applegate

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris

The Monster Within Idea by R. Thomas Riley

Buffy: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon

Tales From the Crypt #3: Zombilicious

Killing Kiss by Sam Stone

Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn

Apex Magazine, May 2009

Northlanders volume 1

Tales from the Crypt #4 Crypt-Keeping it Real

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Big Guy & Rusty

Symptoms of a Broken Heart by Cory Cramer

Heaven’s Bones by Samantha Henderson

Prey by Rachel Vincent

Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

Polluto #2

Red by Paul Kane

Demon Inside by Stacia Kane

Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs

Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs

Ulrik by Steven E. Wedel

120 Diseases

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

Deadly Charm by Claudia Mair Burney

Apex Magazine, July 2009

Hannah’s Story: Vampire Love Never Dies

Devil’s Marionette by Maurice Broaddus

Queer Wolf

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future for You

Dark Entities by David Dunwoody

Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O’Neill

BtVS: Wolves at the Gate

BtVS: Time of Your Life

Season of Rot by Eric S. Brown

Monster Moon: Curse at Zala Manor by BBH McChiller

Shadow of the Dark Angel by Gene O’Neill

Apex Magazine August 2009

Apex Magazine September 2009

Amberville by Tim Davys

Murky Depths #7

Hosts by Dylan Morgan

Pain Killers by Jerry Stahl

Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Marked by PC Cast

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

Betrayed by C Cast and Kristin Cast

Johnny Gruesome by Gregory Lamberson

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Bare Bone #6

Chosen by PC Cast and Kristin Cast

Escape of the Living Dead

Untamed by PC Cast and Kristin Cast

Pillars of the World by Anne Bishop

Shadows and Light by Anne Bishop

Soul Catcher by Leigh Bridger

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Cursed by Jeremy C. Shipp

Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder

Howliday Inn by James Howe

Murky Depths #8

Apex Magazine October 2009

Dark Side of the Moon by Barbara Custer

My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

Apex November 2009

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies

The House of Gaian by Anne Bishop

Trail of Madness by Zoe E. Whitten (half)

Storm Front Comic #1

Storm Front Comic #2

Skin Tight by Ann Aguirre

Black Jack Derringer #1 The Ace of Spades

Changeling by Zoe E. Whitten

The Wolfen

A Prelude to Penemue by Sara M. Harvey

Snarl by Lorne Dixon