For a few years now, I’ve been living a semi-nomadic life, making my home in Wisconsin, in Scotland, in Colorado–wherever life and work has taken me.

But 2012 was a year of stability. I didn’t travel much. I didn’t divide my time between two homes. I stayed in Colorado long enough to raise a puppy, plant some perennials, join a writing group, make some friends. The mountains feel like home now.

With so much stability (and a beautiful Golden Retriever at my feet), I actually had time to read a few books in 2012. What kinds of books? Well, lots of beta-reading for my fellow writers, including a comedic zombie romp, a time-travel thriller, a mermaid romance, a magic-realist historical, an ecological dystopia, and the adventures of a magical assassin. All great fun. When you work with talented writers, you get to read good stories long before they’re published.

On the published side of things, 2012 was a good year to read YA (young adult) and fantasy.

Author Holly Black finally published Black Heart, the long-awaited final book in her Curse Workers trilogy. I cannot say enough about Black’s genius for character, plotting, and emotion, so I’m not even going to try. She writes beautifully, at the very highest level, and her characters live in my heart.

Also working at the highest level is Kelly Link, whose YA collection Pretty Monsters is pretty much astounding. Pretty Monsters isn’t new in 2012, but I reread the collection this spring and loved it all over again. If you get a chance, read the werewolf-themed novella at the very end.

At Christmas I got a copy of Holly Black and Ellen Kushner’s fantasy anthology Welcome to Bordertown, Bordertown being a ruined urban landscape occupied by fairies and dreamers, hard to find unless you’re a runaway teenager. Outstanding story in that collection: Cat Valente’s “A Voice Like a Hole.”

And then there’s Caitlin Kittredge, whose deliciously Lovecraftian Iron Codex sequel The Nightmare Garden came out in the spring. When I say that this is a novel with a plot like a runaway train, I mean it as a compliment.

I’m not usually a fan of strong romance plots or YA paranormal, but I really enjoyed Robin LaFever’s Grave Mercy and Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Prince. Clockwork Prince has teen angst and romantic torment spilling out all over the place. I realize that opinions are divided about Cassandra Clare’s work, but no one should doubt her skill as a storyteller. Once I start reading one of her novels, I absolutely cannot put it down.

Speaking of YA books you can’t put down: LaFever’s Grave Mercy. The protagonist is a feisty assassin nun, struggling with Big Questions while getting into Big Trouble. If I didn’t love Grave Mercy as much as I could have, it’s probably because I’ve been beta-reading Kelly McCullough’s awesome Fallen Blade series, in which a former temple assassin struggles with Big Questions while getting into Big Trouble.

The most recent of Kelly McCullough’s books is Crossed Blades, in which the assassin’s past shows up in the perilous form of his ex-fiancée–also a former assassin. Crossed Blades is my favorite in McCullough’s Fallen Blade series so far.

Eager to expand my horizons, I dabbled a little on the dark side in 2012 and picked up some YA horror. I read Paulo Bacigalupi’s The Drowned Cities, which is like Hunger Games meets Apocalypse Now. This dystopian novel deserves all sorts of praise, but I found the book too unsettling to love. Every time I turned a page, someone was having a limb amputated. Or dying.

My friend Mike recommended Rick Yancey’s equally dark novel The Monstrumologist. What a great, brilliant, horrifying story! The voice is assured and compelling–a perfect balance of modern and archaic. The plot is like a house on fire. The only problem [for me] is the gore, as headless monsters go berserk killing humans in 19th century New England.

In my next post, I’ll highlight some more 2012 reading, including YA novels, a few vintage comics, and a few great books for adults.