The Tea Post 16 Favorite Books of 2022
My top five reads of 2022!
I read over 100 books in 2022, and looking back on them, I had some stand-outs that have stuck in my mind and maybe have stuck in yours too!
I will try not to get into spoilers because if you haven’t read these and you enjoy Fantasy and Science Fiction, you should get a copy and start reading.
My favorite
Trilogy
The Scholomance by Naomi Novik.
Novella
All Systems Red from The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
Short Stories Collection
The Kinsmen Universe by Ilona Andrews
Fantasy
Little Thieves by Margaret Owen
Urban Fantasy
Soul Taken from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
Trilogy
The Scholomance by Naomi Novik.
Book One: A Deadly Education was my favorite book in 2020. I wish I had written it. It had everything I could want like a mashup of Harry Potter and Wicked.
Book Two: The Last Graduate had one of the worst cliffhangers of 2021.
Book Three: The Golden Enclaves exceeded my expectations which were already far too high.
Foreshadowing began in book one and came together in book three on a character and plot level. I’m in awe of the way Novik plays with style, voice, and pace to enforce the themes in each novel.
I will say it wasn’t a perfect book, there were some relationships that felt forced. The plot was a bit convoluted between the actual story and El experiencing a lot of “teen” tropes. But as a whole—still an amazing read.
Novik doesn’t shy away from addressing the foils of humanity. It was horrible and brilliant. I can definitely see some inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. One of my top anticipated and enjoyed books of 2022. (The first book is still my favorite, but this one wowed me in a “let’s all just be better people” kind of way)
This trilogy made me laugh out loud, cry, think deeply about humanity, and sits on my favorites section of the bookshelf.
Novella
All Systems Red from The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
This novella has been out for a while (2017, I’m late to the party) and has some controversy surrounding its pricing. (I’d recommend grabbing it at the library or looking for a sale price, and if you love it as much as I did—buy yourself a hardback.)
That aside, I love Murderbot. It’s difficult to create quiet characters and this was done beautifully and with hilarity. Wells commands a narrative voice that conveys volumes in human interaction. I would actually say all the characters were well done for the small room a novella offers—and many of them are slowly developed over the course of the following novellas and novel.
I also highly recommend the sequel novellas and novel—though they become slightly more quality entertainment than soul searching literature.
Short Stories Collection
The Kinsmen Universe by Ilona Andrews
Wild fun space opera romance. These are almost closer to mini novellas than short stories. And I wish the authors had expanded on these stories because I fell in love with the first and second stories especially. Their world-building was enchanting and the technological ideas fascinated me.
I don’t often read short stories—for this very reason. If I end up loving the story—I’m bitter there isn’t more of it to read.
There are three stories in this collection: Silent Blade, a spy assassin romance, Silver Shark, an illegal war refugee with mental abilities in a “bio-net”, and A Mere Formality a religious arbitrary space dispute.
I live for updates on this universe.
Fantasy
Little Thieves by Margaret Owen
A retelling of one of my favorite fairytales The Goose Girl with touches of a french fairytale, Toads and Diamonds, but from the POV of the wicked maid.
Its worldbuilding is inspired by medieval Germany and had traditional German fae. The plot has heists, curses, a detective, and challenges old fairytale values with new ideas about beauty, class, love, and forgiveness.
One of those rare reads you never want to be over. Vanja is funny, charming, and wickedly smart. I love her. This book made me cry and kept me on my toes wanting to know more. A sequel is expected to come out in May 2023, but the ending is also satisfying as a standalone.
Urban Fantasy
Soul Taken from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
Blending German fairytales with Native American folklore gives this series a unique, unforgettable quality. It captures an American feeling along with some classic European fantasy villains and magical objects that aren’t commonly written about.
This is book number 13 and it is spookily fun! I may have particularly enjoyed this book because I read it in October and its themes and villains go well with a spooky season.
A minor critique of this book is that the story gets a little overcrowded with managing characters—sending some away, and introducing new ones.
That aside, I’m so impressed by the variety of plots and styles Briggs has brought to this series. I can always count on these books to make me laugh and cry. Mercy’s family and romantic relationships are so well written—these characters feel like old friends I want to visit with again and again.
While this is a murder mystery—and most of them are—it’s not overly gruesome, or frightening. It has a fun mystery that mixes old magic with new technology. Plus we get into the history of some long-standing older vampire characters with promises of more to come. The ending left me impatient for the next book!
Another of my favorite books (100 percent biased here) that was released in 2022 is my SFF novel Searching for Sun! If you are interested in my book you can find it at one of the retailers below or request it at your local library! Even if it isn’t in your library yet, you can make a request and often libraries will stock a copy! Or check out the free sample chapters on my blog, and offered on Amazon’s ebook edition.
Barns&Noble: Searching for Sun
Amazon: Searching for Sun
Powells: Searching for Sun
