A (slightly belated) Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all! OK, so I'm a few days late and I've already featured a guest post on my blog in 2013, but I still wanted to wish you all a wonderful 2013. Last year seemed very much like a year of endings, with a number of my favourite book series coming to a close. M.G Harris's Joshua Files, Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five, Barry Hutchison's Invisible Fiends, Darren Shan's Saga of Larten Crepsley - every one of them bringing their retrospective series to a brilliant end with a superb final instalment.

2012 brought us some amazing books, proving that children's and YA literature is as strong as ever (if you missed it you can read my list of personal favourites of 2012 here), and 2013 already looks to be just as good. I am sure I am not the only book blogger who has a list (mental or otherwise) of books that are hotly anticipated in the coming year. Top of my list has to be Department 19: Battle Lines by Will Hill. The first two D19 books are amongst my favourite of all time, and I'm sure that the third book will be added to this list once it is released in March. Department 19: The Rising was narrowly beaten to my Book of 2012 spot by Tom Pollock's brilliant The City's Son, and the sequel to this, The Glass Republic, due in August, is another of my must-reads for 2013.

So what else do we have to look forward to? Well Zom-B Underground by Darren Shan was published today, and there are three more instalments promised in 2013 which will keep Shan fans counting off the days on their calendars as the year progresses. March will also see the latest release of another of my favourite authors as Derek Landy's Tanith Lowe novella, The Maleficent Seven is published. I personally can't get enough of Skulduggery Pleasant, and Tanith is one of my favourite characters, so I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to reading this book. As well as these, other series that I really enjoy that have next instalments scheduled for 2013 include Itch Rocks by Simon Mayo (28th February); (TimeRiders by Alex Scarrow (The Pirate Kings - 7th February); Young Sherlock Holmes by Andrew Lane (Knife Edge - 29th August); Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis (Fighting Pax - date TBC); Ash Mistry by Sarwat Chadda (City of Death - 28th February); a second Afterworlds book by Barry Hutchison (The Book of Doom - 28th February)..... the list goes on and on and on.

As well as these ongoing series, there are a host of new first-in-series and standalone books due out in 2013 that already look like must-reads. Of these, I think I am most looking forward to August, which will bring the release of Lockwood and Co by the brilliant Jonathan Stroud. As in previous years I will be running my 'Coming Up In' feature over the next four to six weeks, so please watch this space for some of 2013's authors telling us about their new standalone or first in series books.