The Top Book

I managed to read, cover-to-cover, never-read-before, 74 books this year.  I can't give you a top ten.  Sorry.  I really liked more than ten of them.  Closer to 20, you know.  But I do have a all-time favorite for the year.

Maid Marian by Elsa Watson.  Of all the fiction books I've read this year, this one has yet to be surpassed for another.  It's not a romance before you accuse it of being so, and it's not much of a retelling of the Robin Hood story.  But it's an awesome spin-off. 

More than anything, it's a historical fiction--which I love as much as I love fantasy.  Marian is a pawn in Queen Eleanor of Aquitane's game and suspects foul play.  She finds the notorious Robin Hood for help.  He has the resources to find out all of the Queen's plans.

The book has great worldbuilding, characters you just adore, and the history and the cutthroatiness of the time period. 

Politics is a nasty game in any century, apparently.  ;)

Sidenote:  Actually, Maid Marian didn't appear in the Robin Hood legends until, according to Stephen R. Lawhead (you knew he'd be mentioned!) the sixteenth century, and was one of the last characters to be added to the mix.