Two more

I haven't had time to read much for fun lately, but here are a couple of novels that I liked:

Sabriel, Garth Nix
This is YA fantasy in an imagined world where Death is a place, not an event. The world he created was fascinating and frightening both. The title character is the daughter of a necromancer whose job it is to make sure the dead stay in Death. He disappears and she sets out on a quest to find him - or figure out what happened to him. I really liked the main character and her father. It was a bit too violent for me in a few parts though, especially for a YA novel. It's the beginning of a series, if you end up enjoying it. I haven't read on.

The Changeling Sea, Patricia McKilip
The heroine in this story is an ordinary girl who ends up doing extraordinary things. I always enjoy stories like that! Peri lives in a small town by the coast and has a love/hate relationship with the sea which has taken her fisherman father and left her mother helpless with grief. It read almost like a fairy tale. The writing was beautiful, and the story was well-developed, too.