Revelation of the year: Robert Galbraith

In July, booklovers did a double take with the revelation that Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling had penned a detective novel called A Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith to escape the post-Potter frenzy and allow the book to stand on its own merit. JKR later revealed how she had derived her alter ego by mixing the name of her political hero Robert F. Kennedy and her childhood fantasy name Ella Galbraith.

t2 says: Though the murder was smart, the mystery left us wanting. But the novel gave us a charming new sleuth in Cormoran Strike and JKR has promised us more of him, with the next book set to release in 2014.

Sequel of the year: Sycamore Row

He’s been churning out legal thrillers almost annually — 20 at last count — but John Grisham made his fans oh-so-happy this year by going back to the beginning. Twenty-four years after A Time to Kill, Grisham took us back to racially simmering Clanton, Mississippi, and Jake Brugance, who famously defended a black man for killing the men who raped and killed his 10-year-old daughter. Sycamore Row finds Jake defending the rights of a black housekeeper who’s been left $20million by her white employer.

t2 says: While Grisham retains his legal eagle badge of honour, we are even more thrilled that he didn’t succumb to the temptation of bringing Jake up to present times. The sequel is set just three years after the Carl Lee Hailey trial and is a brilliant addition to American race literature.

Comfort read of the year: And the Mountains Echoed

In his third book, Khaled Hosseini opens the door wider to allow even the non-reader into his beautifully woven literary tapestry draped over familiar territory — the ravaged beauty of Afghanistan past and present, its scarred yet beautiful people and the lives they build on faraway shores. Using the fragmented novel format, Hosseini starts with the story of a brother and sister separated by poverty and prepares the pages for their eventual reunion.

t2 says: It’s less brutal than The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns but just as beautiful, spreading a warm, happy feeling in our heart.

Disappointment of the year: Inferno

Dan Brown was always the king of thrills and killer of good English but this time the The Da Vinci Code man couldn’t crack his own thriller code. In terms of setting, Inferno was promising — symbologist Robert Langdon suffering from short-term memory loss and on the run with a beautiful woman, Dante’s Death Mask and a deranged genius — but the ending was bizarre.

t2 says: But we’re suckers for his racy thrillers that take us on these whirlwind chases across the globe, so Mr Brown, keep ’em coming.

Postponement of the year: A Suitable Boy sequel

Vikram Seth’s “jump” sequel to his 1993 magnum opus A Suitable Boy was supposed to come out in 2013. It was popularly assumed that Book 2 would be called A Suitable Girl. But Seth, ever the wily and witty responder, cast a question mark by suggesting it could be about an “unsuitable boy” too. Well, name or not, 2013 turned out quite unsuitable for the author when Penguin asked him to return his Rs 10crore-plus advance for “prolonged delays in the script”. But no harm done, the sequel, which will be set in present times and not in 1952, which is when A Suitable Boy ends, will now be published by Orion Publishers and the revised release date is 2016.

t2 says: While we adored A Suitable Boy, it was, ahem, over 1,300 pages. Will the next one be a wristbender too?

Calcutta book of the year: The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri’s fourth book hit home. Literally. It’s not often that a Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s Booker-shortlisted novel will open on our humble Deshapran Sashmal Road! The Lowland, which tells the story of two brothers, one seduced by Naxalism, the other by America, and a woman and her child tied to them both, is a beautiful book, one that matures with page.

t2 says: One has to grow into this book, the beginning does absolutely no justice to the flawed yet charming characters and the author’s scathing yet sympathetic pen, especially in the end chapters.

Controversial book of the year: Tampa

It was labelled the “sickest book of the summer” but Alissa Nutting’s Tampa has emerged the sickest book of the whole year. The story of a school teacher in America and her lust for pre-puberty boys and the lengths she goes to seduce, brainwash and control her male students made for a torture read. Nutting’s subsequent clarification that she wrote this book to highlight predatory female teachers cut no ice with readers or critics.

t2 says: Like we said earlier, Tampa is child porn and a cheap trick in a post-50 Shades world. T for terrible.

Death of the year: Mark Darcy

First came the happy news that Bridget Jones would be back in a third book, Mad About the Boy. But the world let out a collective gasp when September 29 dropped the bomb that Helen Fielding had killed off Bridget’s husband Mark Darcy, the perfect man who made every woman believe in a modern-day everafter.

t2 says: The pain of a dead Darcy was dulled by the trauma of seeing the ditzy and adorable Bridget reduced to an annoying and stupid 51-year-old but the bigger loss is that with no Darcy, there’ll be no Colin Firth (in picture) in the third movie.

Bonk book of the year: Beautiful Bastard

Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren is Fifty Shades without the BDSM but with a lot more humiliation and sex. Intern Chloe Mills has one problem — boss Bennet Ryan, who is, of course, rude, arrogant and irresistible. They have sex in the conference room, on his office desk, on the couch, in the stairwell, elevator... then there is sex at home, in hotels, bathrooms, car…. You name it and they have done it there. And oh, he likes to rip off panties and hoard them in his office drawer!

t2 says: It doesn’t get kinkier and more bonk-ers than this!

Which is your book of the year? Tell t2@abp.in