Sabriel by Garth Nix

 After receiving a cryptic message from her father, Abhorsen, a necromancer trapped in Death, 18-year-old Sabriel sets off into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands. Unlike other necromancers, who raise the dead, Abhorsen lays the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him--and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father's title and duties--to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible exhaustion, violent confrontations, and
terrifying challenges to her supernatural abilities--and her destiny. From Goodreads
 




I was looking for a book for the Scavenger Hunt 2012 Reading Challenge. January – Book must have a character's name in title.

So I went searching and found this. I really enjoyed this book and the world. There are two parts to this world. Ancelstierre that is without or at least not wanting much to do with magic and then the Old Kingdom that is full of magic. Sabriel is a Necromancer's daughter but has been sent to Ancelstierre to go to school. As she is finishing school her father is trapped in Death and she has to save him.
Usually the Necromancers one reads about are about raising the dead but the duty of the line of Abhorsen is to release the dead to death so they stay dead! And that is not always easy.

Sabriel travels some of the time with 2 companions, Mogget a cat that really is an extremely old spirit and Touchstone a young man, that turns out to be quite important, who 200 years ago was turned into a wooden galleon-figure that she has brought back to life. 

I found the book fast paced and it did not take me long to finish it as I got sucked into it.
I was actually quite pleased that even though it is part one of a trilogy it finishes and does not have a cliffhanger that forces you to read the next book right away. Don't misunderstand me, I will definitely come back but I like that I don't have to do it right away to get answers.

This book qualifies for:  
100 books in a year Reading Challenge 2012, 
Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge, 
2012 Ebook Challenge
Scavenger Hunt 2012 Reading Challenge