Like me, my friend Marie (hi Marie!) is a huge fan of Garth Nix's Abhorsen YA fantasy trilogy. And like me, she's been patiently(ish) anticipating Clariel, the prequel publishing in October, for years.

A lot of them.

Unlike me, however, she doesn't have an ARC...so I'm mailing her my reviewer copy. Here are some Abhorsen read-alikes — featuring badass heroines, restless dead, adventure, and a hint of romance, all recommended by The Horn Book Magazine and Guide — in case you can't wait until October either!

Every year, the Seeker, currently teen Ashyn, enters the Forest of the Dead to quiet damned spirits. The Keeper, Ashyn's twin Moria, remains in the village as protector. But things go terribly awry, and the sisters are forced to travel across the Wastes to save their kingdom from the undead. Author Kelley Armstrong's elaborate world is populated with complex characters in Age of Legends series-opener Sea of Shadows. (HarperCollins, 2014)

An electromagnetic pulse kills most of the country's population instantly at the beginning of Ilsa J. Bick's trilogy opener Ashes; many of those left become zombielike, "brain-zapped" cannibals. Survivor Alex teams up with eight-year-old Ellie and soldier Tom to search for other people. The trio's deepening bond adds to the already high tension. This horror/survival story (with graphic violence) presents an intriguing take on zombie fiction. Look for sequels Shadows and Monsters. (Egmont, 2011)

After Otter's mother, a binder of the dead, commits suicide rather than allow herself to be possessed by a ghostly White Hand, Otter and her friends venture beyond the bounds of their forest settlement to find the White Hands' origin. The spirit-filled fantasy world of Erin Bow's Sorrow's Knot gives a hair-raising sensation of being surrounded by unknown dangers and evokes Native American cultures without caricaturing them. (Scholastic/Levine, 2013)

In Shadowcry, the first volume in the Secrets of Wintercraft series, fifteen-year-old Kate discovers she's a Skilled, able to see and manipulate the "veil" between life and death. Moreover, she learns her ancestors wrote the coveted tome Wintercraft, which explains the veil's secrets. Author Jenna Burtenshaw's elegant, complex prose sweeps readers along to a dark world teeming with creepy underground passageways, abandoned buildings, and graveyards. Kate is a bright spot, facing each obstacle with defiance and determination. The series continues with Blackwatch and Winterveil. (Greenwillow, 2011)

Striving for normality in her magic-practicing family, Amy is happy for a summer of hard work at her aunt's Texas ranch. But the deathly cold apparition in Amy's bedroom pulls her into a dangerous mystery. Rosemary Clement-Moore's Texas Gothic mixes suspense, humor, and lots of local flavor in this lively teen ghost story — with sex appeal — that’s one part Texas history and one part CSI. (Delacorte, 2011)

Running from an arranged marriage, seventeen-year-old Ismae lands up at St. Mortain's convent, discovers she has special gifts (and that her true father is Mortain, the god of Death), and trains to become an assassin — the true vocation of a daughter of Death. Robin LaFevers's Grave Mercy is a romantic fantasy, set in an alternate, fictional, quasi-late medieval Brittany. The His Fair Assassin series continues with Dark Triumph; volume three, Mortal Heart, will be published this November.

Only a fence separates Mary's village from the Unconsecrated — zombielike creatures that must be kept at bay in order for her primitive post-apocalyptic community, governed by a religious sisterhood, to survive. Carrie Ryan's inventive horror story The Forest of Hands and Teeth combines mystery, romance, and suspense as it records Mary's quest to search beyond the barrier for alternatives to the life she has always known. Also look for companion books The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places. (Delacorte, 2009)

In The Archived by Victoria Schwab, Mackenzie's job is to return the wakeful dead to the Archive, a repository of all human memory. Persuading the dead to return to their rightful resting place often involves kick-ass combat, but this is no common policing-the-supernatural romantic thriller: Schwab writes of death, sorrow, and family love with a light, intelligent touch and inventive vigor. The story continues in sequel The Unbound. (Hyperion, 2013)