Tag Archives: favorite books

My Fave Reads of the Year, 2022 Edition

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Hello all and welcome to the last Friday of the year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday week last week, and that you are excited for the new year and all the possibilities that might bring. The last year, or two years really, have been pretty rough, and I am really hoping that 2023 will be a bit kinder to us all. But I am… skeptical, let’s say. Still, I am trying to approach the new year with a feeling of cautious optimism. We shall see how it goes.

Before I jump into my fave reads list, I have several things in the works I want to mention. I have officially started my work as a freelance editor. And I am preparing to launch an etsy shop to sell the fluid paintings I’ve been making off-and-on for the last couple months. The first handful were all gifts to various family and friends, but I have a bunch now that are piling up in my office, so I’m hoping to sell them for just a bit – enough to clear out the space in my office and buy supplies so I can make some more. I’ll have the shop linked here probably in the first week of January for the curious.

I am also considering changing the name of the blog… though, I am still on the fence about that. As I mentioned in my About page ages ago, I chose the name “Night Forest Books” as the name of my hypothetical future bookstore. I’ve had the name in mind since AT LEAST 2016. It’s a reference to my favorite book, The Neverending Story, and the location called “Perilin, the Night Forest.” When I first chose the name I did a lot of research to make sure no other bookstore or related business had claimed the name already. I bought the .com domain for future use, and I claimed the IG name (@night.forest.books) and this blog title. However, I was nowhere near ready to actually register a business or LLC name as I knew it would be probably years before I was financially ready to start the bookstore.

Well, apparently in mid-2020 a brand new micro-press started in CANADA, and they named themselves Night Forest Press. Obviously, even if they did research on the name, they did not consider my teeny-tiny blog a problem, whether it had essentially the same name or not, and since I didn’t have an actual business registered under that name it was legally up for grabs. I could probably still get away with naming a bookstore Night Forest Books if I really wanted to (maybe, I’m not certain), but googling “Night Forest Books” right now just brings up the press website. And I had vague ambitions of maybe someday starting a press associated with the hypothetical bookstore, which would no longer be a viable option under the current name. So, I will need to find a new name for the hypothetical bookstore…

Of course, the blog name is still fine right now. However, as I said, googling for “Night Forest Books” right now does not remotely lead to my blog, which is really disheartening. Besides which, my initial thought was that the blog would be a good way to establish some recognition among readership in advance of opening the bookstore, and if the bookstore has an entirely different name from the blog that kind of defeats the purpose…

So… yeah… I’m on the fence about changing the blog name, or just letting it be and worrying about the bookstore name later. Maybe I’ll just go back to using my actual name for the blog for the time being. That might at least make it obvious in search engines again… maybe. *shrug* If anyone has any thoughts, please feel free to share.

OKAY! And now the thing I’m supposed to actually be writing about today. My Favorite Reads of 2022 List!

I had a really difficult time narrowing the list down this year. (Well, ok, every year). What I have ended up with is a list of 10 books. My top 5 favorite new release fiction books, released in the calendar year of 2022, plus my top 5 favorite nonfiction books, none of which were new releases for 2022 but which were all new reads for me.

My Top 5 Fiction New Releases:

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher: This book by the masterful T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) is a beautiful dark fairy tale with prose that makes me weep with awe and jealousy. I wrote a full review for Nettle & Bone way back at the beginning of the year, where I predicted that it might end up being my favorite book of the year when it was all said and done, though I conceded that Nona the Ninth might easily change my mind when it was released. But lo and behold! I stand by my initial statement! I absolutely adored this book and it remains my favorite book of the year.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske: you can find the full review of this one and the first book in the trilogy just a few weeks back. This one is a historical romance fantasy set in Edwardian England, featuring a murder mystery, lots of magic, and some very steamy sex. I loved it (and the first one, A Marvellous Light), and I’ve already re-read it once since finishing it.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: I know I still owe you all an actual review of this one, oops… For those still in the dark (how?) this book (and series) is a mind-bending, genre-busting, space opera mixed with necromantic magic, and one of the most complex examinations of love in all its forms (including toxic and self-destructive) that I have ever read. I’ll admit that I fully expected this one to overtake Nettle & Bone as my favorite, but though I loved it immensely, it ended up slipping down to third place. Nona the Ninth, the third of the Locked Tomb series, was excellent, and mind-boggling, but of the three it is my least favorite. Nona was a delight of a character, but the first book is still by far the most FUN. So far I love them in order, lol (Gideon, then Harrow, then Nona).

Last Call at the Nightingale by Katherine Schellman: here’s another one I read and reviewed pretty early in the year! It’s a historical murder mystery novel set in the 1920s, which is of course a good portion of what I love about it. And it features a disaster bi protagonist that I relate to rather strongly, lol! I read the whole thing in one sitting, just absolutely DEVOURED it. I fervently await the sequel!

The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews: I have not written a full review for this one yet, but I might try to put one together for it and its sequel later. This one is straight romance novel material, historical (Victorian setting), and absolutely lovely! I read it about a month ago and I am currently in a big Victorian-set historical romance brainrot mode. I also read the sequel to this one, The Belle of Belgrave Square. There will be a third one apparently sometime next year, so maybe I’ll do a double review for books 1 and 2 in time for the 3rd release. This book just really made me happy, with a headstrong intelligent female lead and a Indian-immigrant working-class love interest, and lots of witty banter.

My Top 5 Nonfiction Books:

Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh: this is the last book that came out before Thich Nhat Hanh’s death in 2021. If you are unfamiliar with him, he was a very famous well-respected Buddhist monk who wrote many books on Buddhist, meditation, and finding peace in your own life. He gave lectures, met with world leaders, ran retreats, and generally just made the world a better place by his existence. He was/is one of the greatest heroes in my life, and I was absolutely DISTRAUGHT when he died last year. (And, shit, I am genuinely getting choked up just typing this.) This book is kind of exactly what the title suggests: a way of approaching the crises of our planet (ecological, political, systemic, personal) from a Buddhist perspective but also from a largely non-denominational place of deeply human spirituality and compassion. It made me cry at least three or four times, and the minute I finished it I threatened to buy a copy for every person I know to make them read it (if I’d had the funds, I really probably would have).

Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens: I have a soft-spot for self-improvement books, but more specifically I really love self-improvement books about living an authentic and creative life. For instance, I also liked Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (though I do find Gilbert a little too woo-woo and mystical hand-wavy at times). This book by Beth Pickens is about living life as an artist — and she defines “artist” very broadly — and offers real concrete advice on how to live that life to the best of your ability and with the most fulfillment you can manage, whether you are a full-time professional artist or someone trying to eke out a practice around a day job and family and other responsibilities. I found it incredibly insightful, down-to-earth, actionable, and really inspiring.

The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt: I really love nonfiction books about history or science, and this one is kind of both. I picked it up on a whim and found it absolutely fascinating. It’s about the exotic fish trade, of all things! Specifically about a rare exotic fish called an arawona, which is allegedly the most expensive kind of collector/live fish in the world (most expensive fish of any kind in the world are, I think, some of the giant tuna caught/killed in Asia and sold by auction to high-end restaurants for sometimes millions of dollars). This book, and the exotic fish trade, includes: trips into the deepest barely-explored jungles of Asia and South America, run-ins with the black market and the mob, and devolves into fraud, betrayal, and even murder. It’s absolutely shocking and enormously fascinating!

1920: The Year That Made the Decade Roar by Eric Burns: I think I’ve mentioned before I am a bit obsessed with the 1920s Jazz Age era? So I assume no one is surprised that I picked up this book. It is pretty much exactly what it says it is: its a history book that focused on JUST the single year of 1920, and makes an argument that the events of that single year was the catalyst and predictor for everything that came after it. One of the major events the book focuses on is the 1920 Wall Street bombing, which remained the most destructive incident of domestic terrorism until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. (I found that section SO interesting that the Wall Street bombing eventually became the instigating event for the plot in my 1920s historical fiction work-in-progress). The whole book was really enlightening and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in American history.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier: the subtitle for this book is “The triumphant, turbulent stories behind how video games are made.” It’s a really well-researched account written by a games journalist about the game industry, using an enormous amount of first-persons accounts and interviews. Each chapter focuses on the story of a different game, including (but not limited to) Witcher 3, Uncharted 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Stardew Valley. I’m not even a big gamer (just a dabbler), so I’m not 100% sure why I decided to pick this one to begin with, but I’m so glad I did! It was so cool to learn about how these games are developed and the kind of crazy sheningans that happen behind the scenes. (The dude who made Stardew Valley continues to blow my mind.) It’s also really fun now to watch the comedy tv show Mythic Quest on Apple+ and constantly go “that’s not how that works! That’s not how any of that works!” Lol…

So, that’s my list, for whatever it’s worth. I’d love to hear what books you read and loved this year! Please feel free to share in the comments!

Queer Romances Redux: Whyborne & Griffin Series

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Back at the beginning of June, I planned on doing several posts about queer romances I loved in the spirit of Pride Month. I made one post on the topic, and then (in typical Amanda fashion) disappeared again. I won’t spend several posts on the subject now, so far after the fact, but I wanted to at least talk about the one really big romance series that I’ve been obsessing over. I’ve mentioned in a couple previous posts, but wanted to dedicate a full post to it here.

I’m talking about the Whyborne & Griffin series by Jordan L. Hawk.

Jordan L. Hawk is a transmasc author with a long resume of writing queer romances, of which the Whyborne & Griffin series is just one option. While I plan to read his other books eventually, this series will probably remain my favorite. I love these books so much. I picked up the first book on Dec 23rd 2021. I remember the date specifically because I had spent days finishing a huge house-cleaning sweep in preparation for my grandmother coming to visit for the holidays. I finished cleaning on the afternoon of the 23rd, and my grandmother would be arriving in the evening, so I might a cup of hot tea and downloaded the first book, Widdershins.

I finished that first book that night. And downloaded the rest of the ENTIRE ELEVEN BOOK SERIES immediately. And proceeded to read the first five books in five days, while playing host to my grandmother over Christmas. The reading slowed down a bit after that because I had to go back to work, but I had still managed to finish reading the whole series by the end of January. I devoured them.

Then, I decided I wanted print copies, not just ebooks, so I bought a couple at a time and did a re-read as they arrived, finishing the series for a second time at the end of June. And now I’m already thinking about re-reading the first few again. That’s how much I love this series.

So here’s the basic premise: the series is set in late-Victorian New England, in a city called Widdershins. But this is not our New England, because this series is deeply rooted in the Lovecraftian universe. You do not have to be familiar with Lovecraft Lore to understand and enjoy the series (all the creeps and ghouls and eldritch gods are fully explained and fleshed out with the context of the series), but if you are already familiar with Lovecraft it is endlessly amusing to suddenly recognize a name or reference from the Lovecraft mythos. The main setting of the series, Widdershins, is a city of Hawk’s devising, but with references to Lovecraft lore. And in keeping with that mythos, the main character, Dr. Percival Whyborne (who goes only be Whyborne thank you very much), is a linguistics scholar who works at a museum and went to college at Miskatonic University.

Whyborne is a tall, perpetually-awkward, shy and repressed scholarly man who works in the basement of the museum. He comes from a wealthy family but despises his father and has renounced his claim to the family money or power. He is routinely harassed and bullied by other scholars at the museum, and has a single friend: archeologist Dr. Christine Putnam (who, being the only woman in a field of men, is likewise often harassed and bullied, but unlike timid Whyborne, has a mouth that NEVER STOPS SNARKING. And god I love her for it.) Whyborne is also gay, but he has never allowed himself to act on that knowledge.

Enter Mr. Griffin Flaherty: an ex-Pinkerton, turned private detective, and the most attractive man Whyborne has ever seen. Griffin is on a case to solve the mysterious death of a rich man’s son, and needs the assistance of a linguist to decipher a coded journal that belonged to the dead man. He also has several secrets to keep under wraps, not the least of which is that he has recently been released from an asylum.

Whyborne reluctantly agrees to help the enormously charming Griffin, and before long the two are on a fast-track to becoming friends and quite possibly more. Along the way, they discover that magic is real. In fact, it’s not only real, it’s deadly and it’s coming for the city.

I’m trying my best here not to give too much away, which leaves me speaking in vague phrases and doing lots of hand-waving. There is dark magic, eldritch terrors, necromancy, angst, and romantic drama. And that’s just the first book!

Each book ratchets up the drama, the dark magic, the danger, and the deadly horrors, building toward an overarching plot that is intricate and enormously satisfying. There’s also some of the best, steamiest sex scenes ever put to paper. And a few love confessions/speeches to make even the most hard-hearted swoon.

Perhaps what I love most about these books is that they deeply explore what it means to be an outsider, from many different perspectives. As a queer man, as a woman, as a person of color, as well as from the more genre-specific angles of being magical or non-human, perhaps even a “monster.” And that take on the monstrous is another thing I love about these books. Hawk’s takes the horrors of Lovecraft lore and examines them, dissects them, reimagines them until the characters and the readers are forced to reconsider what makes someone or something a “monster,” or whether the word has any real meaning at all.

These are also books about acceptance and love and family. Found family, mostly, which is one of my all-time favorite tropes. The characters throughout the series are often rejected by their actual families, their “people,” and so they come together in beautiful ways to make their own family (a family I would give my right arm to be a part of, lol).

The whole series is, to me, the perfect blend of queer erotic romance and dark paranormal fantasy adventure. I know some readers prefer more of one or the other, but I love the balancing act between the two genres played out here. It’s a style of writing and plot that would probably not have sold well twenty or thirty years ago, but in recent decades this kind of cross-genre/genre-bending work has become more and more popular (thanks at least in part to the post fanfic-internet-world, lol). And I, for one, am very grateful for it.

I guarantee you will love these characters — Whyborne and Griffin and Christine and the whole cast of people that come as the story progresses. You might even see yourself in one or more of them (I am entirely too much like Whyborne, it’s slightly embarrassing actually). If you love romance novels but are squeamish about some pretty gross-out-worthy horror elements; or, if you love dark fantasy/horror novels but are squeamish about some pretty graphic sex scenes, than these are NOT for you. But if you enjoy the mix of both in any capacity, I pretty much guarantee you will love these books!

Here’s a link to the first book on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AHH0YF2?tag=jolha-20

Here’s a link to Jordan L. Hawk’s author page: http://www.jordanlhawk.com

If you’ve read these before and love them, sound off in the comments below! If you pick them up later, I’d love to hear your thoughts as well!

Re-Reading The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce

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I recently re-read the entirety of The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce, one of the parts that makes up her massive Tortall universe. I have been a fan of Tamora Pierce’s work since I first read the Magic Circle series (ironically one of only a small number of books NOT in her Tortall series), when I was in middle school. I can’t quite remember when I first picked these up — I’m guessing probably 7th grade, so around 1997.

Of course, after reading and loving the Magic Circle books I went back to pick up her first quartet: Song of the Lioness, which is the first installment in the Tortall universe. And loved those as well. I have since read every single book Tamora Pierce has released. Most of them multiple times. But my favorites have always been, and remain, The Immortals Quartet, the four books that immediately followed Song of the Lioness and really first opened up the setting from that first series into the far reaching universe it is now.

The four books in this quartet consists of: Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage, and Realm of the Gods. It features the main character Daine Sarrasri, a 13 year old girl (in the first book) who discovers that she has a special kind of magic that allows her to speak with animals and understand their thoughts and behaviors from a uniquely insider perspective. She THINKS like “The People” (what animals collectively call themselves). Daine is an orphan, her mother and grandfather murdered by raiders in her small village, and the book opens with her gaining employment with a pony trader named Onua who taking a herd of ponies from Daine’s home country of Galla, to Tortall (where most of Pierce’s books are set). The first book follows Daine as she befriends Onua, the powerful mage Numair Salmalin who becomes her friend and teacher, and a whole bevy of characters in Tortall. In this first book, we also see the emergence of magical beings called Immortals (beings like centaurs and dragons but also horrifying creatures like human-spider hybrids called spidrens and Daine’s nemesis the carrion-eating Stormwings) who, though not gods themselves, were trapped in the realm of the gods by human mages centuries ago but who have mysteriously escaped their confinement.

I originally had the books with these covers, but they were sadly destroyed during flooding from Hurricane Ike in 2008

Throughout the series, Daine gains control of her magical ability and learns not only to speak with animals but actually shapeshift into them. She and her friends discover how the immortals escaped the realm of the gods, and befriend quite a few of the immortals, including a basilisk, a baby dragon that Daine adopts, and (much to Daine’s surprise and chagrin) even a Stormwing. The third book features Daine “losing her temper” (understatement of the decade) which remains one of my favorite parts of the entire series. In the fourth book they must wage full-out war against their enemies (both human and immortal), and Daine learns that her father was a minor hunt-god (which is how she comes by her magical ability), and she and Numair are temporarily trapped in the realm of the gods and must travel the dangerous terrain to return home.

I re-bought the books with these covers a few years ago. I don’t love these designs… I like the originals much better, but what can ya do…?

I love these books for a lot of reasons. Whereas most of the books in the Tortall series deal with lords and kings and knights, this series brings in much more focus on the commoner. Though Daine ends up befriending the king and queen of Tortall, and several nobles and knights (including the most famous lady-knight, Alanna — main character of the Song of the Lioness), Daine herself is a commoner, as is Numair (despite his fame now as a powerful mage), and Daine brings that much needed perspective to all these “fancy folk.”

I also love getting the fascinating perspective of the animals that Daine is friends with. Pierce showcases quite a lot of research (and obviously plenty of imagination) in giving us the inner voices and lives of horses and ponies, wolves, birds, squirrels, and all sorts of other animals. The addition of all the different immortals is a ton of fun as well — I love a big menagerie of magical creatures. I think it was a really nice development as well for Daine (and most of the characters) to assign moral qualities to each species of immortal as a whole, only to then slowly learn that these immortals are just as nuanced, as much a mix of good and bad, as humans themselves are. It was a powerful lesson to learn for the characters, and a nice way to introduce that kind of nuance to the target middle-grade/YA audience (particularly back in the 90s).

Perhaps most of all though, I am a SUCKER for the romance that is laced through the last two books between Daine and Numair. I will admit that this romance would probably not fly if it was written/published today. Daine is 13 and Numair is something like 26 when they meet. They are 16 and ~29 in the fourth book. Such an age gap, when one party is under 18 years old, would send up all kinds of red flags today. And I’ll admit that even just shifting Daine two years forward, so that she’s 18 by the last book, would probably look better on paper.

That said, I believe there’s room to discuss the age issues within their own context. Pierce is writing within the context of a medieval-ish (albeit a fantasy version) world, and it is discussed within the book series that having a girl married at 14 or 15 is perfectly within the realm of possibility and reasonable expectation. We accept this in other contexts — consider, for instance, that in Pride and Prejudice, Lydia is 15 years old when she marries Wickham, which is not only legal but relatively normal at that point in history. In addition, it is made very clear that Numair himself is painfully aware of the age difference, which is why he doesn’t say anything until Daine herself presses the issue. Also: as a kid reading these books, I was also very in love with Numair Salmalin, so I was hardly going to fault Daine for being too young for him. And the way the relationship develops between them over the course of the books, especially the last two, is just so sweet and cute that you can’t help but be enchanted (well, I can’t help it at any rate).

It had been quite a while since the last time I had re-read these books. But I’m finding myself in a major re-reading mood lately — I think because between work-stress and general-state-of-the-world stress, my anxiety has been at record highs and re-reading comfort books is just safer right now. I read each book in about a day, so the whole quartet in less than a week. And I gotta say, I love them just as much now at the age of 36 (nearly 37 – my birthday is in 2 weeks, fun fact!), as I did when I was 12. Some books never lose their enchantment and joy, no matter how old you get, or how many times you read them. This series is clearly one of them, for me at least.

Double-Review: Lily Adler Mysteries 2-3

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Back in March 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, I read an ARC for Katharine Schellman’s debut novel and the first of the Lily Adler Mysteries: The Body in the Garden. I devoured it in 3 days. And it was a revelation for me for a couple reasons. First, I just love a good historical mystery, and this was a very good historical mystery novel. Second, I’d been dealing with an inability to read for going on 5 or 6 years in 2020 due to extremely severe depression. While the cloud had been starting to lift in mid-2019, and my brain was finally starting to reanimate a bit, reading (except for audiobooks, which had literally saved my life from about 2014-onward) was still proving almost-impossible. And then I read The Body in the Garden, and it was like a strong wind blowing the clouds away to reveal clear skies. It was like the floodgates opening wide.

I don’t know if it was just a matter of good timing, and that my brain was just about ready to open up again anyway. I don’t know that another book might not have had the same effect. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter. Lily Adler is forever cemented in my mind as an integral element of my ongoing recovery. (It’s also just a really really good book).

So, of course, when the second installment, Silence in the Library, released in August 2021, I leapt for it. And I read it in a single night, in a single sitting in fact. And then I got my hands on an ARC of the third book about a month ago (and read that book in one sitting as well).

So, I thought I would do a double-review of books two and three as I continue to try and convince everyone I know to buy and read these books. My review for the first book can be found here: “Book Review: The Body in the Garden.”

Title: Silence in the Library
Author: Katharine Schellman
Release Date: August 2021
How I Got It: bought from indie mystery bookstore, Murder by the Book
Rating: Five Stars

Let’s begin with the basic plot premise. Silence in the Library opens a few months after the events of the first novel, with Lily having to face possibly her most difficult challenge: dealing with a visit from her father. When Lily’s father demands that she pay a visit to one of his oldest friends, who has recently re-married, the visit quickly goes to hell when the husband is murdered, leaving the new bride in hysterics and the dead man’s adult son (from a previous marriage) the most likely suspect. Add in a shifty cousin who may or may not have been in need of more money, a maid who is murdered before she can tell Lily something she knew, and Lily’s father hindering her at every turn, things get wildly out of hand.

What the first book did well, the second book built upon beautifully. The writing is crisp, the research and historical context impeccable, the mystery compelling, and the characters charming. The core mystery of the novel is clever and twisty, though I confess I like to make a game of seeing if I can solve the mystery before the characters (my mother and I also compete like this when watching murder mystery tv shows – of which we watch a lot), and I succeeded this time. Clearly, I can’t spell it out here without giving everything away, but I told my mother my theory well in advance and was right.

The main character, Lily Adler, is a brilliant, stubborn, somewhat reckless woman, and I love her. I want to be her when I grow up (yes, I am grown up, I am almost 37, but shush, let me have this). In the first book, we see her shaking off the paralysis of her widowhood, and in the second book we see her really stepping into this role she has chosen for herself.

But, of course, there is also the complication of her emotionally-cold, judgmental, domineering father, who has arrived to disapprove of everything she does. Her father’s awful treatment and verbal lashings seem to shake Lily on a few occasions, and she has to fight off the knee-jerk reaction to revert to her more timid childhood-self. Watching the ways Lily alternately defies and bends to her father’s moods is highly relatable (at least to those of us who have parents with… shall we say, powerful personalities?) and deeply inspiring.

The characters I adored in the first book: Captain Jack Hartley, Ofelia, and the Bowstreet Runner Simon Page are all in attendance for the second book. The Captain is as witty and charming and protective of Lily as he was in the first book (and may possibly be developing less-than-platonic feelings for his best friend’s widow). Ofelia, now happily married, continues to be a supportive both as a friend and as a cohort in Lily’s mystery-solving pursuits. And Simon Page, who started out by resenting Lily, has developed a begrudging respect and appreciate for Lily and her skills.

In the middle of the plot-madness, Lily is faced with several red herrings, and a very handsome and charming former soldier that she must (clumsily) attempt to flirt with for information. We also get a glimpse into Simon Page’s personal life and a few scenes from his perspective — something I had not even realized I needed until I had it. (I already respected Simon Page, now I really love him).

Throughout the novel are several disabled and neurodivergent characters of different backgrounds and abilities who are all written with complexity and empathy, and not painted with broad strokes and stereotypes. There are, of course, instances of these characters being treated with derision and cruelty in sadly-historically-accurate ways, but at no point does the text (or the main characters) excuse or condone this behavior, and the perpetrators face consequences for their bigotry.

Just as in the first novel, one of the best parts is the dialogue, which is at turns sharp, warm, and downright hilarious at some points. Lily, Captain Jack Hartley, and Ofelia in particular, all play off each other so well with their differing flavors of sarcasm, dry wit, and gentle teasing. (I continue to adore Jack Hartley.)

And the ending is satisfying while also packing a potent emotional punch.

Title: Death at the Manor
Author: Katharine Schellman
Release Date: 9 August 2022
How I Got It: ARC provided by publisher
Rating: 4.5 Stars

In the third book of the Lily Adler Mysteries series, we go farther afield as Lily Adler leaves London for a few months visiting friends and family in the country. The novel deftly shifts tone in an homage to Regency-era Gothic Literature (think Castle of Otranto or The Woman in White), as Lily must confront a supposedly-haunted country estate in the village where her aunt lives, and attempts to solve a murder that everyone else is content to attribute to a ghost.

In this installment, after Captain Jack Hartley leaves to return to his ship (having been stuck on land for so long due to extended repairs), Lily leaves London to visit her aunt in a small village in the country, bringing her Ofelia and Ofelia’s (ridiculously sweet) husband Ned along with her. Her aunt and her aunt’s friend/companion have been living as two “respectable unmarried women” in a small cottage for decades, and are the only family Lily actually likes. But once there, Lily and her friends accidentally find themselves entangled in yet another murder. While touring a nearby manor to hear about the rumors of a ghost haunting the estate, the Lady of the manor is discovered dead in her locked bedroom, with only her two adult children and four servants (the others having left because of the ghost) as the possible suspects.

At first determined to leave the matter to the authorities, Lily quickly changes her mind when the local authorities admit defeat in the face of the locked door, and accept that the purported ghost must be the cause of death. So Lily and Ofelia, with the grudging assistance of Ned and Lily’s aunt, decide to the solve the murder themselves. An added complication comes from the fact that the charming widowed soldier from the previous book, the ever-attractive Matthew Spencer, happens to live in the same village, and offers his assistance as well, much to Ofelia’s consternation.

The mystery of this installment was especially fun for me because I love a good locked-room mystery, and this one is very well done. The characters run through every possible suspect with increasing confusion and uncertain, and it is a ton of fun to watch the whole thing unfold and try to play along. (I guessed right, again, by the way, but it took me longer than usual and I wasn’t too far ahead of Lily figuring it out lol).

The nods to the gothic genre were also a ton of fun (particularly because as an English Lit grad school I read and studied Regency and Victorian era gothic novels and love them anyway!) I mean, who doesn’t love ghost stories, and creepy dark hallways and billowy white curtains and ominous men standing in shadows and secret passages?

Like Silence in the Library, Death at the Manor gives us an opportunity to see and learn more about different characters. This time we get some concentrated attention paid to Ofelia and her husband Ned, both of whom I adore. We also see a lot more of the charming widower Matthew Spencer. And Lily’s aunt and her aunt’s friend were both delightful as well. (There’s some queer rep in there as well, but spoilers!)

I did, however, feel that the story misses Jack (just as the characters do). When I was starting to read the book, I announced on twitter that if Jack did not make some dramatic mid-book return I was going to be distraught. And reader: I was distraught. For one thing, I simply love that character. For another, he adds so much humor and snark to the dialogue, and does such a good job of keeping Lily on her toes (while Ofelia keeps him on his, lol). That said, I still read the entire book in one setting and loved it and have no real complaints. (The 4.5 stars rating is an only semi-serious, kinda-joking protest on Jack’s behalf.) I also missed Simon Page, who likewise does not make an appearance in this installment.

When I was lamenting the loss of Jack on Twitter, the author, Katharine Schellman, kindly assured me he would return in the next one. Thank goodness. (By the way, Katharine Schellman is an absolute delight on social media as well. She is so kind and generous and friendly with her fans/followers, which is by no means required.) We also know that she has been contracted for a 4th and 5th book (at minimum, I hope), but that they won’t be out for some time.

The worst part about reading arcs far ahead of release date, especially for books in a series, is that you have ALL THAT MUCH LONGER to wait for the next one. Le Sigh. I suppose I’ll probably just re-read all three books at some point this summer…

Book Review: Nettle & Bone

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Title: Nettle & Bone
Author: T. Kingfisher
Release Date: 26 April 2022
How I Got It: received an ARC from publisher
Stars: 5 out of 5 (maybe 6 out of 5, I can do that, right? I mean, it’s my blog)

Today’s book review is for a book that is a currently the top contender for my favorite new release book of the year (obviously, its plenty early still, but…). Ursula Vernon, publishing under the pen name T. Kingfisher, has written quite a few very popular, well-received, and award-winning novels (her recent middle-grade novel A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking won several awards including the Locus, the Nebula, and the Mythopoeic Awards), so I knew she would be good. But I hadn’t yet read any of her works before I received the ARC for this one, Nettle & Bone.

Nettle & Bone is a dark fairy tale for adults, that borrows heavily from a myriad of fairy tale traditions and features many of the elements we would expect such as: princesses, damsels-in-distress, princes, knights, witches, fairy godmothers, curses, impossible tasks, and plenty of magic. Yet Kingfisher takes these familiar well-worn tropes, and twists them into new shapes and puts them to new purposes. The result is a story that feels both familiar and brand new, both magical and horrific.

The main character is Marra, a princess and third daughter of the royal family. When Marra is a child, her eldest sister is married off to a prince in a political marriage meant to protect their tiny harbor kingdom from the two much larger, more powerful kingdoms on either border. Then, when that eldest sister dies during an accident only a year later, Marra’s second sister is married to the same prince, for the same goals. At that point, Marra is shipped off to a convent — ostensibly for her protection, but really because the prince fears she may marry and have an heir before HE does. There, Marra is raised as an “almost-not-quite” nun for the next fifteen years, learning embroidery, gardening, and midwifery and living a peaceful if isolated life.

Everything Marra thinks she knows about life comes crashing down around her ears when, at the age of thirty, she finally comes to understand the truth about her sisters: the prince is evil and abusive and brutal,Marra’s eldest sister was beaten to death in a rage, and the middle sister, Kania, is in danger of the same fate. The only thing that has saved Kania’s life so far is her constant pregnancies, which keep ending in miscarriage, but during which the prince controls his more violent tendencies in hopes of producing an heir. When Marra finally understands the full extent of her sister’s predicament, she comes to a decision: the prince must die.

Thus begins an epic quest, during which Marra finds a wise and powerful grave-witch called the dust-wife (who’s familiar is a chicken possessed by a demon) who gives her three impossible tasks. In her quest, she also collects the loyalest and bestest of dogs, a disgraced knight, and her mediocre fairy godmother. Together, they set out to defy the roles prescribed to them, face a powerful magic that protects the prince, and endeavor to do the truly impossible: kill an evil prince and come out the other side alive.

Lyrical, dream-like, and sharp as a razor, this novel will cut through you with its heartbreak, beauty, wisdom, and hope. It asks the reader to consider how far one is willing to go for family and duty, what the difference is between justice and revenge, and what to do when the thing you hate most about yourself is precisely the thing that is needed. 

Marra is one of those characters that will stick with you long after you finish reading. She considers herself simple and not particularly intelligent or useful, and yet she is resourceful and brave and stubborn. Her determination and her rage are palpable. I simply adored her. I also really loved the other members of her ragtag team of ersatz assassins, particularly the dust-wife and her demon chicken.

The novel also features some of the best sentences I’ve read in quite a long time, including an opening-line that shot through me like an arrow. When I started reading this ARC, I opened the ebook, read the first line and STOPPED. And just sat there for a minute. And then I texted the first line to my best friend in a frenzy. Here, let me show you:

“The trees were full of crows and the woods were full of madmen. The pit was full of bones and her hands were full of wires.”

If that doesn’t stop you in your tracks like a lightning bolt, I just don’t know what to say to you.

Here are a couple of other lines that struck me like lightning as well:

“He isn’t my prince,” Marra said acidly.
“If you plan to kill him, he is. Your victim. Your prince. All the same. You sink a knife in someone’s guts, you’re bound to them in that moment. Watch a murderer go through the world and you’ll see all his victims trailing behind him on black cords, shades of ghosts waiting for their chance.”

And:

“Lots of people deserve to die,” said the dust-wife finally, “not everybody deserves to be a killer.”

I mean, OOF! Here’s another:

“She had the ruined fragment of the godmother’s tapestry, but unless it started glowing or talking, it didn’t seem like it was going to do any good. Another of life’s little intelligence tests, and as usual, Marra had failed to even learn the question.”

And just one more (sorry, these just PIERCE ME):

“Agnes wiped her eyes. “Dammit,” she whispered. “I have to go be impressive. I have to go be the wicked godmother. I can’t cry.”
“She’s at peace now,” said Fenris.
Agnes gave him an ironic glance. “She’s been at peace for centuries, I think. I still get to cry about it.”

WORDS OF WISDOM MY FRIENDS.

Ok, I won’t bombard you with anymore quotes, I think you all get the point. This book is filled with such amazing lines at turn poetic, pithy, and fucking brilliant. I absolutely devoured this book. It is very likely going to stay at the top of my fave reads of the year list for quite awhile at least. Everyone needs to buy and read it and be likewise amazed and flummoxed.

[CW: domestic/spousal abuse, violence, a semi-graphic description of magical teeth-pulling, and vague mentions of cannibalism; also, for those who need to know about the pets: the dog survives]

Book Review: The Councillor

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Title: The Councillor
Author: E.J. Beaton
Release Date: 2 March 2021
Source: ARC provided by publisher
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I had meant to get this review written and posted nearly a week ago, but alas, life… But anyway, here we go, and OH BOY, folks! I am so excited about this new release novel! It is already a strong contender for my favorite book of the year! (Yes, I know, it’s only January and I have a lot of books to read this year, but it’ll definitely be making the shortlist at least!) The Councillor is from debut author E.J. Beaton. It’s being marketed by the publisher as “machiavellian fantasy” which is a very good description actually. It is political intrigue fantasy at its best; it gives Game of Thrones a run for its money. This debut author is arriving on the science fiction/fantasy with a bang, and we love to see it! They pack more world-building and suspense into this book than you could possibly hope for, and it’s fantastic!

So here’s the basic premise: the story takes place in a country that seems somewhat vaguely inspired by medieval Italy called Elira, where Queen Sarelin Bray rules over a country that is separated into five city-states (Axium, Rhime, Valderos, Pyrrha, and Lyria), each with its own city-ruler. The country is in a state of uneasy peace, some twenty years after an enormous war against the White Queen, leader of a group of people with magical abilities called Elementals. Having defeated the White Queen, Sarelin made Elementals illegal and routinely executes them; people are not even allowed to speak of them. Our main character is Lysande, an orphan, a scholar, and the handpicked protege of the warrior-queen Sarelin. When Sarelin is assassinated leaving no heirs, an ancient tradition dictates that the queen’s appointed Councillor choose a new king or queen from among the city-rulers.  When Lysande, a commoner rather than nobility, is shockingly assigned the role of Councillor, and given the task of choosing a new ruler from among the nobility of the surrounding city-states, she is thrust into a world of political machinations, alliances, betrayals, and death she feels woefully unprepared for. Add in the fact that the White Queen, long-thought dead, may be returning to conquer the realm, and Lysande’s secret drug addiction, and it seems things could not get more complicated. Until they do. 

This novel delights in thwarting reader expectations, seeming to be one kind of story before transforming into another about a third of the way through. You go in thinking the whole plot will be about Lysande trying to decide who is the best ruler from among the city-rulers, but then it flips on its head and becomes another thing entirely. There is a large cast of characters, each with distinct developed and fascinating personalities and motives. The various city-rulers are all amazing in different ways, and the various people who support Lysande throughout the story are complex and fantastic! 

Lysander herself is wonderfully complex and flawed. She worships the memory of Sarelin and must struggle with the fact that her glorious queen’s treatment of Elementals was oppressive, cruel, and unjust. She has developed a growing addiction to an illegal drug made from chimera scales, a drug that keeps her calm and numb and helps her deal with the stress (and downright terror) of being the Councillor, but is having increasingly painful side-effects. She, like the readers, cannot determine who is to be trusted in the labyrinthine machinations of court politics and continuously trips up as she tries to navigate the diplomacy necessary. She also begins to grow a taste for the power that comes with her new position. At the same time, however, she is brilliant and studious and brave, and desperately wants to do the right thing both for herself and for the entire population of the country she loves. In addition to all of this, Lysande is like the DEFINITION of “disaster bi,” and she harbors long suppressed BDSM leanings that slowly emerge in various relationships throughout the novel. She has several different possible love-interests over the course of the novel, and there are a handful of sex scenes, though they are not explicit (in case you’re the kind of person who is concerned about that kind of thing).

 It is so full of well-plotted, but shocking plot twists that you will not be able to catch your breath from beginning to end. I was routinely completely shocked by various developments and revelations, in the best way possible. I am trying to talk around several absolutely STUNNING revelations because I really don’t want to ruin them for potential readers. The whole last third of the novel, in particular, had me breathlessly sitting on the edge of my seat, trying to figure out who was betraying who and how the hell it was going to end! While the ending was satisfying, it absolutely left plenty of room for a sequel, and I really need everyone to go buy this book (pre-order it even!) so that the author and publishers feel compelled to give me a sequel as quickly as humanly possible, please and thanks!

So, get thee hence! Go order a copy! You can find it at all the usual places: indiebound.org, bookshop.org, barnesandnoble.com, and your local indie bookstore!

Favorite Reads of 2020

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Well, it’s that time of year again! Everyone is sharing their “Best Of” lists for all sorts of things: movies, albums, books, etc. I barely saw any movies this year (gee, who’s surprised?) and I didn’t listen to a bunch of NEW music this year (I seemed to mostly stick to the same five or six playlists and dozen or so artists I know I love this year — comfort listening is a thing!). BUT I did read a decent number of books, both new releases for 2020 and older releases. And so I figured I could share my favorite reads for the year. I have two “top 3” lists: one for 2020 new releases, and one for books that were released in previous years but I read for the first time this year.

So, without further ado, here are my FAVORITE READS OF 2020!

New Releases:

House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune: If you read my full book review (found here) for this book, then this will come as no surprise to you. If you know me on Twitter, it won’t be a surprise to you either. I love this book so much I cannot express it with words! I have now read it three times in a span of two months! It’s slightly embarrassing, but that’s ok! I love what I love, and I love this book with all my heart and soul and sinew and bone and atom of my being.

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott: Again, if you read my full book review of this one (found here), you aren’t remotely surprised by this. I was pretty sure that this was going to be TOP favorite of the year before I ended up reading House in the Cerulean Sea, and being forced to revise that assumption. But it is definitely a very close second. I like a good space opera, but it had been quite awhile since I’d read one, and after reading THIS one, it kicked off a renewed need to read ALL THE SPACE OPERAS. I cannot wait for the sequel to this book!

The Body in the Garden by Katherine Schellman: This was such a great historical mystery book from a debut author who is also a delight on social media. I loved the main character, I loved the side characters, I was kept guessing through the whole book, and it was just so much FUN. (You can find the review for this one here.) I love mystery novels so much, and this one is pretty high up the list of my overall favorites now. I am so excited for the sequel coming out in July!

Previously-Released Books:

Artemis Fowl: Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer: Oh man, what can I say about this book?! I love the Artemis Fowl books, but I hadn’t ever finished the series the first time around, so one of my goals for this year was to finish reading all the Artemis Fowl books. And this one, book seven of eight, is DEFINITELY my favorite. I could not stop laughing through the whole thing! It was just too hilarious for words! I loved it so much, and Nathaniel Parker’s narration in the audiobook is just too perfect! For my full rant about the Artemis Fowl series, check out this post: “Fowl By Name, Foul By Nature.”

Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson: I didn’t read as many nonfiction books I had initially planned on this year, but I read a decent handful that I absolutely LOVED. (Including Disney’s Land by Richard Snow and Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt), but this one was definitely my favorite nonfiction book of the year. I love a really in-depth history book, and I am endlessly fascinated by the story of T.E. Lawrence and the movie Lawrence of Arabia. This book was SHOCKINGLY good, and filled with so much fascinating history that I would never have learned otherwise.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire: This book came out in 2019 and I had started last year but ended up putting it aside because I was so busy with other things. It took me quite awhile to get back to it but I’m so glad I did! I already knew I loved Seanan McGuire because of her Wayward Children novella series, but this book is just NEXT LEVEL. (I wrote a review here!) I am still enormously upset that it didn’t win the Hugo Award this year. It was so phenomenal and heart-wrenching and intense and beautiful! Just UGH! GO READ IT NOW! (She is reportedly working on a sequel but there are no details yet, and just… *flails*)

When I See Myself in a Book; or: Book Review of The House in the Cerulean Sea

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I wanted to write a book review for The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. But I find that as I think and talk and write about this book, I am also thinking and talking and writing about a handful of other books, so you’ll have to forgive me for being more scattered than usual. Because, you see, I loved this book. I loved this book madly. And I loved this book for some of the same reasons I have for some other books I also love madly. And so they have all become a bit tangled in my brain now.

The House in the Cerulean Sea came out in March, and my friend and employer, Mary, read it and recommended it to me. I put a hold on an audiobook copy at the library, but the waitlist was ENORMOUS and I waited over three months before I finally received it this past Thursday. The audiobook is approx 12.5 hours long. I listened to 3.5 hrs on Thursday evening. I finished the last 9 hours in one go on Friday. I DEVOURED this book, my friends. I adored it.

Having said that, let me backtrack a tad, and talk about myself a tiny bit. I do not feel like a main character. Not in my own story. Not in anyone else’s. For the most part, people like me do not tend to make it as main characters in stories, but every once in awhile I read a book or a see a movie (but it’s usually a book), and I see myself. At least a bit. There are some characters that I feel so much kinship with that it is mildly embarrassing, and that usually means I will end up loving that book like a piece of my own soul, because in these books this person who looks and feels like me somehow actually gets their happy ending.

Characters like Anne Eliot, from Persuasion by Jane Austen. Like Bastian from Neverending Story. Lirael from Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series. Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle. And now, Linus Baker from The House in the Cerulean Sea.

These characters are intelligent, and honorable, but they are quiet, and painfully shy; they are awkward, or bullied, or ignored, or invisible; they are sad and gray and desperately lonely, and resigned to their fates.

And perhaps it is melodramatic to say that that is also me. But something can be a tad melodramatic and also be true.

I see these characters like me, who live quietly desperate routine lonely lives with no hope of being or doing anything special, and then I see these characters GET TO LIVE and to LOVE. The adventure finally comes. The world finally sees them. Love finally finds them. And it gives me hope. (Though I’ll admit that often, once I finish a book with this character, I also find myself weirdly depressed, as I reflect on the fact that I am not likely to ever get a similar happy ending. I am more like these characters at the beginning of their stories, when they are sad and lonely and resigned, than I will ever be like them at the end of their stories.)

So, to return to The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune.

Book: The House in the Cerulean Sea
Author: T.J. Klune
Release Date: March 2020
Source: borrowed from the library
Rating: 6 out of 5 stars (can I do that? Guess, don’t care! Just did!)

The House in the Cerulean Sea follows main character Linus Baker: Linus is overweight and out of shape, he’s forty, he’s desperately lonely, and resigned to his fate. He is a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, because in this version of Earth (it IS Earth, they have computers, and record players, and Linus’s favorite music is oldies like The Big Bopper and Sinatra), magical beings exist. But these magical creatures are heavily monitored; they have to be registered and they are not allowed to hold positions of power or authority (in other words, they are a hugely oppressed minority). Linus inspects orphanages for magical youth (not all magical children are orphans but many of them are), but unlike most case workers, Linus really cares about the welfare of the children, and looks for problems like Masters who abuse or take advantage of the children under their care.

With a reputation for being objective, keeping distance from the children, and very thorough, Linus is brought before Very Upper Management, and given a top secret case: to go visit and live at a top secret orphanage on an island, run by a man named Arthur Parnassus, who has six children under his care. Linus is supposed to look for any issues, because Very Upper Management has “reasons for concern.” It seems pretty clear from the get-go, however, that they are just looking for an excuse to shut it down.

Linus arrives at the orphanage to discover that the children there are unlike any other magical children he has ever seen or heard of. These children are: a female garden gnome with the beard and everything!, a Forest sprite more powerful than any other he’s met, a wyvern (whom people used to think of as animals, but do in fact have intelligent and complex emotions and language, just not human language), a tall shy black kid who is a were-POMERANIAN!, a green blob named Chauncey whose greatest ambition in life is to be a BELLHOP, and a six year old boy who is the literal Anti-Christ.

And then there is the Master of the orphanage, Arthur Parnassus, who is very charming and cares deeply for the children under his care. Linus, unsurprisingly, immediately develops a crush on him.

And folks, it just gets more adorable from there! 

This book is funny, and charming, and quirky, and delightful in ways I cannot begin to express! It deals with deeply emotional issues like child abuse, and racial (or in this case, SPECIES) prejudice and oppression, and despite this it manages to be one of the happiest, most hopeful books I’ve read in YEARS. I smiled like a madwoman through the whole thing. And when I finished the audiobook from the library and returned it (and saw that there was now a six month wait on the book!), I immediately bought the ebook AND audiobook so I can read it again.

I identified so strongly with poor, put-upon, lonely dumpy Linus — who is finally given the opportunity to show how honorable and good and kind he is while staying at the orphanage — that it is mildly embarrassing. And I fell in love with Arthur and the children right along with Linus, the whole way through. I am a sucker for quirky odd funny characters, and found family tropes, and this book gave it to me in SPADES. I think this might end up being my favorite book of the year. (Unconquerable Sun held that honor a few months ago, and that is still definitely near the top as well!)

I have a handful of books that I love dearly, and will go around used bookstores buying up paperback copies just so that I can hand them off to people I love, whom I want to share my favorite books with. I don’t do this with some books I love that are so well known, I have no doubt most people have at least heard of them, if not read them (so for instance, I don’t generally do this with Dune or Watership Down, even though they are my favorite books of all time, because most people are already familiar with them). Instead, I do this with books I adore that have not gotten quite the same circulation. Books like Sunshine by Robin McKinley, and Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn, and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and Neverending Story by Michael Ende (though the movie is so well known, not nearly as many people have read the book!). I can guarantee that as soon as the paperback version of House in the Cerulean Sea is released next year, this book will definitely be added to that prestigious list. In the meantime, since I cannot buy every single one of you a copy to read (I’m poor, people! Or I totally would!), please please please go do yourselves a favor and GO BUY IT NOW! Or borrow it from the library! Either way, just READ IT!

Edit at 4:20pm: I bought the ebook and audiobook for House in the Cerulean Sea, but I SWORE to myself that I wouldn’t read them until after I finish the other three books I’m SUPPOSED to be reading right now (those being: Name of the Wind, The Arrest, and Hall of Smoke)… but… that resolve may end by tonight… I just LOVED IT SO MUCH FOLKS!

Top 20 (+1) Favorite Books Of All Time

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Top 10 (or 20 or 5) lists…. Some people are really obsessed with and good at them. My brother is constantly asking me “list your top 5 favorite” this or that. Sometimes he wants me to make a distinction between the things I love most, versus the things I think are objectively the “best” which he posits are not always the same. I see his point here, but at some level or another, doesn’t labeling something your “favorite” mean that you think it IS objectively the “best” – even if no one else agrees with you?

I am a “lists” person. I LOVE making lists. Lists of my favorite things. Things that are the most important to me. But I am NOT AT ALL GOOD at putting those lists in any kind of ranking order. Deciding that this thing definitely outranks that one, etc. And, when someone asks me to name one single favorite thing I can NEVER pick just one. I love too many things too wholly and completely to pick just one. It would be like choosing a favorite limb and cutting off all the others. Just NOT possible!

I recently saw on Twitter a few people asking such questions just for the fun of it. Pick just one favorite book, or favorite movie, or favorite fight scene, etc. And multiple answers were considering “cheating, or too easy, or boring.” I sat for awhile and tried to narrow it down, but I just couldn’t. And then last night, when I couldn’t sleep, my best friend and I brainstormed our favorite books. We both agreed we could not narrow it down to just one, but we both managed to narrow it down to our top three. And then went on to do a full top 20 list.

It was not easy. And I kept overthinking it. The first three titles that came to mind, are the same three titles that ALWAYS come to mind first. But I thought, “surely it’s not that simple?” So I kept thinking and listing and eliminating. Until I told myself: “be honest. What books do you always think of first? When you consider the idea of getting a book quote tattoo, what comes to mind first? It really probably is THAT simple.”

And so, when I was honest with myself, it was.

So my TOP THREE FAVORITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME ARE:

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Dune by Frank Herbert

Friends who have known me a long time would not be surprised. In fact, my best friend guessed two out of the three with little effort. I think I may, sometime in the near future, write a book review (or maybe more of a tribute – they’re all such CLASSICS they hardly need “reviews”) for each.

And for the curious, and just because I put an embarrassing amount of thought into this, here is my full Top 20 list. A few notes on this list: The top three are clearly THE TOP THREE, but after that they are not in any particular order. There is no hierarchy here. Also, I fully admit I cheated a little because I put all of The Lord of the Rings as a single book, AND I put “Pride and Prejudice (or Persuasion?)” because I have been waffling between those two as my favorite Jane Austen book for YEARS now. And when I say Dragonbone Chair, let’s be real, I really just mean the ENTIRE Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. Just as when I say Lord Foul’s Bane I really just mean the ENTIRE Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series. And yes, I actually ended up with 21, because I simply could not eliminate one more. And my best friend very magnanimously said “I’ll allow it…”

So, without further ado, my Top 20 (+1) Favorite Books List:

  1. Neverending Story – Michael Ende
  2. Watership Down – Richard Adams
  3. Dune – Frank Herbert
  4. Dragon Prince – Melanie Rawn
  5. Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
  6. Pride and Prejudice (or Persuasion?) – Jane Austen
  7. Sunshine – Robin McKinley
  8. Mairelon the Magician – Patricia C. Wrede
  9. Neuromancer – William Gibson
  10. We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
  11. Journal of Albion Moonlight – Kenneth Patchen
  12. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
  13. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
  14. Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. LeGuin
  15. Redwall – Brian Jacques
  16. The Dragonbone Chair – Tad Williams
  17. Taran Wanderer – Lloyd Alexander
  18. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
  19. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
  20. Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
  21. Lord Foul’s Bane – Stephen R. Donaldson

I did notice that MOST of the books on this list are books I read before the age of like… fifteen, I think. It’s amazing how much those early books really stick with you and form who you are a person. There are a few exceptions: I read We in my senior of high school, and both Neuromancer and Journal of Albion Moonlight during my second year of college, and I can’t actually remember when I first read The Things They Carried… but other than that, yeah. All before the age of fifteen.

Another side note: none of the books I have read VERY recently are on this list (pretty much for the reasons mentioned above) BUT I suspect Paul Krueger’s Steel Crow Saga could very easily slide into that list over time, because holy shit I loved that book a LOT.

I had so much fun doing the list – it was like torture but FUN torture – that I have decided I want to do more of these lists. I’m already working on a favorite movies list, which has actually turned out to be even more difficult than the books so far. I have had to split live action movies and animated movies into two separate lists or I was going to end up with like…. a top 50 and no way to narrow it down more. I also think I want to do a favorite nonfiction books list (since the above list is fiction). After that we’ll see what else I can come up with.

If anyone has any recommendations (or requests) for other top 20 lists, hit me up! Also, please share some of your favorites in the comments! Can you name a single favorite book (can anyone actually DO THAT?), or maybe a top 3 or top 5? I’d love to hear from you!

My Favorite Books of 2019

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For a long time now – three or four or five years – I’ve been mostly unable to read due to a combination of severe depression, time constraints, and a touch of internet addiction. This has been excessively painful to me because books and reading is a very huge part of my identity. I have been a reader my whole life. In high school and through most of my undergrad, I could read somewhere around 4-6 books a month. That number grew smaller and smaller as I got further into grad school, and by 2015 I was reading practically zero.

I simply could not physically READ. Could not focus on the page, could not absorb the words, could not digest what I was seeing.

The thing that finally broke books back into my life, and frankly, SAVED my life, was audiobooks. I started “reading audiobooks off and on back in 2013 or 2014, but in 2019 they became my lifeline. After a years-long reading drought, I “read” 29 books in 2019 – mostly audiobooks, with a handful of ebooks and just a couple print books.

A lot of the books I read in 2019 were not new releases. They were older books I’d been planning to get to for years, but there were a few new releases in the mix. Out of all the books I read in 2019, here are my favorites in no particular order (some new, some not):

Failure Is Not An Option by Gene Kranz (published 2000) – this book is the memoir/autobiography by Gene Kranz, the head flight director of NASA during the Apollo era flights who was immortalized in the movie Apollo 13 (as portrayed by Ed Harris). This book covers Gene Kranz’s experiences from his entrance into the space program in its earliest days during the Mercury era flights, all the way through his rise to becoming one of the head flight controllers, and his eventual retirement. It is an absolutely fascinating look into one of the greatest times in human history, which is both astounding and inspiring. Of course, I’m a huge space/NASA nerd, so I might be biased.

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan (published 2018) – I am a huge fan of nonfiction books in general, and especially both biographies and books about science. This book is both – as Michael Pollan set out to write a well-researched book about the science of psychedelics and ended up writing about how personal life and experiences as well. Plus, as a person who has suffered from depression my entire life, I was especially fascinated by and invested in the topic of this book. To put it succinctly, this book blew my mind, and I have been recommending it to every person I know since I finished it.

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan Mcguire (published 2018) – this book is the third installment in Seanan McGuire’s series of novellas called The Wayward Children series. The first book, Every Heart a Doorway, remains one of my favorite books ever. And this, the third installment, is also absolutely fantastic. Seanan McGuire captures the breathless excitement, but also the pain, inherent in portal fantasies in ways that break my heart every time. She also always portrays diverse characters such as those who are LGBTQIA, PoC, and fat (*gasp*), with enormous sensitivity, humanity, compassion, and JOY. She has two more installments (so far) that I have not gotten to yet, but they are on the TBR list for this year.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (published 2019) – I love science fiction/fantasy novellas (like the aforementioned Wayward Children series, as well as such brilliant books as Binti and The Dream-Quest of Vellit Boe) so I knew had to read this novella, especially after seeing such glowing reviews. I mean! An epistolary novel about two kickass women spies on opposite sides of a time war who accidentally fall in love? How could anyone in the world resist such a story?! This book is written with the kind of lush poetic language that cracks your ribs open and tears your heart out with so much tenderness and beauty you don’t even mind. I can only dream of writing like this. Everyone should read it. Period.

Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger (published 2019) – my favorite novel of the year, by far, was Steel Crow Saga – only Paul Krueger’s second novel in what is definitely going to be a long and glorious career. The tagline for this book was “Pokemon meets Avatar: the Last Airbender,” which was definitely the thing that first sold ME. And I can say that while the book definitely fits and lives up to this comparison, it is far more than just a mere mashup. Come for the cool pokemon-like animal-spirit partners, kickass fight scenes, and enormously hilarious snarky characters… stay for the deep, incisive, and insightful critiques of colonialism and imperialism, power and responsibility, family loyalty, guilt, and genuine atonement. Plus you get amazing LGBT characters, hilarious one-liners, a bunch of excessively nerdy anime/pop culture references, and gratuitous descriptions of adobo.

So that’s my top five favorite books I read in 2019. Not all newly published in 2019, but whatever…. *shrug*

If you’ve read any of these books, please tell me what you thought! And please feel free to share your personal favorites of 2019 in the comments! I’d love to hear what everyone else was reading last year, what touched your heart (or kicked in the face – in a good way!), what books I should have read and didn’t (I’m always looking for more books to add to the insanely-long TBR list!)