2019: My Favourite Books

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m doing my now-traditional yearend reading wrap-up, and either I’m getting pickier with age or I’ve really had a so-so reading year (very likely).  Excluding re-reads, I’ve only had two 5* reads in 2019.  And I thought having only four 5* reads in 2017 was bad…

So my two very favourite books of 2019:

KJ Charles’ ANY OLD DIAMONDS (romance): KJ Charles continues to be an autobuy author for me this year, and ANY OLD DIAMONDS lived up to my expectations.  I went in thinking the pretext was slightly flimsy, and uh… I was wrong, to say the least.  An utterly delicious and satisfying romance.

Rachel Neumeier’s BLACK DOG (fantasy): I finished making my way through Neumeier’s entire backlist this year and have no regrets.  BLACK DOG (and its sequels) is a bit different to the rest of her novels in the sense it’s urban fantasy, but not your everyday urban fantasy.  As I said earlier in the year, “Yes, there are werewolves and action, but it’s full of feels and relationships, and of course, great worldbuilding”.

And because that feels a bit light, here are some of my other favourite reads of 2019 – not quite 5* reads, but not far off either.

• Obviously, the rest of Rachel Neumeier’s Black Dog series, including all the short stories
• T Kingfisher’s CLOCKWORK BOYS was such a fun hilarious romp – I’ve bounced off her fantasy books before, but this one really worked for me
• Mary Burchell’s Warrender series – as I said here, the combination of period-contemporary London and Burchell’s evident love of music was catnip to me, and I pretty much inhaled these books
• Alex Acks’ WIRELESS AND MORE STEAM-POWERED ADVENTURES was the perfect follow-up to last year’s MURDER ON THE TITANIA – they’re madcap steampunk heist stories with heart, and more people need to read them
• And last but not least, I feel Kate Stradling’s writing gets more and more confident – her Cinderella retelling SOOT AND SLIPPER was beautifully-written, and her surprise release OLIVER INVICTUS ended Oliver’s story on the most perfect note