(Sounds like a school book report assigned for the first day back from vacation, doesn't it?)
It’s always hard to pick books for end of the year lists
because I read so many and I don’t keep a spreadsheet (sorry, Jeffe!) nor
record them in Goodreads or anywhere else. I also reread my favorites a LOT. Shield of Winter by Nalini Singh would
be a perpetual entry on any yearly list of mine!
I have to go by which books come to mind when I start
thinking about the subject of a listing (and then just check to see that I read
them for the first time this year!).
So my list is ‘memorable’, in no special order.
The Shift of the Tide
by Jeffe Kennedy. I love her Twelve kingdoms fantasy world, I was blown away by
the details of the shifter heroine’s experiences as various types of creatures,
I LOVED how the hero became more and more and MORE wonderful as the book
progressed and the ending was FABULOUS. (I love her covers too...)
Quakeland by
Katherine Miles. I’m quite an earthquake buff, having been a Caltech employee
(on the business side of the house at JPL), living in Southern California and
having had a very famous seismologist you see all the time on TV tell me at
daycare one day as we were collecting our toddlers that my house sat directly ON
a fault and would go up or down by at least 18’ if that fault ‘broke’. ULP! (I don’t
live in that house any more, but not because of the fault LOL.) At any rate,
author Miles had new information and some of her experiences in pursuit of her
story were AMAZING.
Night’s Templar: A
Vampire Queen Novel by Joey W. Hill. I’ve been enjoying her books for years
and this one really grabbed me. I loved the relationship between the ancient
Knight Templar vampire and the Fae Lord. Just all around cool and spicy hot as
always with Ms. Hill’s books. And good glimpses of other favorite characters from earlier in the series.
I just discovered Tracey Cooper-Posey’s Endurance Series, about a generation ship on its way from Earth to
a new colony and was fascinated by all the world building and the twists and
turns of the plot. I loved jumping a few hundred years for each book and seeing
what happened next to the ship and the people (and how I knew things they didn’t).
Sadly she’s suspended writing these for the moment, to focus on other genres,
but if she does return to the series I’ll be right there!
Found Girl by Pauline
Baird Jones has a nice military flavor, with the USAFG ‘flying’ a captured
alien ship as if it was an aircraft carrie, and a fascinatingly mysterious
alien heroine who learned more about herself and what she could do on practically every
page. Usually any hint of an amnesia plot sends me fleeing for the exits, but
this was so well done that I was utterly hooked and can’t wait for a sequel
(although rest assured there was a HFN ending.)
I enjoyed the new offerings throughout the year from Anna
Hackett (Galactic Gladiators and also her Hell Squad series), Cynthia Sax
(Sizzling Cyborgs) and Michelle Diener (Calling the Change). I had fun with Mars Ho by Jennifer Willis, which
combined reality shows with colonizing Mars in a very effective fashion…
And I’d better stop now that the memory floodgates are
opening wider and wider (aided by a look at my kindle…)
I did also love my fellow authors' stories in our USA Today Best Selling Embrace the Romance: Pets In Space 2 scifi romance anthology. It's only going to be available through January and Amazon has it on sale for $.99 right now! Here's the LINK. The book is on all major ebook retailer platforms but the sale is only on the Zon, as far as I know...
Best wishes for a Happy Merry Jolly Holiday Season and lots
of time to read!
