Favorite Reads of 2022

Here are my favorite books from the past year:

Best Nonfiction Read of the Year: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (2015) (audio read by talented Scott Brick). I was mesmerized listening to the audio of the Lusitania’s last and tragic voyage in 1915. Larson weaves together stories about the passengers and crew, bringing them all to life.

Favorite Reads of 2021 - A Baker's Dozen

Fiction

The Proper Place by O. Douglas (1926): After Sir Walter dies, his family is forced to sell the family estate and move to a modest home in Fife.  Nicole adapts to her new life with maturity and grace while her cousin Barbara is unwilling to accept their change in circumstances.  This was my first five-star book of the year!   My review.

Favorite Reads of 2014 (somewhat belated)

Fiction

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (2014)

The Austen Project, in which Jane Austen was retold by 21st-­century authors, was commissioned (I assume) by HarperCollins, and here Northanger Abbey is reimagined in modern-day Scotland during the Edinburgh Festival, which sounds like so much fun.  Young Catherine Morland is obsessed with Twilight and imagines everyone is a vampire, which seemed an inspired tribute to the original character’s gothic imaginings.

Favorite Reads of 2015

Here is my Best of 2015 list. Better late than never!

Children’s Books

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (2015)
As some of you know, I love evacuation stories! This is the best one I have read since Back Home by Michelle Magorian in 1984. Here, when Ada and her brother are evacuated to the country during WWII, a whole new world is revealed to Ada, who has never left her family’s apartment due to a twisted foot – and a twisted mother.

Historical Fiction

The King’s Falcon by Stella Riley (2014)
Third in her Civil War series (which has attracted diehard fans), this book follows Ashley Peverell and Francis Langley, minor characters in previous books, who have accompanied Charles II into exile in Paris. Ashley becomes involved with a beautiful actress, Athenais de Galzain, who has a powerful enemy, as if Ashley didn’t already have more trouble than he can handle . . .

Favorite Reads of 2019

Happy New Year and wishing you many delightful reads in 2020! I am enjoying seeing other people's "Best of" year-end lists, even when I haven't read any of their books.  There is always room on my TBR pile for books that sound appealing.

Historical Fiction

Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce (2018)
This wound up being my favorite book of the year!  A warm and emotional story of a young woman who yearns to be a war correspondent during WWII but finds a job instead working on advice magazine during the day (what the Brits call an Agony Aunt) while doing her bit for the war at night as bombs fall.  You know how much I like books with WWII settings but some have become almost a cliche of tired plots.   This was fresh and appealing, humorous at times, heartbreaking at others, and altogether delightful. Those who remember Dear Lovey Hart will love it.

Favorite Reads of 2011

How could I have forgotten a year as good as 2011?  I suspect it was a good reading year but an exhausting lawyer year which must be why I never posted this list, now recreated:

Suspense

One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King (recommended by my mother and subsequently enjoyed by my book group)

Case Histories (Jackson Brodie #1) by Kate Atkinson (had started this unsuccessfully previously but was captivated by the audio)

Fiction

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (entertaining, and was another book group read, but Count Them One By One remains my favorite book about Mississippi - and is dedicated to me)

Historical Fiction

An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan

Nonfiction

Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden

YA

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahen

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Picture Book

How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills

Best Rereads

Emily and the Dark Angel by Jo Beverley (sadly deceased in 2016)

Pauline by Margaret Storey

Favorite Reads of 2018

Adult Fiction

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

Do you ever save a book by a favorite author for just the right moment?   When I bought this, I was toiling miserably at a law firm and reading in short bursts on the subway.  The Rose Garden deserved uninterrupted attention and I finally I curled up with it on a cold fall day in 2018 and was swept away to Cornwall.  It starts slower than her other books, so be patient, but that made the eventual smoldering tension all the better.   I also recommend The Winter Sea, which was one of my favorite books of 2010.  Kearsley is the closest thing to Mary Stewart I have found.

Favorite Reads of 2017

2017 was full of outstanding books! I read about 166 books, of which 18 were audio books and 19 were ebooks (a higher percentage than usual due to more electronic review copies and because I did more reading at the gym using a Kindle). Here is a link to my Goodreads year in review which shows everything I read. All but three books were fiction, but two of those made the favorites list listed by genre below:

Historical Fiction
The Black Madonna and Lords of Misrule – The Black Madonna is the first novel in Stella Riley’s Roundheads and Cavaliers series, and Lords of Misrule is the fourth. I had to go back to reread The Black Madonna after reading Lords of Misrule (not because I had forgotten anything, I just missed the characters). Set in the 17th century during the English Civil War, the primary male character is a true anti-hero, a sharp-tongued goldsmith trying to redeem his family’s honor while dodging the partisans on both sides of the English Civil War, most of whom look down on him but seek to borrow money from him. He comes into contact with red-headed Kate Maxwell and her warmhearted family, but has no time for friendship or romance or anything that will distract him from vengeance. You’ll see how that works out! Lords of Misrule is the long awaited story of Kate’s brother Eden but please don’t read out of order!  Fans of Stella Riley will be delighted her books are all in print.

Favorite Reads from 2016

According to Goodreads, I read 142 books in 2016 (this does not include rereads, however - my own calculations indicate that I read 149 books, not to mention that reading four Game of Thrones books is like reading a dozen ordinary books!).  Here are my favorites:

Suspense

The Dead House, Fiona Griffiths, #5 – Harry Bingham
This is the most compelling suspense series you haven’t heard of and I insist you go back and start with the first book in the series, Talking to the Dead. Set in Wales, this one is set against the backdrop of a mysterious monastery. Fiona is an extremely odd but endearing detective whose commitment to victims she is assigned to investigate (and those she is not) takes precedence over everything else in her life. She is also desperate to decipher the secrets of her birth, and it seems likely these two story lines will stay connected as the series continues.

I Let You Go – Clare Mackintosh
The despair of Jenna Gray, the main character in this novel of suspense is almost too much to bear and requires occasional application of Kleenex. The story begins with a fatal car crash, then follows Jenna, as she tries to escape from her past in a remote cottage in Wales, while back in Bristol, two detectives are trying to track her down. I liked the detectives and hope the author will return to them in a future book.

Favorite Reads of 2013

In 2013, I read about 185 books of which two were rereads and 152 were from the library or otherwise borrowed.  I'd like to do better in 2014 reading books I already own, many of which are in piles on windowsills and on the floor, and thus need rescuing.

Top Picks

The Firebird                SusannaKearsley                     Fiction/Historical Fiction

(As many of you know, I have been an evangelist for Kearsley since I worked at Bantam in the early 90s.  I am delighted that Sourcebooks is publishing her in the US and doing so much to promote her work.  This book follows The Winter Sea, and also involves 18th century Jacobites, a weakness of mine)

Favorite Reads of 2010

According to Goodreads, I read 145 books in 2010, primarily fiction. My four favorites were from very different genres: a haunting timeslip set in Scotland, primarily historical fiction; a semi-autobiographical novel about a famous English vet; contemporary fiction about an irritable retired English officer; and a YA about a spoiled teen who doesn’t value her family and friends until she loses them.

5 stars

The Winter Sea/Susanna KearsleyKearsley mingles the present-day story of a writer searching for inspiration in Scotland with a compelling and very romantic 18th-century tale of love and heartbreak, which I could barely put aside to sleep. It’s not the first time I have tried to get people excited about this author but this is by far her best book and I think readers are beginning to catch on.

Favorite Reads of 2009

Historical Fiction

* Garland of Straw – Stella Riley (if only she would finish this series)
Island of Ghosts , London in Chains – Gillian Bradshaw
The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell

Fiction
* Snobs – Julian Fellowes
No One You Know – Michelle Redmond

YA Fantasy
* Graceling, Fire – Kristin Cashore
Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

YA Fiction
* Front and Center – Catherine Gilbert Murdock (love this entire trilogy)
Twenty Boy Summer – Sarah Ockler
North of Beautiful – Justina Headley
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks – E. Lockhart

Children's Fiction
Good Field No Hit – Duane Decker (sentimental reread from childhood about the Blue Sox)

Picture BooksTen in Bed – David Ellwand (board book)
The Hero Beowulf – Eric Kimmel
Chester – Melanie Watt

Worst
The Secret of the Hermitage (Dana Girls #5) (was so bad it was hilariously funny; I remembered the Dana Girls as being much better than this installment)

* exceptional

If I have time, I will add more in the way of commentary.

Best Books of 2008

I shared my favorite books of 2008 with the Betsy-Tacy list on New Year's Eve but forgot to post it here so apologies to those who were looking for it:

I believe I read 143 books in 2008, down from 160 in 2007 (reflecting far too much time spent at my former law firm - boo) but I don't always remember to record the rereads (or partial reads, when one picks up a book to check a quote, then forget and read the entire thing!).

I always appreciate recommendations from friends and family, sometimes on books I would never have chosen otherwise or on others already on my mental list but not yet in my possession. I always think fondly of the librarians at the Boys and Girls Library in Newton, MA, when I was growing up, a little yellow house full of women who loved books as much as I did, and who always pointed out the new book from the Margaret McElderry imprint and other books they thought I would like.