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Top Ten Books I Read in 2014!

top ten tuesday

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Oh my gosh – two TTT’s in a row! I was seriously slacking in the blogging department this week (I blame the holidays… and finals). On the bright side, at least my two lists are related. One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is look back and figure out which books totally rocked my world. This year, these books were so good they kind of made my decision for me…

Top Ten Books I Read in 2014!

One of my resolutions for 2014 was to “read the best books first,” and based on the killer titles on this list, I’d say I definitely achieved my goal! Last year I chose a top adult and a top young adult novel, but these titles were all so amazing that I couldn’t bring myself to pick just one of each. Many of these books have become my favorites EVER within their respective genres. Yeah, they were that good!

What were the best books YOU read this year?

By Niki Hawkes

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Top Ten New-to-Me Authors in 2014!

top ten tuesday

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

I read a ton of killer books this year, some of which are now among my all-time favorites!

Top Ten New-to-Me Authors in 2014!

You might notice that almost all of them are teen books. I did read a disproportionate number of them this year, but the reason there aren’t many fantasy, sci-fi, or urban fantasies on this list is because I’ve been focused on finishing out series I’d already started. That’s not to say there aren’t still some great books here – The Girl of Fire and Thorns is easily my new favorite teen fantasy and Not a Drop to Drink is also way up on my list of dystopians. I am also in love with Perfected and The Lies of Locke Lamora and… well, all of them lol.

What new authors did you read this year?

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Top Ten New Book Releases in Early 2015!

top ten tuesday

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

There are so many good books coming out next year that I can hardly stand it. I better ask for book money for Christmas…

Top Ten New Book Releases in Early 2015!

I am excited for all of these! The Ruby Circle is the conclusion to the Bloodlines series by my all time favorite author, so that takes priority, but all of these others will have to duke it out for 2nd place. All I can say is, 2015 is going to rock!

What books are you anticipating in 2015?

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Top Ten Books on My Winter TBR!

top ten tuesday

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

These TBR lists are easily my favorite lists we do throughout the year – mostly because I love the process of picking out which books to read next. Sometime last year I realized I was spending a lot of time on books I wasn’t enjoying and avoiding the ones I knew I would love because I was “saving them” for a rainy day. Since then, I’ve been actively working on my goal to only read the best books first – life is just too dang short to do anything else. With that in mind, I look at these lists as a helpful aid in figuring out which books I’m currently most excited for, and consider it a badge of pride if I pick up at least half of them before the next TBR list.

Top Ten Books on My Winter TBR!

Not a bad list, eh? If you can’t tell, I am in a very strong high fantasy mood, in part because they are awesome, but mostly because I have finally reached my limit on YA novels (at least for now). There are so many good ones on this list I couldn’t even tell you which one I’m going to pick up first. Right now, I’m leaning towards The Merchants Emperor, but that could easily change by this afternoon!

What books are on your list?

By Niki Hawkes

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Top Ten Sequels on My Winter Horizon!

top ten tuesday

I know I’ve altered the topic this week a little bit (heck, I can even remember what it was originally supposed to be), but I did so with good reason – there’s another list coming up in a couple of weeks that would’ve been practically identical to this one had I not changed things up a bit. Anyway, I decided to only include second books in a series. I don’t know about you, but I rarely read books in series back to back, so I have dozens of book twos I’ve been needing to get around to – some of which I’m confident are going to be amazing!

Top Ten Sequels on My Winter Horizon!

 There’s a couple of sequels here that I’ve been sitting on for several years… I loved the first books to all of them, so I’m not really sure what my problem is. Perhaps the issue is that I was much further along in too many other series to focus on these. I do tends to want to read ALL THE BOOKS, which creates a delightful mess of reading ADD. I think I am most excited to read The Dagger’s Path coming out January 13th (my birthday!), but it looks like I have plenty of excellent sequels to keep me occupied until then. :-) 

 What sequels have you been meaning to read?

by Niki Hawkes

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October 2014 Recap!

Review Recap

 October was a rough month for the obsessive bookseller. Some of you might know that I’ve been dealing with a crippling dual-wrist injury and I had a particularly bad flareup right at the beginning of the month. I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to keep my new job, so the blog kind of got put on the back burner while I focused every energy I had on getting better. I am not totally healed yet, but things are looking better.

In addition to all of that, I lost my Grandmama… Like I said, it has been a really rough month. I might do a small tribute post for her later to celebrate the life she had, but for now I’d like to just talk about the number one thing we had in common: our love of books.

Books Read:

I have a love-hate relationship with the books I read this month. The top row was fantastic – I especially loved The Assassin King – but the bottom row left a little to be desired. I didn’t like The First Confessor or The Magician’s Apprentice at all, and the other two were solid three-star books but left a little to be desired (don’t hurt me! I know many, many people who loved both). I am actually a little proud of myself because all of these books at one point or another were on my “books I REALLY want to read” list, so at least I’m consistently picking up high-priority titles… Life’s too short to do anything else.

Books Reviewed:

Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs – 5/5 stars!

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer – 4/5 stars

Well, if I was going to review only two books I guess these are as good as any. I think the covers of both are gorgeous and they are both paranormal werewolf books that I’d highly recommend, so there you have it.

Top Ten Tuesday Features:

Top Ten Series I Want to Start!

 I think I am finally at that point where most of the TTT topics are starting to repeat themselves. I’ve been participating in the feature for well over a year now and, although the topics are worded differently, the books I would choose are nearly identical to the lists I did ages ago. Because of this, I probably should consider dropping the feature unless it’s a topic I’m really inspired by. It’s actually my most popular feature, but I can’t help but think a lot of those are just “hey, I’m commenting on this post so hopefully you will come comment on mine” type of visits that really aren’t helping anybody out. Although, I have met some amazing bloggers through the feature… Hell, I don’t know. I guess a lot will depend on how fresh the topics are going forward. I think I’m making this a lot more complicated than it has to be.

Waiting on Wednesday Features:

 Okay, so I admit my lack of activity with this feature has less to do with what I’ve been going through and more to do with the lack of upcoming titles on my book horizon Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of books coming out that I want to read between now and next May, but I’ve kind of sort of already featured them all. For the record, The Heir is very near the top of that priority list.

That’s my month in reading… How was yours?

by Niki Hawkes