Last year I made a small, achievable promise to myself to slow down my pace of reading. To sit quietly and take in more of the words over each page that I was turning. And I followed through on this promise. Going from reading a huge 154 books in a year to a tiny 67 books. That might still seem a vast amount to some but for me, that was a meer fraction of the books that I could have been reading.
This year I've turned my back on that resolution. We have only just come to the end of the long, slow month that is January and I have already managed to make my way through 25 books in 2019. I've caught that addictive reading bug again and I get myself into an almost hypnotic state where I just can't put a novel down until I reach the end, I find myself with a desperate need to find out what happens next.
So I thought I'd go back and do something which I have done in previous years on my blog, and that is to post about which books I have read. Not reviews as this post would be far too long, just the stories and a few of their blurbs (which some of them I hope you'll already have heard of) to see if they might be worth adding to your own to be read lists for the year ahead.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Bad Boy Brody by Tijan
One punch took him from Hollywood’s Golden Boy to Bad Boy Brody.
The media didn’t care he was grieving his brother’s death. They descended on him, but to change his reputation, his manager got him a deal.
Act in an indie film, one that already had Oscar buzz, and he’d get the movie roles he needed to secure his future.
He took the deal.
Yet he wasn’t prepared for the real-life people behind the script. He wasn’t prepared for the murder the movie was based on. And he really wasn’t prepared for her, the biggest secret of all.
She was wild. She was beautiful. She defied gravity.
But was she the leading role that would tame him?
Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway
Emmy just wants to be in charge of her own life.
She wants to stay out late, surf her favorite beach—go anywhere without her parents’ relentless worrying. But Emmy’s parents can’t seem to let her grow up—not since the day Oliver disappeared.
Oliver needs a moment to figure out his heart.
He’d thought, all these years, that his dad was the good guy. He never knew that it was his father who kidnapped him and kept him on the run. Discovering it, and finding himself returned to his old hometown, all at once, has his heart racing and his thoughts swirling.
Emmy and Oliver were going to be best friends forever, or maybe even more, before their futures were ripped apart. In Emmy’s soul, despite the space and time between them, their connection has never been severed. But is their story still written in the stars? Or are their hearts like the pieces of two different puzzles—impossible to fit together?
Readers who love Sarah Dessen will tear through these pages with hearts in throats as Emmy and Oliver struggle to face the messy, confusing consequences of Oliver’s father’s crime. Full of romance, coming-of-age emotion, and heartache, these two equally compelling characters create an unforgettable story.
Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox
On the fifth floor of the White Caps Hotel, four young boys are left alone while their parents dine downstairs.
But when one of the parents checks on the children at midnight, they discover one of them is missing.
The boys swear they stayed in their room. CCTV confirms that none of them left the building. No trace of the child is found.
Now the hunt is on to find him, before it’s too late – and before the search for a boy becomes a search for a body...
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Goodbye Perfect by Sara Barnard
Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a complete shock when, five days before the start of their GCSEs, Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about. And it's the last person she would ever have expected.
As the days pass, and her world begins to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her best friend and herself.
Fierce Fragile Hearts by Sara Barnard
To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Ps I Still Love You and Always and Forever Lara Jean by Jenny Han
Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott (my book of the month)
Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.
The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals.
Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment.
What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?
Bitter Edge by Rachel Lynch
When a teenage girl flings herself off a cliff in pursuit of a gruesome death, DI Kelly Porter is left asking why. Ruled a suicide, there’s no official reason for Kelly to chase answers, but as several of her team’s cases converge on the girl’s school, a new, darker story emerges. One which will bring Kelly face-to-face with an old foe determined to take back what is rightfully his – no matter the cost.
Mired in her pursuit of justice for the growing list of victims, Kelly finds security in Johnny, her family and the father she has only just discovered. But just as she draws close to unearthing the dark truth at the heart of her investigation, a single moment on a cold winter’s night shatters the notion that anything in Kelly’s world can ever truly be safe.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
In At the Deep End by Kate Davies
The Disconnect by Keren David
I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella
Fixie Farr can’t help herself. Straightening a crooked object, removing a barely-there stain, helping out a friend . . . she just has to put things right. It’s how she got her nickname, after all.
So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, Fixie not only agrees, she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank her, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, scribbles her an IOU – but of course Fixie never intends to call in the favour.
That is, until her teenage crush, Ryan, comes back into her life and needs her help – and Fixie turns to Seb. But things don’t go according to plan, and now Fixie owes Seb: big time.
Soon the pair are caught up in a series of IOUs – from small favours to life-changing debts – and Fixie is torn between the past she’s used to and the future she deserves.
Does she have the courage to fix things for herself and fight for the life, and love, she really wants?
Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me and Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen
Songs About a Boy by Chris Russell (3rd book in a series)
Never Tell by Lisa Gardner
A man is dead, shot three times in his home office. But his computer has been shot twelve times, and when the cops arrive, his pregnant wife is holding the gun.
D.D. Warren arrives on the scene and recognizes the woman--Evie Carter--from a case many years back. Evie's father was killed in a shooting that was ruled an accident. But for D.D., two coincidental murders is too many.
Flora Dane sees the murder of Conrad Carter on the TV news and immediately knows his face. She remembers a night when she was still a victim--a hostage--and her captor knew this man. Overcome with guilt that she never tracked him down, Flora is now determined to learn the truth of Conrad's murder.
But D.D. and Flora are about to discover that in this case the truth is a devilishly elusive thing. As layer by layer they peel away the half-truths and outright lies, they wonder: How many secrets can one family have?
This year I've turned my back on that resolution. We have only just come to the end of the long, slow month that is January and I have already managed to make my way through 25 books in 2019. I've caught that addictive reading bug again and I get myself into an almost hypnotic state where I just can't put a novel down until I reach the end, I find myself with a desperate need to find out what happens next.
So I thought I'd go back and do something which I have done in previous years on my blog, and that is to post about which books I have read. Not reviews as this post would be far too long, just the stories and a few of their blurbs (which some of them I hope you'll already have heard of) to see if they might be worth adding to your own to be read lists for the year ahead.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Bad Boy Brody by Tijan
One punch took him from Hollywood’s Golden Boy to Bad Boy Brody.
The media didn’t care he was grieving his brother’s death. They descended on him, but to change his reputation, his manager got him a deal.
Act in an indie film, one that already had Oscar buzz, and he’d get the movie roles he needed to secure his future.
He took the deal.
Yet he wasn’t prepared for the real-life people behind the script. He wasn’t prepared for the murder the movie was based on. And he really wasn’t prepared for her, the biggest secret of all.
She was wild. She was beautiful. She defied gravity.
But was she the leading role that would tame him?
Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway
Emmy just wants to be in charge of her own life.
She wants to stay out late, surf her favorite beach—go anywhere without her parents’ relentless worrying. But Emmy’s parents can’t seem to let her grow up—not since the day Oliver disappeared.
Oliver needs a moment to figure out his heart.
He’d thought, all these years, that his dad was the good guy. He never knew that it was his father who kidnapped him and kept him on the run. Discovering it, and finding himself returned to his old hometown, all at once, has his heart racing and his thoughts swirling.
Emmy and Oliver were going to be best friends forever, or maybe even more, before their futures were ripped apart. In Emmy’s soul, despite the space and time between them, their connection has never been severed. But is their story still written in the stars? Or are their hearts like the pieces of two different puzzles—impossible to fit together?
Readers who love Sarah Dessen will tear through these pages with hearts in throats as Emmy and Oliver struggle to face the messy, confusing consequences of Oliver’s father’s crime. Full of romance, coming-of-age emotion, and heartache, these two equally compelling characters create an unforgettable story.
Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox
On the fifth floor of the White Caps Hotel, four young boys are left alone while their parents dine downstairs.
But when one of the parents checks on the children at midnight, they discover one of them is missing.
The boys swear they stayed in their room. CCTV confirms that none of them left the building. No trace of the child is found.
Now the hunt is on to find him, before it’s too late – and before the search for a boy becomes a search for a body...
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Goodbye Perfect by Sara Barnard
Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a complete shock when, five days before the start of their GCSEs, Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about. And it's the last person she would ever have expected.
As the days pass, and her world begins to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her best friend and herself.
Fierce Fragile Hearts by Sara Barnard
To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Ps I Still Love You and Always and Forever Lara Jean by Jenny Han
Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott (my book of the month)
Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.
The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals.
Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment.
What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?
Bitter Edge by Rachel Lynch
When a teenage girl flings herself off a cliff in pursuit of a gruesome death, DI Kelly Porter is left asking why. Ruled a suicide, there’s no official reason for Kelly to chase answers, but as several of her team’s cases converge on the girl’s school, a new, darker story emerges. One which will bring Kelly face-to-face with an old foe determined to take back what is rightfully his – no matter the cost.
Mired in her pursuit of justice for the growing list of victims, Kelly finds security in Johnny, her family and the father she has only just discovered. But just as she draws close to unearthing the dark truth at the heart of her investigation, a single moment on a cold winter’s night shatters the notion that anything in Kelly’s world can ever truly be safe.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
In At the Deep End by Kate Davies
The Disconnect by Keren David
I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella
Fixie Farr can’t help herself. Straightening a crooked object, removing a barely-there stain, helping out a friend . . . she just has to put things right. It’s how she got her nickname, after all.
So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, Fixie not only agrees, she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank her, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, scribbles her an IOU – but of course Fixie never intends to call in the favour.
That is, until her teenage crush, Ryan, comes back into her life and needs her help – and Fixie turns to Seb. But things don’t go according to plan, and now Fixie owes Seb: big time.
Soon the pair are caught up in a series of IOUs – from small favours to life-changing debts – and Fixie is torn between the past she’s used to and the future she deserves.
Does she have the courage to fix things for herself and fight for the life, and love, she really wants?
Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me and Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen
Songs About a Boy by Chris Russell (3rd book in a series)
Never Tell by Lisa Gardner
A man is dead, shot three times in his home office. But his computer has been shot twelve times, and when the cops arrive, his pregnant wife is holding the gun.
D.D. Warren arrives on the scene and recognizes the woman--Evie Carter--from a case many years back. Evie's father was killed in a shooting that was ruled an accident. But for D.D., two coincidental murders is too many.
Flora Dane sees the murder of Conrad Carter on the TV news and immediately knows his face. She remembers a night when she was still a victim--a hostage--and her captor knew this man. Overcome with guilt that she never tracked him down, Flora is now determined to learn the truth of Conrad's murder.
But D.D. and Flora are about to discover that in this case the truth is a devilishly elusive thing. As layer by layer they peel away the half-truths and outright lies, they wonder: How many secrets can one family have?
That is an incredible number of books, and with a new job too! I don't think I've read any of those books. I've actually read quite a lot of Margaret Attwood, yet somehow I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, even though it's her most famous book!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I want to read more Margaret Attwood books after that one. I'm definitely a night owl, hence all the reading!
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