- The Favorites by Layne Fargo
- The Wedding People by Alison Espach
- The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
- Beartown by Fredrik Backman
- Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
Showing posts with label top 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label top 5. Show all posts
January 2, 2025
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2025
January 22, 2024
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2024
- James by Percival Everett
- The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
- The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
- Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
January 28, 2023
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2023
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
- Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
- The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
- Amok by Barry Eisler
- Roadkill by Dennis E. Taylor
January 2, 2021
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2021
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Win by Harlan Coben
- Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
- Verity by Colleen Hoover
January 4, 2020
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2020
- Winter World by by A.G. Riddle
- Recursion by Blake Crouch
- The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
- The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
March 12, 2019
Review: Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Product Description:
Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden—one that will test her convictions and her heart.
1940s, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against London’s civilian population, hundreds of thousands of children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed...
My Thoughts:
Secrets of a Charmed Life has now become my favorite book of 2019. It is an amazing suspense story. It reminds me a little of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford in that I kept wanting to jump to the end of the book to check if everything works out in the end.
Two sisters separated by war in a story told over a current day's afternoon. I really couldn't get through the book fast enough. Truly wonderful.
My Recommendation:
I recommend this one to anyone who loves historical fiction.
January 1, 2019
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2019
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- Secrets of a Charmed Life by by Susan Meissner
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- Dead on Arrival by Matt Richtel
- Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel - The entire trilogy is a must read!
January 1, 2018
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2018
- Replay by Ken Grimwood
- Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
- Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
- A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena
- The Lost Girls by Heather Young
January 3, 2016
Top 5 Books I've Read in 2016
December 28, 2015
Review: The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
Product Description:
In case you were wondering, I didn’t do it. I didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death. I don’t have an alibi, so you’ll have to take my word for it...
Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time.
She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy―and dangerous―alliance is born.
It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret…can she outrun her past?
My Thoughts:
I devoured this book and finished in less than 24 hours. I was hooked from the very first few sentences. Slowly the tragic story unravels and with each page I turned the anticipation built up more and more. Towards the end I guessed a little bit of what was really going on but there is a huge twist at the end that I did not see coming at all.
Lisa Lutz authors one of my favorite series, The Spellman Files and I loved her humorous collaboration with David Hayward Heads You Lose so I knew I would love this one but I didn't realize it would be come one of my favorite reads of this year.
My Recommendation:
I recommend this to anyone who loves a nail-biting suspense thriller that keeps you guessing to the end.
April 25, 2015
Review: L.A. Rotten by Jeff Klima
As an expert crime-scene cleaner, Tom Tanner charges big money to carve out bullets, mop up fluids, disinfect walls, and dispose of whatever’s left of whomever was unlucky enough to require his services. For a handsome young ex-con determined to stay out of trouble, it’s practically a dream job—until he discovers a grisly pattern to his work: a string of gruesome murders at a cheap motel chain, always in Room 236.
While prying into a serial killer’s nasty scheme, Tom finds himself with a sharp-witted strip-bar waitress plastered to his side—and his conscience. Even more surprising, the killer starts prying into his life, luring Tom into a twisted friendship. As Tom struggles against his adversary’s wicked whims, risking the lives of the few people he holds dear, bodies pile up everywhere he turns. With a psychopath calling the shots, Tom has little choice but to clean house once and for all.`
My Thoughts:
I absolutely loved L. A. Rotten. It is now my #1 read for 2015. Tom Tanner was one of those characters that stay with you long after you finish the book. He was a broken, tragic mess yet still managed to become a lovable character in the end. He kind of reminded me of Dexter who is another one of my favorites. Along with his sidekick Ivy, they managed to track down a serial killer that the cops didn't even know existed.
Even better than reading this is the fact that L. A. Rotten is the first in the new Tom Tanner Mystery series. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book.
My Recommendation:
I recommend L. A. Rotten to anyone who loves crime noir.
April 10, 2015
Review: The Teller by Jonathan Stone
Product Description:
Between her low-paying job as a bank teller and the high costs of caring for her terminally ill mother, Elaine Kelly is struggling to make ends meet. When one of her regular customers, Antonio Desirio – a lonely old man with no family or friends who has saved over a million dollars in his account – is hit by a truck outside the bank after making his weekly deposit, Elaine impulsively switches the money into her own account, figuring she’ll be long gone by the time the crime is discovered.
The problem? Antonio wasn’t just some lonely old man, and the hit-and-run was no accident. From New York’s darkest corners to its loftiest financial towers, Elaine’s problems are just beginning, and it will take all of her wits and determination to solve them.
My Thoughts:
Elaine Kelly had an opportunity and took it. Being a trusted teller in the bank she knew just what to do not to get caught but instead of taking the money and running off she stuck around planning what she wanted to do until it was too late.
Then once she found herself in real trouble she had to make the most of her situtation to ensure the bad guys paid for their dirty deeds and save herself along with a newly made friend.
Any time lotto jackpots exceed the hundred million mark I start day dreaming about what I would do if I won even if I don't buy a ticket so I can see how Elaine got caught up in the planning instead of the running. The things she has to do to survive makes the ending that much more sweeter. The Teller is a page turner all the way to the end. I devoured the book in under two days and it has now taken the top spot as my number 1 read of 2015.
My Recommendation: I highly recommend this one for anyone who loves a good suspense tale.
February 28, 2015
Review: The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig
Four hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire that has laid waste to civilization and nature. Though the radiation fallout has ended, for some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. Of each pair, one is an Alpha—physically perfect in every way; and the other an Omega—burdened with deformity, small or large. With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world’s sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: Whenever one twin dies, so does the other.
Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin, Zach, gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side-by-side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights.
My Thoughts:
The Fire Sermon was set in a vivid world with incredible characters. Haig gave us such wonderful descriptions that I could clearly imagine the landscape and the people so much so that it felt like I had paused a movie whenever I wasn't reading. The best part of it was the fear that the new world felt about the technology of the past. With dystopian books I always wonder what pushed society to the point of the total control that most books have their characters living under but with The Fire Sermon I could clearly understand why their world was the way it became.
Starting the book I had no clue that it was part of a trilogy and towards the end I could tell there was going to be a resolution but I felt there was more of the story to be told. That's when I looked up the book online and found that it was just book one. I was so happy to learn that there was more to come and the book has also been optioned by Dreamworks so I'm hoping that a movie is soon to come. The Fire Sermon is now in the top spot on my 2015 Top 5 list.
My Recommendation:
I recommend this one for fans of dystopian YA.
January 21, 2015
Review: The Dead of December by Ryan Bowman
Product Description:
Growing up in the suffocating grip of Detroit's most crime-ridden neighborhood, Sugar Sinclair has always aspired to defy the odds and make something of his life. But on a bitter December night, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and his hopes for the future are extinguished in the blink of an eye.
Will truth and justice prevail? Or will the streets of Detroit swallow three more souls?
My Thoughts:
I think this is the first time I've ever felt like I was reading in slow motion. I could clearly see where everything was leading and I was in tense suspense hoping it wouldn't play out the way I expected. Clearly from the book description things did go wrong and the fall out afterwards leads to gut wrenching decisions that need to be made by all three characters.
Young Sugar has to make a life decision that has already affected his family and so many in his neighborhood. Clarence is faced with making a confession that will implode his so-called perfect family. Gerald is torn between the politics of the police force and his inner turmoil. They each have nothing but that night weighing heavily on them and have to come to terms with doing the right thing versus doing the easy thing.
The only reason I didn't give the book a full five star rating was the way the disappearance of Gerald's son was told. I felt like it was only thrown in to explain Gerald's struggles with alcohol. There was no "meat on the bone" in that part of the story and it didn't hold up to the rest of the storyline. Otherwise this was an incredible book that is going on my Top Five list for this year and even though it's only January, I'm confident it will remain there all year.
My Recommendation:
This is the perfect read for anyone who loves crime fiction and page-turning suspense.
January 17, 2015
Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Product Description:
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.
Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
My Thoughts:
I learned about Station Eleven in a Facebook post from one of my favorite authors, Marcus Sakey. He posted that he was only 121 pages in and was loving it. He had previously recommended The Martian by Andy Weir which ended up being my favorite read of 2014 (it's also being made into a movie staring Matt Damon, I CAN'T WAIT!) so I promptly downloaded it on Audible and started listening.
By a couple of chapters in, I was a little skeptical. Station Eleven seemed a little too artsy for my liking. All the talk about the theater and symphony was making me think I wouldn't enjoy the book but I quickly got sucked in and was dying to finish the book.
The only downside is that all the post-apocalyptic books I've been reading lately are starting to freak me out. They've got me thinking "what if?". It didn't help that during the December 2013 icepocalypse we had in Dallas I made a run to the grocery store and was shocked by how empty the shelves were. This was only 3 days of ice and there was not a vegetable or loaf of bread to be found in a major grocery store. Now I'm stockpiling water in my garage and thinking I should start buying bullets by the case.
But back to the book. The way the story weaves in and out of the different time periods is so very suspenseful. I keep wondering how everything is going to tie together in the end and then suddenly it all makes sense. The characters are exactly as they should be. I despised the not so good guys and adored the heros. I absolutely loved this book.
My Recommendation:
I highly recommend this for anyone who loves post-apocalyptic survival stories.
January 1, 2015
Top 5 books I've read in 2015
Updated: Februar 28, 2015
Bumped off this list:Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Click here for my 2014 top five.
- The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
- L.A. Rotten by Jeff Klima
- The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig
- The Teller by Jonathan Stone
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (re-read for book club & still awesome!)
Bumped off this list:Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
January 19, 2012
Top 5 in 2014
Updated August 24, 2014
Below is my top five reads in 2014.
Below is my top five reads in 2014.
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
- The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
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