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kbrown78 · 5 years

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Yearly Wrap Up: 2018

Sorry this post is so late, it took awhile to get all the information I needed and I kept going back and forth on the format I wanted to do for this post, but I finally have an end result I am happy with. In this post I will be going over all the books I read in 2018, all the stats, completion of 2018 reading goals as well as 2019 reading goals. Also fair warning, this is going to be a long post. So to begin with I'll talk about my 2018 reading goals and of I was able to accomplish them. This year was the first year that I did the Goodreads Challenge, I thought it would be good to see how many books I could read in a year. My initial goal was 50 books and I ended up reading 80 books, so I was definitely able to tackle my Goodreads goal. Unfortunately that was the only reading challenge I was able to finish. One of my reading resolutions for 2018 was to finish a reading challenge and I did that with the Goodreads one, but I also did the PopSugar 2018 Reading Challenge. That one provided a large number of reading prompts that I hoped would help expand the genre of the books I was reading (which was another reading resolution of mine) and of the 50 prompts I was only able to complete 34, which is not bad, it's more than half, but I still wanted to complete all of them. As I mentioned I wanted to expand the genre of books that I read, since I mostly read YA fantasy, and I do think I achieved that goal by trying to read more adult fantasy, science fiction, different fantasy sub genre's, and a few books in other genres, but I will go more into that when I do a break down of all the books I read this year. I also wanted to go to more book events and that did not really happen. I only went to 1 this year and the rest I was unable to go to for various reasons, so I need to get better with planning in order to go to more events this year. I did want to be more active in the book community and I definitely think I achieved that, with providing regular posts and book reviews. I was originally going to do a channel on YouTube but I suck with editing software and I honestly prefer writing. Finally my #1 resolution for 2018 was to tackle all the books in my physical TBR, with books from 2017 and 2018, I was able to narrow down my overflowing basket to just 5 books. Since I now have a rule where I have to read 10 books before I buy a new one (holiday's are an exception) I'll probably have the rest of those books read by the end of 2019, so that all new books in my TBR pile will all be from 2019. Now that I've summarized my status on all my reading goals for 2018, I'm now going to start going into the actual books. I'll begin by listing all the books I've read and putting them in different groups based on their star ratings. Then I'm going to go into the statistics of all the books, like genre, authors, status, and other things.

Ratings:

5 Star Books: These are without a doubt my favorite books of the year, the cream of the crop, and some of them are possibly my new favorite books or series of all time.

A Natural History of Dragons (Memoirs of Lady Trent #1) by Marie Brennan, The Tropic of Serpents (Memoirs of Lady Trent) by Marie Brennan, The Tethered Mage (Swords and Fire #1) by Melisa Caruso, The Defiant Heir (Swords and Fire #2) by Melisa Caruso, East by Edith Pattou, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu, Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire, Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3) by Seanan McGuire, The Star Touched Queen (Star Touched Queen #1) by Roshani Chokshi, Crown of Wishes (Star Touched Queen #2) by Roshani Chokshi, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers

4.5 Star Books: These are the books that I did really love and couldn't find much fault with but I couldn't fully connect to the story (would still recommend all).

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire #1) by C.J. Redwine, The Voyage of the Basilisk (Memoirs of Lady Trent #3) by Marie Brennan, Rosemary and Rue (October Daye #1) by Seanan McGuire, The Call by Peadar O'Guilin, Robots vs Fairies

4 Star Books: This one is a bit split because some are books that are solidly 4 stars and lean more toward the 4.5 star rating, and other were saved by a fantastic ending from a 3.5 star rating. There are things that could have been improved on within the story but overall I enjoyed reading all of them.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire, Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi, Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Vivian Apple #1) by Katie Coyle, A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1), Ice Like Fire (Snow Like Ashes #2) by Sara Raasch, Frost Like Night (Snow Like Ashes #3) by Sara Raasch, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds by Vicki Leon, Invisible Planets translated by Ken Liu, In the Labyrinth of Drakes (Memoirs of Lady Trent #4) by Marie Brennan, Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (Harry Potter #1) by J.K Rowling, Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs, Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity #1) by Elizabeth Wein, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

3.5 Star Books: This is a bit of an unusual rating because it usually means that I was expecting to be disappoint by these books, and while there were still issues that I couldn't ignore, I surprisingly enjoyed.

The Registry (The Registry #1) by Shannon Stoker, Caliban's War (The Expanse #2) by James S.A. Corey, Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes #1) by Sara Raasch, You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

3 Star Books: These were books that I thought were decent, but they had flaws in them that I was unable to over look.

A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas, Walk on Earth a Stranger (Gold Seer #1) by Rae Carson, Like a River Glorious (Gold Seer #2) by Rae Carson, Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi, An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard, After: 19 Stories of Dystopian and Apocalypse, Illuminae (The Illuminae Files) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn #1) by Renee Ahdieh, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) by Mark Lawerence, Sabriel (The Abhorsen #1) by Garth Nix, Monstress Volume 3: The Blood by Marjorie Liu, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, Nightfall by Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski

2.5 Star Books: These are books that I had a lot of issues with but were redeemable enough that I would still give them a try.

The Collection (The Registry #2) by Shannon Stoker, Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) by Kendare Blake, Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #3) by Laini Taylor, The Bone Witch (The Bone Witch #1) by Rin Chupeco

2 Star Books: These are books that I had lot of issues with but it didn't upset me enough to make me want to quit it. These books and downward I personally wouldn't recommend reading, but that's just my opinion.

Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodrigez McRobbie, Days of Blood and Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #2) by Laini Taylor, Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (Vivian Apple #2) by Katie Coyle, The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking Trilogy #1) by Patrick Ness, Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1) by James S.A. Corey, Bitterblue (Graceling #3) by Kristin Cashore, Sandry's Book (Circle of Magic #1) by Tamora Pierce, Lirael (Abhorsen #2) by Garth Nix, Torn (The Unraveled Kingdom #1) by Rowena Miller, Into the Bright Unknown (Gold Seer #3) by Rae Carson, Front Lines by Michael Grant, American God's by Neil Gaiman, The Falconer (The Falconer #1) by Elizabeth May

1 Star Books: These, sadly, are the bottom of the barrel. I had a hard time finding good qualities with these books and some of them I got so frustrated by I ended up quiting them.

The Wicked and the Divine Volume 1: The Faust Act, Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2) by Victoria Schwab, Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1) by Susan Dennard, Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle #2) (DNF) by Libba Bray, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides, Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky #1) by Veroncia Rossi, The Library at Mount Char (DNF) by Scott Hawkins, Daughters of the Storm (Blood and Gold #1) (DNF) by Kim Wilkins, The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittney Ryan, Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)(DNF) by Ann Leckie (I didn't hate this book, it was just too weird and confusing to carry on)

Statistics:

This is the part where I'll break down authors (gender and ethnicity), status (finished or not finished, companion, stanalone, special cases), and genre of the books.

AUTHORS: (Not counting anthologies with multiple authors, also series counts as one)

Male: 16

Female: 42

White: 48

POC: 10

STATUS:

Finished (If the book was part of a series that ended than had a companion series follow it, I'm still counting that as a finished series, also I'm counting anything 2 or more books as a series): 8 (A Court of Thorns and Roses, Gold Seer, Monsters of Verity, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Vivian Apple, Snow Like Ashes, Ignite Me)

Unfinished and Completed (Unfinished means that I haven't finished reading the series, uncompleted means that all the books in the series haven't been released yet): 12 (Gemma Doyle (won't be completing), The Knife of Never Letting Go (won't be completing), The Wrath and the Dawn (won't be completing), The Facloner (won't be completing), Under the Never Sky (won't be completing), Abhorsen, Memoirs of Lady Trent, Imperial Radch (won't be completing), Harry Potter, Front Lines (won't be completing), The Registry, Circle of Magic (won't be completing))

Unfinished and Uncompleted: 10 (Legacy of Orisha, The Witchlands (won't be completing), The Bone Witch (won't be completing), The Expanse, Swords and Fire, Book of the Ancestor (won't be completing), The Unraveled Kingdoms, Three Dark Crowns (won't be completing), October Daye, Blood and Gold (won't be completing))

Companion series: 8 (Wayfarers, Wayward Children, Star Touched Queen, The Illuminae Files, Code Name Verity, Graceling, Nightfall, Ravenspire)

Stand Alone (includes non fiction): 13 (Princesses Behaving Badly, Beauty Queens, An Unkindness of Magicians, Uprooted, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds, The Virgin Suicides, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, You Are A Badass, The Library at Mount Char, American Gods, The Red Tent, The Legend of Holly Claus)

Anthologies/ Short Story Collections: 6 (After: 19 Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Robots Vs Fairies, Invisible Planets, Tales of the Peculiar, The Language of Thorns)

Comics/ Graphic Novels: 2 (Monstress Vol 3: The Blood and the Wicked and the Divine Vol 1: The Faust Act)

Special cases (Special cases are for books that I'm leaving as a self contained standalone even though they have a sequel): 2 (East by Edith Pattou, The Call by Peadar O'Guilin)

GENRE: I'm going based off of where these books are shelved in stores, even if I don't agree with some of them.

YA: 44

Adult: 33

Fantasy: 42 (A Court of Wings and Ruin (Epic fantasy/ Romance)(YA), Every Heart a Doorway (Portal fantasy/ Contemporary fantasy/ Mystery)(A), Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Gothic fantasy/ Mythic fantasy)(A), Beneath the Sugar Sky (Portal fantasy)(A), Walk on Earth a Stranger (Historical fantasy)(YA), Like a River Glorious (Historical fantasy/ Romance)(YA), Into the Bright Unknown (Historical fantasy/ Romance)(YA), A Crown of Wishes (Epic fantasy)(YA), Day's of Blood and Starlight (Epic fantasy/ Portal fantasy)(YA), Dreams of God's and Monsters (Portal fantasy/ Epic fantasy)(YA), Children of Blood and Bone (Epic fantasy)(YA), Truthwitch (Epic fantasy/ Romance), A Great and Terrible Beauty (Historical fantasy/ Portal fantasy)(YA), Rebel Angels (Historical fantasy/ Portal fantasy/ Romance)(YA), The Bone Witch (Epic fantasy/ Romance) (YA), The Wrath and the Dawn (Retelling/ Romance/ Historical fantasy)(YA), East (Retelling/ Historical fantasy/ Romance)(YA), The Falconer (Historical fantasy, Steampunk, Romance)(YA), Uprooted (Epic fantasy/ Retelling)(A), Tales of the Peculiar (Fairy tales/ Short stories)(YA), The Tethered Mage (Epic fantasy/ Mystery)(A), The Defiant Heir (Epic fantasy)(A), The Library at Mount Char (Urban fantasy), Circle of Magic: Sandry's Book (Children's fantasy)(YA), Sabriel (Epic fantasy/ Gothic fantasy)(YA), Lirael (Epic fantasy/ Gothic fantasy)(YA), The Star Touched Queen (Retelling/ Romance/ Epic fantasy)(YA), Nightfall (Thriller/ Low fantasy)(YA), Monstress (Epic fantasy/ Horror/ Comic)(A), The Wicked and the Divine (Urban fantasy/ Mythology/ Comic)(YA), Torn (Romance/ Epic fantasy)(A), Three Dark Crowns (Epic fantasy/ Gothic fantasy/ Romance)(YA), Rosemary and Rue (Urban fantasy/ Mystery)(A), A Natural History of Dragons (Fantasy of Manners)(A), The Tropic of Serpents (Fantasy of Manners)(A), The Voyage of the Basilisk (Fantasy of Manners)(A), In the Labyrinth of Drakes (Romance/ Fantasy of Manners)(A), American Gods (Urban fantasy)(A), Daughters of the Storm (Epic fantasy)(A), The Shadow Queen (Retelling)(YA), The Legend of Holly Claus (Juevnile fantasy)(YA), The Language of Thorns (Retelling/ Short Stories)(YA)

Science Fiction: 10 (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Soft SF)(A), A Closed and Common Orbit (Soft SF/ Biopunk)(A), Record of a Spaceborn Few (Soft SF/ Generation Ships)(A), Leviathan Wakes (Space Opera/ Crime Noir/ Alien Invasion)(A), Caliban's War (Space Opera/ Alien Invasion)(A), Invisible Planets (Anthologies/ Translated/ Soft SF/ Hard SF)(A), Ancillary Justice (Hard SF/ Space Opera)(A), Under the Never Sky (Survival/ Romance)(YA), The Knife of Never Letting Go (Survival/ Alien)(YA), Illuminae (Survival/ Soft SF/ Cyberpunk)(YA)

Science Fantasy: 3 (contains magic and technology): 3 (The Paper Menagerie (Short stories)(A), Robots vs Fairies (Anthologies)(A), Red Sister (Grim dark fantasy/ Epic fantasy)(A))

Dystopian/ Post Apocalypse: 8 (survival's the name of the game): Our Dark Duet (urban fantasy/ post apocalyptic)(YA), Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Contemporary/ apocalyptic)(YA), Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (Contemporary/ apocalyptic)(YA), After (Anthology/ dystopian/ apocalyptic), The Registry (Dystopia/ Action)(YA), The Collection (Dystopia)(YA), Ignite Me (Dystopian/ Science fiction/ Romance)(YA), The Call (Contemporary fantasy/ Portal fantasy/ Horror/ Apocalyptic)(YA))

Literary Fiction (lacks magic or new technology): 6 (Beauty Queens (Contemporary/ Satire)(YA), Code Name Verity (Historical fiction)(YA), Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Philosophical fiction)(A), The Virgin Suicides (Contemporary)(A), Front Lines (Alternate history/ historical)(YA), The Red Tent (Historical/ Biblical fiction)(A), The Giving Tree (Poetry)(YA))

Non Fiction: 4 (Princesses Behaving Badly, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds, You Are a Badass)

2019 Goals:

I did a T5W outlining my 2019 reading goals, and I promised I would talk about them more in this post. So I'm going to conclude my Yearly Wrap Up post by discussing what I hope to accomplish in my 2019 reading year. For starters I have a goal that I'm carrying over from 2018 and that is to read a wider genre of books. I wanted to accomplish this last year, but going into 2019 I have a better idea of what specific genre's I would like to try more of. This year I really started to transition from YA fantasy to Adult fantasy, but I haven't given up on YA yet. I want to try some YA contemporary and magical realism, but as of right now I only have specific picks in mind for this. I want to read more historical fiction and historical fantasy, like the Golem and the Jinni. I enjoy reading about settings from different time periods, especially if they have magical elements, I just need to be careful about finding books that don't get heavy handed with a crappy romance. I want to read more science fiction, specifically Adult Science fiction, since I haven't come across a YA science fiction that intrigues me. I'm sill trying to learn what exactly I like in science fiction, but I know I like character driven stories, like Becky Chamber's series. I knew I would like to attempt the New Weird and Hard science fiction genre's but at the same time I'm a little intimidated by them. I also want to get back into literary fiction, including adult dystopian's and classics. I used to have no problem reading classics and would read 1 or 2 a month, then I just got burned out by it, but I want to pick up that genre again. In terms of fantasy, I still expect that to be the genre that I read the most of put there are still some things I would like out of 2019. I've already said that I'm leaning more toward Adult fantasy and wanting to read more historical fantasy, but I would also like to read more fantasy standalone's. That's something I wanted to do in 2018 but sadly did not find any new ones that I really loved. I also want to read more anthologies or short story collections, in any genre really, because that was something that I discovered that I really liked in 2018 and want more of. The next reading goal I want to accomplish in 2019 is to complete is to finish at least 5 series. For this I'm counting anything that is 3 books or more as a series. I finished 7 series in 2018 but 2 of those were duologies, and I feel like those are super easy to finish. There are several series that I started I won't be completing or the series isn't completed yet. Fortunately most of the series that aren't completed yet I already know I'm not going to continue, and the rest are either being completed this year or have a large number of books that I need to get through for me to catch up with the series. With that being said there are at least 3 series that I will definitely be finishing this year: the Memoirs of Lady Trent, The Registry, and the Swords and Fire series, and I have also already completed one series, so this is goal I can definitely tackle by the end of the year, maybe even half way through the year. Something else I want to accomplish this year was to go to at least two book events, but that's going to be difficult to do. Most of the bigger book events or conventions, are over 8 hours away. I could also attend book signing events but all of the others that I want signatures from are either not doing events or are doing ones not within a close driving distance for me. That might change as the year progresses, but for now I'm not expecting to be able to accomplish this goal and will instead invest my time in completing a reading challenge, which I was not able to accomplish this year. Another goal for 2019 is to read more diverse books. I want to read more books with POC people as POV characters, or disabled characters, or on the LGBTQ spectrum. I think I've been progressively getting better about that over the years but where I really want to focus on is more diverse authors. As you can see from the statistics section my reading from last year was heavily skewed toward white authors. I want to change that and work toward at least having more POC authors, and almost all the brand new books on my TBR pile are from POC authors and I'm excited to get to most of them (although all authors I've read this year so far are Caucasian). I would also like to read more books by authors that are diverse in other ways beside their ethnicity but it's more difficult to identify those things. Like last year there's only a few couple authors that I'm pretty sure qualify in that way, but I'm not absolutely sure. My final reading major reading goal of 2019 is to get through half of my reread TBR pile. About half way through last year, I decided to go through all my books that I hadn't tabbed and reread them. I wanted to do this for a few reasons. I have a small bookshelf and large container and that's about all the room I have for books, including my non fiction ones. As I read more new books and find new series that I enjoy, that means that there will need to be more room. So rereading books will hopefully help me be able to tell which books I should keep and which ones I should give away. I also want to reread all these books in order to better review them and have a fresh opinion of them. At the beginning of this year I have about 50 books, and I know I'm not going to get through them all this year, so I set a more realistic goal with tackling half of my TBR which would be about 25 books. The last thing I want to talk about is the reading challenge's I'm currently participating in. On Goodreads I have set the yearly amount of books I read to 50. That was my goal last year, and I ended up reading 80 books, so I think setting it at 50 again is something I can manage. I'm also doing the PopSugar 2019 Reading Challenge, which I tried to do last year but failed to complete. How I want to accomplish that this year is by always reading a book that is can be applied to one of the prompts, that way I'm knocking out these prompts as quickly as possible. The last reading challenge I'm doing is a group on Goodreads called The Reading Frenzy, which I joined toward the end of last year. They have several monthly reading challenges, but this year it has been announced that every month there will be a pick my TBR Reading Challenge, which means every month you will be randomly matched with a person, and will pick one book for the other to read that month. I look forward to doing this, just because I like that random element to it, and this will help my slim down my Goodreads TBR (as long as I can get a physical copy of the book). So that sums up my 2018 reading year as well as what all I hope to accomplish in 2019. I look froward to it, and hopefully it's going to be a good year for everyone.

Thank You Everyone

Keep Calm and Keep Reading

#yearly wrap up #books #reading goals #2018 #2019 #reading stats

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klararaskaj-blog · 5 years

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Paranormal books to read

20. The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, by Mario Acevedo (2006) This is the first book in Acevedo’s Felix Gomez saga, a series that went a long way toward redefining the genre when it was released in ‘06. And talk about great opening lines: “I don’t like what Operation Iraqi Freedom has done to me. I went to the war a soldier; I came back a vampire…” 19. Forbidden Feelings By Sherlyn Peterson (2018) Sabastian Jones has always been a player, never staying with the same girl for more than a few late night booty calls and for good reason; he doesn't belong in the human world. But when he meets Olivia Miles, a hot young nurse, at the club during one of his hunts, he is left confused by feelings he didn't think he was capable of having anymore. Torn between keeping her for himself or protecting her from the secrets and death that surround his life, he is forced to make a choice; turn her or kill her. 18. No Hero, by Jonathan Wood (2011) This sadly underrated debut is one of the most audacious novels I’ve ever read. The novel’s main character, Oxford police detective Arthur Wallace, is obsessed with Kurt Russell. Throw in conjoined triples, an antisocial ninja assassin, prophesizing twin girls who live in a pool with octopi, battery-licking sorcerers, grimoires hidden in Peruvian temples, killer cats, and more tentacled monstrosities than you can shake a sword at, and you have an unforgettable read! 17. Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire (2009) The first book in McGuire’s October Daye saga, this series is an utterly readable fusion of dark fantasy, mythology, and hard-boiled mystery. It’s a profoundly deep series that is at times filled with starkness and existential angst and at others with breathtaking images of magic and beauty. 16. Moon Called, by Patricia Briggs (2006) The first Mercy Thompson novel, this series has experienced a few ups and downs in the last few installments, but for my money, Moon Called has to be on this list. A sexy, tattooed shape-shifting auto mechanic, Mercy is arguably one of the most memorable paranormal fantasy heroines ever created. 15. Already Dead, by Charlie Huston (2005) Huston’s first novel featuring vampire Joe Pitt, this series expanded the boundaries of paranormal fantasy. In my review, I described this novel as “a savage and sardonic novel that blends blood-sucking fantasy and horror elements with the hard-boiled style of noir thrillers.” 14. and Falling, Fly, by Skyler White (2010) White’s debut novel was an intensely passionate, sublimely poetic, soul-rending work of art. The entire novel—which revolves around the relationship between a vampiric fallen angel named Olivia and Dominic, a neuroscientist with a “bizarre” affliction—reads like dark ethereal poetry. Unforgettable. 13. Four and Twenty Blackbirds, by Cherie Priest (2005) Priest’s debut and the first of her Eden Moore novels, this haunting and poetic read marked the fledgling steps of a writer who has become one of the most innovative—and significant—figures in genre fiction. This novel and its two sequels are vastly underrated. 12. Blue-Blooded Vamp, by Jaye Wells (2012) The concluding volume of Wells’s stellar Sabina Kane saga, this is how you end a series! This novel is chock full of shocking plot twists and bombshell revelations. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this series will go down as one of the best paranormal fantasy sagas of all time. It’s that good. 11. The Taken, by Vicki Pettersson (2012) This was just an amazing read. From my review: “This novel transcends genre categorization—yes, paranormal fantasy readers will LOVE this novel but so too will hardcore mystery and romance fans and, most importantly of all, mainstream fiction fans. This is Vicki Pettersson’s coming out party—and we’re all invited.” 10. A Rush of Wings, by Adrian Phoenix (2008) Phoenix’s debut novel—and first installment of The Maker’s Song saga—is one of the edgiest series out there. I mean, c’mon! How can you go wrong with a duo that includes an undead rock star and a sexy FBI agent? A hugely under-appreciated series. 9. Dead to the World, by Charlaine Harris (2004) The fourth book in Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, this is when the series really got good for me. You can say what you want about the HBO series True Blood but, regardless, this is an iconic series featuring an iconic heroine. 8. Tempest Rising, by Nicole Peeler (2009) The beginning of one of the most beloved paranormal fantasy series on the shelves, the novels are powered by selkie-halfling heroine Jane True, who is in many ways the the antithesis of the conventional paranormal fantasy heroine. She’s short, not exactly athletic, socially awkward, works in a bookstore, and instead of wearing stiletto heels and leather miniskirts, Jane rocks comfortable jeans and purple Converse. I love this series! 7. Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton (2003) LKH’s Anita Blake saga is easily the most divisive saga on the shelves. This long-running—and historically significant—series has had its ups and downs over the years, but a high point for me was Cerulean Sins, still my favorite book in the series. 6. Greywalker by Kat Richardson (2006) Richardson’s debut novel and beginning of her Greywalker saga, one of my all-time favorite series. Featuring Seattle-based private investigator Harper Blaine, who can see into the realm of the dead, these novels are exceptionally written and almost flawless in their execution. Classy and classic, this is one series that will stand the test of time. 5. Blood Blade by Marcus Pelegrimas (2009) The Skinners novels read like a cool, supernatural-powered video game—nonstop action, ghastly monsters, unique weapons, intriguing and well-developed protagonists, and plot twists around every turn. But the series is so much more than that. It’s a highly addictive blend of splatterific horror, dark fantasy, mystery, supernatural thriller, and sardonic social commentary. I’ve called Pelegrimas “the Bram Stoker of the 21st Century” for good reason. 4. Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane (2010) The first novel in Kane’s Downside saga, this is the most socially significant fantasy saga I’ve ever read. From my review: “Never before in paranormal fantasy have I read a series that features the combination of grand-scale world building, labyrinthine mystery, superb character development, and social relevance. Stacia Kane’s Downside saga is taking paranormal fantasy to another level…” 3. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher (2005) Butcher’s Dead Beat—the seventh installment in his Dresden Files—was a blockbuster book when it was first released. Not only was it the first Dresden Files novel to be released in hardcover, it was a clear indication of just how much the series had expanded to embrace mainstream fiction readers. The first printing sold out in a just few days! The commercial success of the Dresden Files paved the way for countless other noteworthy protagonists, including Charlie Huston’s Joe Pitt and Mario Acevedo’s Felix Gomez. 2. Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey (2009) An in-your-face fusion of fantasy, horror, and hard-boiled mystery. It’s Kadrey’s biting wit that makes this novel so unforgettable. His blunt and acerbic writing style makes for simply addictive reading. For example, here’s how he describes Los Angeles: “L.A. is what happens when a bunch of Lovecraftian elder gods and porn starlets spend a weekend locked up in the Chateau Marmont snorting lines of crank off Jim Morrison’s bones. If the Viagra and illegal Traci Lords videos don’t get you going, then the Japanese tentacle porn will.” Classic. 1. For a Few Demons More, by Kim Harrison (2007) The fifth installment of Harrison’s phenomenally popular Hollows saga featuring endearing gray witch Rachel Morgan and company, this novel was the first hardcover release in the series and, at least for me, heralded its ascension to elite series status. With only two novels to go until the series concludes, there is no doubt in my mind that the Hollows saga will go down as arguably the very best paranormal fantasy series ever written.

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