2018 Round Up

2018 has been a tough reading year for me, well at least the last three months. Not sure if it was the biggest book funk I have ever been in or blogger burn out, but I just could not read for love or money. My head was in totally the wrong place and every book I picked up just couldn't keep my attention. My inclination to read evaporated and so I spent the last three months listening to Crime Thriller audiobooks, my second reading passion and just a few books that really caught my attention or what friends told me would get me out of my funk.

Despite hardly reading for the last three months, I still hit my reduced reading challenge of 300 books, finishing my last book around 10pm on New Years Eve, that was cutting it close, but I was desperate to hit it. I re-read all my unicorn books in December and even they couldn't help me.

Anywho, I'm not going to dwell on my reading annus horriblis (as the Queen would say) and I'm hoping to start 2019 off with a bang and plunge myself back into blogging and just taking it at my own pace, still reading for pleasure and fun while promoting the authors and books that I love.

In 2018 I had 39 five star reads, by 27 different authors. My favourites of the year, with three five star books a piece was Monica James, Kate Stewart, Ella Frank and Jewel E Ann. These ladies really wrote their socks off this year. Monica James with Forgetting You, Remembering Me and her Sins of the Heart Duet. Kate Stewart with The Real, Someone Else's Ocean and her collaboration with Heather M Orgeron with Heartbreak Warfare. Ella Frank with her Confessions series, one of the best M/M series I have ever read and finally Jewel E Ann, with Look the Part and her epic Transcend Duet.

I have read many, many new to me authors this year as well as debut authors and some of them have hit my five star list this year. I love finding hidden talent and cannot wait to expand my author horizons even further going forward.

So, my top ten this year is as follows:-

1) Heartbreak Warfare by Kate Stewart and Heather M Orgeron

2) All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

3) Danes Storm by Mia Sheridan

4) Misadventures of a College Girl by Lauren Rowe

5) The Fifth to Die (4MK Thriller) by JD Barker 

6) Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan

7) Dying Truth (DI Kim Stone Series) by Angela Marsons

8) Epoch and Transcend by Jewel E Ann

9) Cinq a Sept by MJ Fields

10) Verity by Colleen Hoover 

and these are followed by these other epic reads (in no particular order)

Three Blind Dates by Meghan Quinn

Secret Lucidity by EK Blair

Someone Else's Ocean by Kate Stewart

Combust by K Bromberg

The Real by Kate Stewart

Look the Part by Jewel E Ann

Forgetting You, Remembering Me by Monica James

The Smallest Part by Amy Harmon

Confessions: Robbie by Ella Frank

Wait With Me by Amy Daws

Reckoning by Jessica Ruben

Even Money by Alessandra Torre

Absinthe of the Heart by Monica James 

Doppelbanger by Heather M Orgeron

One Baby Daddy by Meghan Quinn

Rebel Heart by Penelope Ward and Vi Keeland

Rough Edge by CD Reiss

Confessions: Julien by Ella Frank

Contracted by Marni Mann

Disgrace by Brittainy C Cherry

Second Chance by BJ Harvey

Sweet Insanity by Desiree Adele

Confessions: Priest by Ella Frank

Block Shot by Kennedy Ryan

No Tomorrow by Carian Cole

Beautiful Chaos by Riley Hart

Defiance of the Heart by Monica James

Cards of Love: The Devil by Ashley Jade

I hope that you have all had a great reading year too and would love to know our favourites so that I can add to mine. Here's to another year filled with amazing words, amazing books and the amazing authors that keeps our hobby going and going and going.

Thanks to the authors that pour their blood, sweat and tears into these books, I truly appreciate every single one of them. You all matter!