The Pull My Finger Viking says, “C'mere 2012, I got one more thing to tell you.”
Heh. I will never lose my love for that cover.
So it's the end of 2012! Before we start celebrating the new year, and trying to remember to write “2013” on our checks (except for everyone who works in publishing, who are probably thinking “2014? Or is it 2015?” when they grab their checkbooks), I have two last things!
One: Thank you! Thank you for another fun year of romance and silliness. I love talking with you all every day, and hearing from you in the comments, via email, on Twitter and on Facebook and wherever else about what you're reading, what you're looking for, and how much you love romance. Thank you for being here, and being part of the community
In your honor, I'm making a donation to First Book, a charity devoted to inspiring literacy in children. (They're four-star rated on Charity Navigator, yay!) First Book distributes books and educational materials to children in the US and Canada, and focuses on encouraging and increasing childhood literacy. And since we all, I think, remember our first romance, I like to think that many of those children remember the first book they read or received as their own.
Two: One last question! What's one book you read this year that you would recommend someone read first next year? What one book this year stuck with you, was the most memorable – even for all the crazysauce reasons? Share share!
I hope your new year, whenever you celebrate (like Australia, where I think they celebrated last week or something and it's already 2016 there), is joyful and warm and filled with all the people and words you love. Happy New Year! Cheers!
2012 was a year where I broadened my reading taste out of the rut I’d been in for a copule years. When I was younger, I read widely, but getting to middle age I think I’d narrowed too much. So I rediscovered sci-fi with Jon Scalzi this year – recommended and gave Old Man’s War to lots of people, including my father-in-law. For romance, I liked Hot Zone by Catherine Mann, What I Did for a Duke, a second on Hearts of Darkness (very different from what I usually read), a bunch of Sabrina York novellas at Ellora’s Cave (I had no idea, absolutely no idea, that the genre of erotica horror existed until I read that scary plant story. Stopped gardening all fall). Also in 2012 for the first time I read superhero stuff, across many genres – Anna Alexander at Ellora’s Cave, illustrated stuff like “Johnny Hiro: Half Asian, All Hero”, etc. I like having a wider range of books to think and talk about, and a lot of different great characters. This year I vow to start Lois McMaster Bujold (I’m clearly the last person in the world who hasn’t read any of them).
I read so many good books this year that I’m really having trouble picking just one. I’m going to leave The Hunger Games off the list, because I assume everyone has already read it or is at least aware of it. So, this leaves me with two recommendations (sorry for breaking the rules): Castaway Dreams by Darlene Marshall, and Mariana by Susanna Kearsley. Dreams is fun and adorable and lighthearted—everything that a romance should be, in my opinion. Mariana is gorgeously written, beautifully detailed, slow-paced (but never plodding), and oh, so rewarding. I can’t choose between them, because they appeal to different facets of my love for reading.
I would recommend Ben Aaronovich’s Peter Grant series to start the New Year.
I read over 200 books this year some new, some old favs, some backlist that were new to me. I really liked Gun Metal Magic by Ilona Andrews, the book cracked me up.
Happy New Year SBTB, I’ll make a donation too, thanks for a fabulous blog year!
I just read Cordelia’s Honor a few weeks ago. Great book. Great Heroine!
Thanks for another wonderful year of laughter and book crazy-ness, Sarah! 🙂
The book (okay, books) I’d rec that everyone read, like NOW, would be Marquita Valentine’s Holland Spring series. I just read all of them this past week (0.5-2.5) and I’m anxiously awaiting Sebastian’s book, out in a few months. I may have begged and pleaded with Marquita on Twitter for an eARC. Maybe. Chocolate also may have been involved in my begging. 🙂
The books are all so sexy and fun and sweet just plain awesome! Once you pick up one, you’ll want to read them all! Christian has a sexy tattoo, Sasha has pierced nipples, and Sebastian, I hear, has a sexy piercing of his own… Oh, I can’t wait! 😀
Enjoy!
TBQ
Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness and Code Name: Verity by Elizabeth Wein
SueR
If you’ve got the time, don’t be afraid of the super thick Game of Thrones. If you don’t have the time, Bloody Jack is a delightful and quick read.
I’m so glad I got some e-book credit for Christmas. After all the sales that have been mentioned and this list I’ve got more than enough books to see me through the drought that is January until all the authors I’m waiting on release books.
This year I discovered Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires. Being late to this discovery meant I had BOOKS to read in a series and I fluked finishing up just before the latest release in August. Like another before me on this list – I bought the t-shirt. If you like paranormal – I’d highly recommend this series.
I’d like to thank Sarah and everyone here who makes SBTB so great. I’ve discovered new authors (romance and not) via this site and always enjoy the fun that is ever present here.
Happy New Year.
Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. I hated the beginning, the characters are ugly and everyone is despicable, except the dead guy. But I hung in there, and by the end, I was racing the clock to finish so I wouldn’t be late to work. Now I’m rereading to see how she did it. If this is dark humor, it’s the 79% cacao beans dark chocolate of dark humor, but I loved it by the time I was finished. I stayed up late to finish last night so it could qualify as best book of 2012.
Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray (then I went back and read all the rest of her stuff. Middle age romance made real for some, others just great stories.) Silence by Michelle Sagara. Amazing book. I discovered Julia Fleming-Spencer’s Claire Fergusson & Russ van Alstyne mysteries. Courtney Milan, as above.
Everybody should read The Phoenix Requiem, a dark-fantasy/romance graphic novel—it’s online free (yes, the complete novel) and it’s awesome. I loved the visual style, the worldbuilding, the plot which is just the right length, the characters, and the heartrending emotions. Warning that it is fairly dark!
I was really blown away by The Siren by Tiffany Reisz. It was a total surprise.
My new this year massive author crushes are Patrick Rothfuss and Ruthie Knox. Whole new world of squee. (Obviously for Rothfuss one would start with the first in the series. For Knox About Last Night was my favorite, and Ride With Me is also excellent, but I’m pretending the novella of hers I read in an anthology was written by someone else, someone with whom I am *not* infatuated.)
My favorite book I read this year is Stendhal’s Red and Black, but that’s one of my favorite books ever and obviously did not come out recently, so I’m not sure if it counts. It’s not a HEA, but it’s just. so. good. And talk about author crushes. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re like, totally meant to be together. It’s for realz.
Code Name Verity is the best YA novel I read all year. It’s so much better than Hunger Games, it’s not even funny (not the same genre – but millions of teen girls ought to be reading THIS). Really, run out and get it, everyone. Friendship between 2 young British women in WW11, one a pilot, one a spy. It’s harrowing and exhilarating.
Best: Moonglow by Kristen Callihan or Firelight, the first book in the series. Also loved A Notorious Countess Confesses by Julie Ann Long, she writes great books
yes! So flipping good!
Ilona Andrews all the way! Both the Edge series and the Magic series. Loved them both even though they were set in very different worlds.
LOL!! This was the year that I fell for self-published Amazon interracial shorts. They are mostly kinda bad. Maybe even more than a little kinda bad. Some of them are just awful. My first one, the one that I love for reasons that I don’t even understand because when I’m being coherent and objective I fully admit that it is a bad book, is J-Pop Love Song by Shiree McCarver. It’s not only an AMBW (Asian Male/Black Woman) romance, but the heroine is a curvy girl TWICE the hero’s age AND she’s pretty big stuff career-wise. In fact they meet because he wants to be the lead in her movie and she doesn’t think he’s grown up enough to handle the part. HA!!
However, let me say, officially on the record, that I am very glad that interracial romances are things that are being written.