I’m stealing this from the ever-fabulous Sarah @ Dreams and Dragons, and I’m tweaking some of the questions from “in the second half of the year” to just the year in general, given that I didn’t do one of these for the first half. XD
(Also, I was going to link to the books, but given how many of them I reference in this post, that sounds exhausting. So I will point you in the direction of this list of things I read in 2018, where you can find most of the books. And if I do links to books in the post, it will be to reviews I wrote. :))
1. Best book you’ve read in 2018
I will be doing a top 15 reads of 2018 post soon! (Once I put together my reading lists and make difficult life decisions like what I loved most. Being a bookworm is haaard.)
But off the top of my head I’m going to say . . . Echo North (which I JUST finished!) and The Electrical Menagerie and Lady Moon. ALL SO GOOD. ❤ ❤ ❤ There will be others in my upcoming post!
2. Best sequel you’ve read in 2018
Minstrel’s Call, Sage, and Song of Leira. I HAVE SO MANY FEELS. I LOVE THEM ALL. They were all actually CONCLUSIONS to series and absoluly blew me away and just… my heart! ❤
3. New release you haven’t read yet but want to
So many! But I think I’ll go with the first Green Princess book which I STILL haven’t read. And Rothana (because Halayda was amazing) and I’m sooo excited to get my copy in the mail sometime. 😀 *curls up on mailbox in the form of a small dragon and waits*
4. Most anticipated release for next year
I have a few, but Flight of the Raven is up there on the list!
Also The Mountain Baron because I beta-read it and it’s awesome!
5. Biggest disappointment
Maybe Fawkes? It just wasn’t my favorite and now I feel bad and have no idea how to review it but it’s a review book and this is all really awkward… (Or should I say fawkward?)
6. Biggest surprise
Hmm. I don’t know if there were any huge surprises? I guess I’ll just go with how surprised I was at how much I adored the first Ranger’s Apprentice, which I talked all about here.
7. Favorite new-to-you author
So many, but I’ll pick three: W.R. Gingell, Mollie E. Reeder, and Joanna Ruth Meyer! I’m going to read all of their things. ❤ (People, go add Masque, The Electrical Menagerie, and Echo North to your TBR right now.)
8. Newest fictional crush/ship
Let’s go with ships, shall we? *cough*
SO MANY. In no particular order:
- Malcolm and Melody (The Return of Beaumont and Beasley)
- SPOILERS from Sage
- Kate and Patrick from the Kate’s Case Files books (I read Kate’s Dilemma and Kate’s Conundrum this year)
- Gan and Chouko (Blood in the Snow)
- Tomas and Celine (Lady Moon)
- Damien and Selena (Mark of the Raven)
- Isabella and Lord Pecus (Masque)
- Hal and Echo (Echo North)
9. Newest favorite character(s)
DO YOU WANT TO BE HERE ALL DAY? *cough* For a start:
- Jayden and Dana (various short stories by Arthur Daigle! I NEED these to be a novel so I can share about them to EVERYONE. BECAUSE THEY’RE MY FAVORITE THING.)
- Halt (Ranger’s Apprentice)
- Tomas (Lady Moon)
- The Horse Lords (Masque)
- Todd Crane (Horseman)
- Carthage and Huxley and Dominic (The Electrical Menagerie)
- Damien (Mark of the Raven)
- Chayse (Falling Snow)
- and last but far from least, Hal (Echo North)
And characters who aren’t exactly NEW, since I’ve met them before, but I want to include anyway:
- Kiernan Kane and Brant (Minstrel’s Call)
- Jet and Zekk (Sage)
- Cade (Song of Leira)
- Blaze (Lightporter)
- Nick and Crispin and Malcolm (The Return of Beaumont and Beasley)
- Mairelon (Mairelon the Magician)
- Burndee (A Royal Masquerade)
- Mitt and Navis and ALL THE PEOPLE (The Crown of Dalemark)
I HAVE A LOT OF FAVORITE CHARACTERS, OKAY. ❤
10. A book that made you cry
Song of Leira! You KNOW what part it was if you’ve read it. My feeeeels.
11. A book that made you happy
Oh, so many! But since I’ve already mentioned some in my “favorites” I’ll avoid repeating myself, and I’ll say Common. It just . . . made me happy. ^_^
12. Favorite book to film adaptation you’ve seen this year
I suddenly can’t remember the movies I watched this year. XD I did just see Mortal Engines at the theater and thought it was LOADS OF FUN (go see it) but I haven’t read the book . . . *shame*
I was just watching some episodes of The Return of Sherlock Holmes featuring Jeremy Brett, who I hadn’t watched before, and a couple of those were good adaptions.
We’ll go with those two because they were this month and who even remembers the rest of the year? 😛 (Hint: Not me.)
13. Favorite post(s) you’ve done this year
These are just a few, for this blog… I haven’t checked my other blog for favorites yet. XD
- A Ramble on Ranger’s Apprentice
- The 15 Most Glorious Book Gems I Read In 2017
- March Magics 2018: Wrapup
- I’m Back! + Realm Makers Bookhaul + Bookish News! {August 2018}
- Believing Fairytales by Arthur Daigle: Mini Review (+ Featuring Me Squawking About Jayden Because #Excuses)
- Five Poisoned Apples: Falling Snow by Skye Hoffert (Review!)
14. Most beautiful book you’ve bought/received this year
Oh, man. I feel like there have been so many gorgeous ones! For now I think I’ll go with two I got for Christmas: Blood in the Snow and The Fall of Gondolin (with epic illustrations!!).
15. Any other books you want to babble about for any other reason?
Ohhh, yes. *rubs hands gleefully together* How about a random collection of books that I enjoyed for various reasons (some of which are different than my usual genres so might not make it to my top-books post but we’ll see). And some re-reads and beta-reads.
- Scoundrels was a super-fun sci-fi heist featuring Han Solo (set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back), and it’s by Timothy Zahn so I knew I’d like it, but it was just totally awesome! (They should have made it a movie instead of Solo. XD)
- Dear Mr. Knightley is a contemporary and I had no idea I’d like it as much as I did because it’s totally not my thing, but I loved it.
- Trial by Song was a modern scary-fairy Jack and the Beanstalk retelling with a smidge of Snow White set in winter and was SO INTENSE. O_O
- Healers and Warriors was an awesome continuation of a modern fantasy series that makes me happy, and I loved the twists and characters and… I gotta say, the villain was so creepy and well-written!
- The False Prince and The Stealthmaster’s Shadow had really snarky main characters who told the stories, which gave me life!
- Lightporter and RotoVegas are both really fun YA superhero novels, and just… can we talk about how it’s cool that this is a thing?
I also re-read all the Beaumont and Beasley books that came out last year (because I’m now the Editor of the Afterverse), which was LOADS of fun. (The Return of Beaumont and Beasle and Horseman came out this year, so those were new reads.)
I re-read the Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones, which was a highlight because I’ve been meaning to do that for ages, and The Crown of Dalemark is still one of my top fave DWJ books.
I beta-read three INCREDIBLE books which have yet to be published:
- The Road to Bremen by Kelsey Bryant (releasing in January! I can’t wait to see the cover and illustrations!)
- The Brightest Thread by Tracey Dyck (which I hope will be published someday sooon because it was a stellar Sleeping Beauty novel featuring dreams and Prince Hadrian who is My Fave)
- The Mountain Baron by C. M. Banschbach (releasing summer 2019 and featuring Rhys, my smol floof of anger management issues, and lots of clannishness and outlaws and feels).
I just had to give a shout-out about these!
Okay! I will stop babbling before I end up talking about every book I read this year. XD
What if the job you took to stay alive might be what kills you?
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This may be Becca’s last Christmas, and all she wants is a white Christmas. But with no snow in the forecast, her brother and sister know that might not happen… until they get the idea to track down supervillain Hypothermia for help. With his ice powers, he could create a white Christmas for their sister. There’s only one problem—they have to find him first. Can they discover where Hypothermia is hiding and convince him to make it snow?
The Page Dreamer (Deborah O'Carroll) 