Wednesday, December 30, 2015

My Top Reads of 2015






Below are my favorite books that I read this year, some may have been published many years ago but these are my top rated books from 2015.
A word about my rating system, I use a star rating system on my BookList spreadsheet.  I rate anywhere from 1 star (Did Not Finish/Not Good) to 5 stars (Utter Perfection/No Complaints).  I am rather stingy with my 5 stars so the books below also include some of my 4.5 star ratings (Near Perfection).


Author:                                Title:                            Rating:                            Category:

Sarah Donati                      Into the Wilderness       4.5                               Historical Fiction

Diana Galbaldon               An Echo in the Bone       5                                  Historical Fiction/Outlander #7

Harlan Coben                     The Stranger                    5                                  Mystery/Thriller

Kristen Hannah                 The Nightingale                5                                  Historical Fiction

Christina Lauren               Beautiful Stranger           5                                   Romance/Beautiful Series

Jojo Moyes                         Me Before You               4.5                                 Fiction

Melanie Harlow                 Frenched                        5                                    Romance/Frenched Series #1

H. Cocks & J. Morgan      The Royal We                  5                                    Fiction

Helena Hunting                 Pucked                           4.5                                   Romance/Pucked Series #1

Colleen Hoover                 November 9                  4.5                                   Fiction/New Adult

PD James             Death Comes to Pemberly        4.5                                   Fiction

Alice Clayton                      Nutz                               4.5                                    Romance

Harlan Coben                     Gone for Good             4.5                                    Mystery/Thriller 

As you can see I read many different genres but I was on a bit of a romance kick this year.  I found some really amazing new authors (Helena Hunting, Colleen Hoover) but also enjoyed some old favorites (Harlan Coben, Christina Lauren). Harlan Coben is always a good read for me as I have never not loved a single one of his books!

If I had to pick an absolute favorite/You Must Read This for the year I would recommend for Romance buffs:
 The Frenched Series and Helena Hunting’s Pucked. 
 

If you are more inclined toward fiction or thrillers:
 Again, Harlan Coben is #1 in my opinion

 Jane Austen fans will love Death Comes to Pemberly, and I have recommended the Outlander series and The Nightingale to everyone I know!


Here’s to an amazing 2016 full of great reads!

Monday, December 28, 2015

High Interest by Leigh James




Synopsis:  Lauren Taylor is a medical scientist and her job is her life.  Lauren is the CEO of a billion-dollar biomedical company, Paragon Laboratories. On the brink of a major medical discovery, nothing interferes with her work. The only thing she's not prepared for? Her attraction to Gabriel Betts, the gorgeous CEO of another Silicon Valley startup that wants to partner up with Paragon to help them expand worldwide.

Neither Gabe nor Lauren expect the danger that's lurking in Silicon Valley... white-collar business can be very dangerous especially with billions at stake!

This is part one of three of the Paragon series.

Thoughts:

*Intrigued from the start-scientist girl-YAY!  A little choppy and would like more background info to start but super smart science girl meets hot science nerd guy? Yes!

*Some little things seemed implausible (25 year old college dropout head of a billion dollar bio-medical company??) but not enough to bother me or keep me from reading the rest of the story.

*I will be getting Part Two to see where this story goes.  Interesting and not often seen storyline but I do hope that Lauren get a backbone and stands up for herself a little more.  I don’t like wishy-washy females in my stories!

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and gets lots of books for Christmas!



Thursday, December 17, 2015

The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle

The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle (A Book Club Mystery #2) by Laura DiSilverio
     Amy-Faye Johnson’s book club, the Readaholics, are currently reading Murder on the Orient Express, and Poirot’s surprising resolution is stirring up debate but Amy-Faye has bigger problems coming her way!
     Amy-Faye is planning the grand opening party of her brother, Derek’s pub and right in the middle of the big party; his hot-headed partner is murdered. To keep Derek from being put away for good and labeled a murderer for the rest of his life, Amy-Faye and the Readaholics use their recent Poirot experience to investigate. The group starts investigating and soon realizes that the deceased had A LOT of enemies and no one to really mourn the loss. Is it possible that there is more than one murderer?
     This was a great read for me-lots of suspects, action and a little bit of romance all brought together in an excellent mystery that kept me guessing until the end! I loved the characters and the town of Heaven, Colorado, as well as the interesting backdrop of party planning, book club, and the brewery. I will definitely be continuing on with this series!


The Readaholics-book #2
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Here we go....

Welcome!


I will start off with complete honesty here: I am not a writer and have never claimed to be! 


There now that that is out of the way....I love books, just about any kind of books!  I love to read and I figured I would give this blog thing a try and to be honest (again), I am mainly doing this read/review thing to have an excuse for more books. :)


I'm sure I will make plenty of grammatical errors, use too many commas, and generally annoy some Grammar Nazis but you'll just have to deal with it or move on....I'm not here to be perfect or even to be popular and get tons of readers-I just want to share my love of books. I enjoy reading and if sharing my opinions on books and authors helps someone else to find their own love of reading then so be it!


I can't honestly say how often I will post but I'm going to give this a shot and see where it takes me. Thank you and enjoy!