Friday, December 05, 2014

Best Books of 2014 and a Christmas Book Selection

I've read 165 books so far in 2014, and rated 27 of them as 5 stars on Goodreads. I suppose I should wait until the end of the year to see if any more books rate 5 stars, but I was thinking about end of year lists, so I'll go ahead and list these here now.

The Runestone Incident, by Neve Maslakovic
The Language of Spells & The Secrets of Ghosts, both by Sarah Painter
A Second Chance, & A Trail Through Time, both by Jodi Taylor
The Damsel and the Daggerman, by Delilah S. Dawson
Mission to Murder & Guidebook to Murder, both by Lynn Cahoon
Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin
The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives, by Blaize & John Clement
Midnight Crossroad, by Charlaine Harris
Don't Look Back, by Greg Hurwitz
The White Magic Five and Dime, by Steve Hockensmith
Vanished, by Kendra Elliot
Second Star to the Right, by Mary Alice Monroe
Serpent's Kiss & Oracle's Moon, both by Thea Harrison
When I Found You & Take Me With You, both by Catherine Ryan Hyde
One Breath Away, by Heather Gudenkauf
Half Off Ragnarok and The Winter Long, both by Seanan McGuire
Night Broken, by Patricia Briggs
Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch
Mortal Danger, by Ann Aguirre
Hard Return, by J. Carson Black

I've loaded my Kindle apps with a bunch of Christmas books, and that's what I intend to concentrate on in the weeks before Christmas. These look like the best bets so far, mostly anthologies:

Cozy Christmas Capers, a holiday short story collection
My True Love Gave to Me, a holiday story anthology edited by stephanie Perkins
Cat Deck the Halls and Cat Coming Home, both by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Fatal Fruitcake, by Mary Kay Andrews
Kiss of Christmas Magic, a paranormal holiday anthology
A Fantastic Holiday Season, an anthology edited by Kevin J. Anderson
A Fantastic Holiday Season Volume 2, a anthology edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Keith J. Olexa
Let it Snow, a speculative fiction holiday nthology
Let it Snow, three holiday romances edited by John Green
A Cosmic Christmas, edited by Hank Davis
A Cosmic Christmas 2 You, edited by Hank Davis

And of course, there's always Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, by Connie Willis