Starting off this year in an unusual way, by reading a whole bunch of books I would never read otherwise. Stay tuned for the blog about the MN Book Awards.
Meanwhile, here is January’s totals, my biggest January by far (since I’ve been keeping track, at least.)
January:
- Black Otter Bay – Vincent Wycko
- Boondoggle – Mark Rapacz
- The Born and the Made – Robert Spande
- Crosshairs on Castro – John Harrigan
- Dead Too Long – Ron Handberg
- Demon in the Hole – Richard A. Thompson
- The Devereaux Deity – Steve McEllistrem
- Goodbye to the Dead – Brian Freeman
- Hard to Breathe – Tom Combs
- The Heavens May Fall – Allen Eskens
- In Plain Sight – Greg Gardner
- Interlocking Monsters – Heidi Arneson
- Little Girl Gone – Gerry Schmidt
- Marsco Triumphant – James A. Zarzana
- The Penderghast Puzzle Protectors – Julie Seedorf
- Rise of the Spring Tide – James Stitt
- Sagar’s Tale – James Stitt^
- Salem’s Cipher – Jess Lourey
- Sarah’s Sound – Gary Crask
- The Sixth Idea – P.J. Tracy
- South Texas Tangle – T.K. O’Neill^
- Stealing the Countess – David Housewright
- The Truth About Mallory Bain – Clare Hexom
- Tyranny Begins – Elizabeth Hatcher True
- Warrior’s Revenge – Sherry Roberts
- The Hating Game – Sally Thorne^
- Idol – Kristen Callihan^
So the first 25 were not of my choosing, they were contenders for the book awards, so I had to read them. I don’t recall, exactly, in which order I did read them, so they are alphabetical by title. Primarily these are mystery novels, which is not my cup of tea. However there were some I liked. The best, IMO, was The Heavens May Fall by Allen Eskens. It was a really great story and I’d recommend it to anyone. The mystery is the least interesting part of the story. I liked several others, but I’ll go into them in more detail on my other post.
After all my forced reading, I needed a treat. The Hating Game is a book that came out last year. I saw it then and was interested but never got around to it. Then I saw it on at least five different lists as one of the best books of the year for 2016. So I knew I had to read it. I chose it as the first book I read of the year, of my choosing, with the hope it would be good. It was FANTASTIC. I loved it. I was thrilled to read it and cannot believe it is the author’s first book. Well done, Sally Thorne. I also enjoyed Idol, but it didn’t compare.
Overall an interesting and unusual month of books for me, but I kind of like that. Shakes me from my rut. I’ve read 27 books with a goal of 175. At this pace, I’d read 324, so wow, that’s weird. We shall see how it shakes out.
