Top 10 of 2019: Captivating Characters (Favorite Characters)

Top 10 of 2019 is hosted once again by Kimberly Faye Reads, and this year she has a co-host Ginger @greadsbooks.   The third topic, captivating characters, tripped me up at first because I started listing book boyfriends immediately, but I decided to save them for one of the later top 10s this week, favorite couples, although I may re-do that subject for myself as top book boyfriends.  We'll see.

1.

As crazy as it may sound, I haven't actually even read his book yet, pictured above, but Cletus Winston is one of my favorite characters even as a supporting character in all the other books I have read in the Winston Brothers series or other SmartyPants Romance books.

2.

Of course I was so happy to get a great new venture into the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it was written by one of my favorite authors, so I love our "new" slayer, Nina, and I look forward to reading her next bit of story in Chosen very soon!

3.

This is the author's second book, and I love her take on historical fiction.  In this case, a person I've always been intrigued by, but haven't read much about, Anastasia, even with the added fantasy or magic in the story.

4. and 5.

The two main characters in this, Lena and Campbell were great leading characters and the whole book was just really good.

6.

I loved the original three books for this series, and now we have a new character, Genevieve, and I have to definitely pick her for this topic.

7.

 

I'll go with Cager in this story, he was a very interesting and funny character.

8.

Violet from the original story in the Pucked series was showing up in several other books and extras by the author this year, so she is one that I adore when she does appear in a story because she is so funny!

9.

He was only a side character in this one, but Roth will always be one of my favorite JLA characters!

10.

Janie is not a new character to me, but I did get to jump back into her life with this audiobook this year, and I enjoy her in the other characters' books in this series.


Have you read any of these books?  Do you know the characters I'm talking about?

If you're interested in joining in to the Top 10 of 2019, you can go to the links at the top for the hosting blogs.  Here are the other topics you'll see coming up:

Also, while you're here, make sure you go enter into my weekly Cleaning Up My TBR Giveaway HERE.  It's open until this Friday until midnight!

Review: Romanov by Nadine Brandes

Book info:

Title:  Romanov
Author:  Nadine Brandes
Genre:  YA Historical Fantasy Retelling
Release Date:  May 7th, 2019
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Source:  ARC received from publisher for review which did not influence my opinion
My rating:  5 stars

Synopsis:
The history books say I died.

They don’t know the half of it.

Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them . . . and he’s hunted Romanov before.

Nastya’s only chances of survival are to either release the spell, and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya’s never dabbled in magic before, but it doesn’t frighten her as much as her growing attraction for Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her . . .

That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.

My Review:
Anastasia's story is one I never knew a lot about, but had always heard little things here and there and always have been interested in reading or learning more about.  So when I heard about this book from the author of Fawkes, I was extremely interested in reading it.  Let me tell you what, it did not disappoint!  I was hooked from the moment I picked this one up, and like the other good historical retellings I've read in the past, it made me want to pick up nonfiction books and do research into the actual family and times that this involved.  It is nice that the author put even a little helpful extra in the back with what were the true known facts of this story, and how she added or changed to fit her own telling of the story.  There was a lot of emotion, seeing how the family was treated, yet how they seemed to treat those around them made a lot of what was done to them very uncalled for.  And then, just when things started to seem kind of like they had an ally or two, horrible things happened, things that I had tears myself!  Then there was Zash.  You wanted to love him, but had to be upset with him because of how he seemed to not ever get past his preconceived notions. But then he did, and in the end, well, I won't spoil anything.  But wow!  So much at the end of this when it really evolved into the fantastical bit of the story.  Of course there was magic interspersed throughout the story, but the final part was where it all really came into play.

I loved the way the Russian nesting doll, otherwise known as a matryoshka doll was used in the story.  It made me want to go open up the one my sister brought me back as a souvenir from her trip to Russia a few years ago just to check it out.  I look forward to putting this book in my library at school as well, and sharing it with students as they study Russia and its history.