Top 10 of 2019: Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2020

Top 10 of 2019 is hosted once again by Kimberly Faye Reads, and this year she has a co-host Ginger @greadsbooks.   Today's topic was the easiest, because even though there are tons of books I'm looking forward to next year, there are ten that definitely stand out the most!

1.

Loved the original His Fair Assassin series, and the book that started us back, Courting Darkness, so I need this one soon!

2.

I really liked the first two in this series and have been patiently waiting for this one, has it been over a year?

3.

Christina Lauren books can be hit or miss on whether I am excited for what the book is about, but this one sounds perfect!

4.

Seeing as the first book in this series was on my top list for last year, it's probably obvious how anxious I am for this one!

5.

I've also mentioned how much I love Cletus Winston, so a whole series where he is solving mysteries?  Sign me up!

6.

I also can't wait for Jackson James to finally get his own HEA.

7.

No cover yet, but I am ready for the conclusion? or at least the third book in yet another series by JLA that I adore!

8.

Even though I don't think I picked the first book, The Haunted, on any of my other Top 10 lists, it was a really good book, so I'm eager to see where the author will take it next.

9.

So, I'm not positive if this is coming out in 2020, it says it is, but the author also mentioned that she is having a bit of trouble with it. But I hope it does, because I love this series!

10.

Now this one comes out in January, so I'm ready for it now though!  I love Hunting's hockey boys, new and old, and I love when she brings the older characters back in these stories as well.

Were any of these books on your TBR for 2020?  If not, I hope maybe I've given you a few to add to your list.

I always love doing these Top 10 lists every year, but kind of sad it's over.  Now on to determining what challenges I'm going to do for next year!

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!

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!

Blog Tour Review with Giveaway: Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers

Book info:

Title:  Courting Darkness
Author:  Robin LaFevers
Series:  Courting Darkness duology #1 (sequel to His Fair Assassin trilogy)
Genre: YA historical fantasy
Release Date:  February 5th, 2019
Publisher:  HMH Books for Young Readers
Source:  ARC received from publisher which did not influence my opinion
My rating:  5 stars

Synopsis:
Death wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning…

Sybella has always been the darkest of Death’s daughters, trained at the convent of Saint Mortain to serve as his justice. But she has a new mission now. In a desperate bid to keep her two youngest sisters safe from the family that nearly destroyed them all, she agrees to accompany the duchess to France, where they quickly find themselves surrounded by enemies. Their one ray of hope is Sybella’s fellow novitiates, disguised and hidden deep in the French court years ago by the convent—provided Sybella can find them.

Genevieve has been undercover for so many years, she struggles to remember who she is or what she’s supposed to be fighting for. Her only solace is a hidden prisoner who appears all but forgotten by his guards. When tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands—even if it means ignoring the long awaited orders from the convent.

As Sybella and Gen’s paths draw ever closer, the fate of everything they hold sacred rests on a knife’s edge. Will they find each other in time, or will their worlds collide, destroying everything they care about?

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, TBD

See where it all began! Grab the His Fair Assassin Trilogy now! You don’t need to read these to read Courting Darkness but they’re amazing!

Grave Mercy- Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, TBD,   My Review

Dark Triumph- Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, TBD,  My Review

Mortal Heart- Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, TBD,   My Review

My Review:
Delving back into the world of the assassins of Saint Mortain was something I'd been looking forward to ever since I heard about this book.  I was worried I'd be unsure of who was who, but it wasn't hard to join with the characters at the stage they were in.  Truly, Sybella had been my favorite, even if her book wasn't my favorite.  The other main character in this book, Genevieve, took me a little bit to come around to. But once I did, I was rooting for her, and hoping that she could have a romance herself, with Maraud, the prisoner she'd rescued from the dungeon, even if the rescue was only to serve her own purposes.  Now when something happened in the book, I kind of assumed it was going to be the prisoner, I won't say what happened, so maybe you won't expect what I did.  So when we did find out who he was, well, all the little puzzle pieces started to fall into place.

The author is great about keeping certain details from coming out until moments that will have the reader gasping in surprise!  The other thing I love is all the history that is interwoven throughout the plot.  The author has a note at the end that does clear up what is actually true and what she had to adjust and tweak to fit her story.  Not only is there an afterward talking about the history of the story, but there is a letter at the beginning to the readers, talking about what motivated her to write further in this world.  It was a touching note, with some deep topics and worth reading. 

The ending of the book left me on the edge of my seat, satisfied with this reunion of some of my favorite characters, but sad that I'll be waiting until 2020 to see what will happen with where we left off.



About the Author:

Robin LaFevers was raised on a steady diet of fairy tales, Bulfinch’s mythology, and 19th century poetry. It is not surprising she grew up to be a hopeless romantic.

Though she has never trained as an assassin or joined a convent, she did attend Catholic school for three years, which instilled in her a deep fascination with sacred rituals and the concept of the Divine. She has been on a search for answers to life’s mysteries ever since.

While many of those answers still elude her, she was lucky enough to find her one true love, and is living happily ever after with him in the foothills of southern California.

In addition to writing about teen assassin nuns in medieval Brittany, she writes books for middle grade readers, including the Theodosia books and the Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist series. You can learn more about those books at www.rllafevers.com.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Tumblr | Goodreads


Giveaway:

• 20 winners will receive His Fair Assassin character card sets, US Only.

   a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

1/21/2018- The Pages In-Between- Review

1/22/2018- Fiction Fare- Review

1/23/2018- YA Books Central- Excerpt

1/24/2018- Two Chicks on Books- Excerpt

1/25/2018- Tales of the Ravenous Reader- Review

Week Two:

1/28/2019- Colorimetry- Review

1/29/2019- Here's to Happy Endings- Review

1/30/2019- A Gingerly Review- Review

1/31/2019- Moonlight Rendezvous- Review

2/1/2019- Novel Novice- Excerpt

Week Three:

2/4/2019- Lisa Loves Literature- Review

2/5/2019- Flyleaf Chronicles- Review

2/6/2019- Smada's Book Smack- Review

2/7/2019- A Backwards Story- Review

2/8/2019- Jena Brown Writes- Review

Week Four:

2/11/2019- Nerdophiles- Review

2/12/2019- Book-Keeping- Review

2/13/2019- Eli to the nth- Review

2/14/2019- Do You Dog-ear?- Review

2/15/2019- Book Briefs- Review

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Lisa's Looking Forward To #4 - February 3rd, 2019

Here are the books that are on my ARC list in my blog planner that will be published this week, on February 5th:

Beautiful cover, and a time travel story, what's not to like?

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Seattle, 1913 // Dorothy is trapped. Forced into an engagement to a wealthy man just so she and her mother can live comfortably for the rest of their days, she’ll do anything to escape. Including sneaking away from her wedding and bolting into the woods to disappear.

New Seattle, 2077 // Ash is on a mission. Rescue the professor—his mentor who figured out the secret to time travel—so together they can put things right in their devastated city. But searching for one man means endless jumps through time with no guarantee of success.

When Dorothy collides with Ash, she sees it as her chance to start fresh—she’ll stow away in his plane and begin a new life wherever they land. Then she wakes up in a future that’s been ripped apart by earthquakes and floods; where vicious gangs rule the submerged city streets and a small group of intrepid travelers from across time are fighting against the odds to return things to normal. What Dorothy doesn’t know is that she could hold the key to unraveling the past—and her arrival may spell Ash’s ultimate destruction. 

Currently reading this sequel series to an earlier favorite series of mine.  Watch out for my review tomorrow!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Death wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning…

Sybella has always been the darkest of Death’s daughters, trained at the convent of Saint Mortain to serve as his justice. But she has a new mission now. In a desperate bid to keep her two youngest sisters safe from the family that nearly destroyed them all, she agrees to accompany the duchess to France, where they quickly find themselves surrounded by enemies. Their one ray of hope is Sybella’s fellow novitiates, disguised and hidden deep in the French court years ago by the convent—provided Sybella can find them.

Genevieve has been undercover for so many years, she struggles to remember who she is or what she’s supposed to be fighting for. Her only solace is a hidden prisoner who appears all but forgotten by his guards. When tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands—even if it means ignoring the long awaited orders from the convent.

As Sybella and Gen’s paths draw ever closer, the fate of everything they hold sacred rests on a knife’s edge. Will they find each other in time, or will their worlds collide, destroying everything they care about?

I've enjoyed other books by this author, and the synopsis sound good as well!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
In a parallel present San Francisco, Natalia Peña works as a hotel maid, practices martial arts, and cares for her eleven-year-old brother, Calvino. In this version of our world, all children start to "wane" when they reach Cal's age; by their teen years, they've lost their ability to feel emotion. But Cal isn't waning. When a mysterious corporation kidnaps him for testing, Natalia's reaction surprises her: she's crushed, and she'll do anything to save her brother from their experiments. But the road to his rescue leads her into the path of a dashing but troubled billionaire's son, a cadre of killers, and, eventually, the shocking truth about waning. Filled with twists and turns, The Waning Age is a powerful mirror that shows us the danger of becoming desensitized to violence and the remarkable, transformative power of love.

I wanted this ARC soooooooooo bad! I tried so hard to get someone to trade with me, but no one wanted anything I had in trade for it unfortunately. So now I'll be waiting till I get it ordered for my school library so my students can read it, and when they don't check it out, I will.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Love. 
Magic. 
Revolution.

When smallpox kills her parents, seventeen-year-old Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic--la magie ordinaire--Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won't hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family's savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

With the dark magic she learned from her mother, Camille transforms herself into 'the Baroness de la Fontaine' and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for la magie. Her resentment of the rich at odds with the allure of glamour and excess, Camille is astonished to find that her would-be suitor Lazare, a handsome young inventor whom she thought shared her dreams of liberty, is also living a double life.

As the Baroness de la Fontaine, Camille gambles at cards and flirts, desperate to maintain her place at court and keep herself and her sister off the streets. But la magie has its costs. When a scheming courtier blackmails her and Lazare's affections shift, Camille loses control of her secrets. Then revolution erupts, and she must choose--love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, reality or la magie--before Paris burns.

Bestselling author of Caraval Stephanie Garber calls Enchantée "a lit firework crackling with treacherous magic, decadent romance, and disguises that take on lives of their own--deliciously addictive!" Gita Trelease's lush, imaginative debut fantasy is perfect for anyone looking for immersive magic in the world of Sofia Copola's Marie Antoinette.


Final Thoughts:
Have you read any of these yet?  Are any of them on your TBR list?  Hey, while you're here, you can check out some of the things I have to trade and try to win one if you go to my post yesterday about Clearing my TBR shelf, HERE.   Oh yeah, I also made a button for this post, like my dachshund with glasses?  

Review: Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin #3) by Robin LaFevers

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this at BEA this past summer.  I've mentioned how much nicer the publishers seemed to be at the booths this year than they had been when I was there two years ago.  I'd seen another person with this one and so I went to their booth, but didn't see any of them sitting out.  The gentleman behind the counter asked what I might be looking for and when I told him it was this book, he said he just might have a copy, and then he went and grabbed one for me from their little cabinet.  Now I had been lucky enough to get an e-galley of the title earlier from Edelweiss, so I have to say thanks to HMH Books for Young Readers, kind of a double thanks!

Once again a series has ended perfectly.  I am so pleased with how this book went. Such a great series.  There was no second book slump, as you could tell from my review of Dark Triumph.  Just like the 2nd one, we are following a different character.  One of the three girls we met in the first two, this time it was Annith.  Who had lived her whole life at the convent.  Even having to deal with the prior abbess who had been cruel to her.  Annith is currently waiting on word from her friends Ismae and Sybella.  And while she waits, she hopes to soon get her own assignment to go out and help with the duchess and all that is going on in their country.  But it doesn't seem to be happening for her.  In fact, with her habit of being able to overhear things behind closed doors, it seems that the latest abbess, who once had seemed to be the one to help Annith out against the Dragonette, wants Annith to take the job of Seeress.  Annith can't imagine anything worse than this.  It is like a death sentence in a way. The Seeress never leaves the convent.  Really never leaves her quarters.  After all the times of being locked in dark rooms, being basically stuck inside for the rest of her life terrifies her.  And so Annith does what she thinks will help, she goes and makes sure to nurse the current seeress back to health, so that they will not need a new one. 

But it doesn't seem to help.  One of the younger girls is sent out instead of Annith, a girl who is not ready.  And Annith goes to protest it, only to find out that the abbess has decided to tell her she is going to train to be seeress. She gives Annith a choice when she refuses.  She can either stay and study to become the seeress, or the abbess will find her a husband from the surrounding area.  So Annith starts doing what she can to try to figure out if there is any way around this.  She's sent her whole life training to be an assassin, and feels that her skills will be wasted if she is stuck there.  When the abbess says she must go on a trip to see what is going on herself outside the convent, Annith must give her answer.  She wants to stay and find answers, so she says yes and begins her training. But once the abbess is gone, she begins looking for answers around the convent.  What she does find only leads to more questions, and so Annith realizes she must run away.  Not just to leave, but to go out and confront the abbess with what she has learned away from the convent.

On her way out she comes across a hunt of dangerous riders.  They are the hellequin, death's riders.  Out to catch people that death is looking for.  She figures maybe they are out looking for her after she's run away from Mortain's convent.  So she pretends to be someone else to use the protection of their leader, Balthazaar. But their hunt never seems to get her to the town she needs to be, and once again she finds herself running away.  But not before she learns more about these soldiers of Mortain.  And on her next escape she gets help from another group of servants to a god, the Arduinnites.  Who aren't really fans of Mortain and his followers.  So she must prove herself to them, even though they do help her.

She will finally reach her friends, and the duchess.  But along with all of them will be the abbess.  And soon she will learn things about her past, who her parents are.  Not to mention she will learn things that will turn everything she has known upside down, and she'll wonder if any of her life has meant anything, or if it was all a lie.  She will find love, with the leader of the hellequins, and find out he may not be exactly who she thinks he is.  And in the end, she will help the duchess fight in the only method left to save her kingdom and people.

A perfect ending I have to say.  And I love how the author adds in the historical notes at the end, because I wondered which of the characters were real.  I do like that there are bits at the end about where the characters will go after this.  Something I always like to know.  I could even enjoy a bit of spin off of some of the characters.  A great, great series.  I will always recommend this to someone looking for a strong female character (3 for sure!), as well as historical fiction with a bit of fantasy added in.