So, it’s with anticipation for all the great things I’ll read in 2020, that I provide the best of what I read (or listened to) in 2019. In previous years, I read books and occasionally had an audio book going at the same time. This year, on any of the 365 days of 2019, my sitting and reading time was spent with a print or ebook and my walking, doing chores or driving time was spent listening to a different audio book. As a result, I listened more than read books this year. That said, by absorbing words while doing other things at the same time I was able to enjoy the written word even more than before.

As always, it was difficult to choose only a few to recognize.

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With datelines and place markers, James Dommek, Jr. narrates this true story the way his Iñupiaq tribe ancestors would have told it. Like a podcast with cinema verite-style sounds and conversations, Dommek unfolds the winding tale of Teddy Kyle Smith, a man who grew up in the author’s small, remote Alaskan town and went on to became an actor. Smith had appeared in several independent films and had a burgeoning acting career going before he returned to Kayana, Alaska, his hometown, for a visit. What happens next is told by the narrator in a voice that demonstrates his shock and confusion.

I’ve seen other Audible Originals end up in print and available to a wider audience. I hope that happens to this story.

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The Water Dancer, by Te-Nehisi Coats – Coats is known for his fearless nonfiction writing. His Between the World and Me, championed by both Oprah and Obama, set a shift in the tone of how people, especially black people, speak about race in a post-Obama world.  

With his fiction debut, he continues to demonstrate he will pull no punches in pursuit of his narrative. In The Water Dancer, Hiram Walker, the product of what happens when a master continually rapes his slaves, makes use of his photographic memory to better his lot. Later, with the help of Moses – Harriet Tubman – Walker is able to harness his powers of perfect visualization to change his world and the lives of the people closest to him.

Difficult to read at times, but other times hopeful, The Water Dancer is a, curl-up-in-bed-with-a-hot-cup-of-tea, kind of book. A satisfying escape.

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Looking Glass, Murder Theory and Dark Pattern, by Andrew Mayne - Books two, three and four of Mayne’s mystery series, which started with The Naturalist. This straight up mystery-serial killer-series features the most unusual accidental sleuth I’ve ever read and mysteries which, by book three, I was finally starting to understand to a point where I would venture to make guesses.  Dr. Theo Cray is a computational biologist—whatever that means—who uses computerized models to follow patterns and to theorize who is killing people.

When you consider that Mayne is an illusionist by trade and went on tour with the likes of Copperfield, and, Pen and Teller, you begin to understand that this writer’s brain, and that of his main character, works a bit differently than your average human. This is a series I read one after the other, immediately starting the next as the previous ended. Page turners all, that will keep you up long past your bedtime.

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The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden, by Jonas Jonasson – I love a book that takes a bunch of serious subjects, forces you to see them from a completely different perspective, and makes you think the world’s problems aren’t as insurmountable as you thought.

Nombeko Mayeki, born in the poorest part of Soweto and destined to a short life of poverty and abuse, refuses to take her fate sitting down. She gets a job as a cleaner, escapes sexual assaults, teaches herself to read, advises her bosses, rubs elbows with world leaders and scrambles to save the world from nuclear annihilation, all the while holding the most positive attitude a person could have.

This story had me laughing out loud, going back and rereading to convince myself that what I’d just read was actually what I’d just read and completely sad when I was finished. This is one of those books that leaves you feeling as if anything else you pick up won’t hold a candle to the world you’ve just left. I was thrilled to hear that someone has optioned the book for a movie. One of my 2020 reads will be Jonasson’s first book, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.    

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14, by Peter Clines – Now this book is just plain freaky, but once you get through the set up – which admittedly is a bit slow – you’ll be hooked, and, much like the characters in the story, you will feel an impossible-to-resist urge to unravel the mystery.

Nate Tucker thinks his luck has changed for the better when he leases an incredible apartment in L. A. The deal came along at the perfect time, since Nate is out of work and money is tight. As the out-of-work Nate grows increasingly bored, his attention is drawn to one apartment in his new building that is closed behind a conspicuous padlock. The more Nate gets to know his new neighbors, the more he begins to realize they all have a strange story to tell in relation to that apartment.

A bit like the unusual mysteries in Lost or even Twin Peaks, the strangeness increases as the secrets unravel, and the reader is left to hope that the final solution is worth the journey. I think it is.

Directly after reading 14, I read Grady Hendrix’s, Horrorstör. A somewhat funny, somewhat horrifying tale that takes place in a store that closely resembles that big blue furniture store with yellow letters … Anyway, if I hadn’t read 14 first, Horrorstör might have made my top ten.  

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The Book of Etta, and The Book of Flora, by Meg Elison. Last year, I saw The Book of the Unnamed Midwife on several, best of lists. Once I read it, I not only understood why it was so highly recommended, I was sucked into the other two books in the series, The Book of Etta and The Book of Flora.

In Ellison’s post-apocalyptic world, live births are extremely rare and female births even rarer. In short, women are literally at a premium. Enslaved, bought and sold, traded and abused, the world is a dark and dangerous place if you have boobs and a vajajay.

By the second and third books, Ellison expands her exploration to ask questions like, what kind of power does a woman have over the men who want her? What happens to relationships when the opportunity for sis-gendered love is so rare? More importantly, when procreation is next to impossible and even dangerous, what is the value of gender in the first place?  

A bit like Harlan Ellison’s (no relation, I checked), 1969, A Boy and His Dog, each community has their own way of dealing with the new reality, some much more honest and accepting than others. I think this series is important in our world as we all become more informed about  gender neutrality and fluidity.  

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The Tumbling Turner Sisters, by Juliette Fay – Part of the reason I picked this one up is because, when we were kids, my sisters and I took dance lessons together and each year, had a routine we practiced and performed. I’d always wanted to make a living somehow, dancing and singing like Shirley Temple … only with my sisters.

So this story, about a family of women who take to the vaudeville stage in a desperate attempt to keep a roof over their heads, appealed to me. The girls grow into women on the road, improving their act and learning lessons about life. With a glimpse into what vaudeville was like in 1919, this story is like Water For Elephants but on the stage instead of the circus. I loved this one.    

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The Worldship Humility, The Code Book series by RR Haywood. Another book which started as an Audible Original, but is now available in ebook and paperback and we’re all the better for it. It's no secret that I'm an unabashed RR Haywood fan and will read anything he puts out. For a new series, I thought this got off to a good start.

This post-apocalyptic story finds the last of earth’s humans living on a fleet of ships aimlessly puttering through the dark universe while they use unmanned drones to desperately search for a livable planet that can replace the one they destroyed. I know Haywood is mad at work on the next book in this series featuring Yasmine, a petty thief who wants to live on the upper decks, and Sam, an airlock operator, bored with his on-ship existence.

Yasmine learns about Sam's knack with technology and comes up with a scheme she hopes will buy her a ticket to utopia. The two of them get up to some mischief that is both funny and dangerous.  

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

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An Heir to Thorns and Steel, By Vow and Royal Blood Bath and On Wings of Bone and Glass, the Blood Ladders Trilogy, by M.C.A. Hogarth – I don’t remember why I first started reading this series. I don’t know if someone recommended it, or if I just lucked into it on a one-click wish, but once I started, I couldn’t walk away.

Subject to constant pain and the humiliation of seizures, Morgan Locke feels he is imprisoned in a body that curses him daily. He wishes for something, anything to save him from his torture. What is it they say? Be careful what you wish for. An interesting cast of characters and creatures, journeys and quests that drag you along and a satisfying ending. Each book seems just long enough to keep you lost for a while.

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And finally, Zero Hour, is book 1 in the Order of the Dragon series, by Tina Glasneck – I have to admit, I haven’t read this yet, but I was so excited to meet another black, female, fantasy/mystery author online, I had to include her work here. I downloaded my free copy of Zero Hour and plan to read it this weekend. Here’s how it’s described:

Vampires + Dark Magic = Zero Hour.

The road to destruction is only one tempting spell away.
What happens when an untrained seer possesses the most powerful grimoire ever to exist?

Leslie's a romance author, who happens to be conjuring magic. She's researching sigils for her latest Highlander romance, but her intentions have powered something sinister.

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I love Tina's covers too.

I could go on and on about the great things I read this year. I couldn't even get to The Cutting Season, by Attica Locke -- another new favorite author of mine -- which tackles two mysteries at once. One modern day. The other during the dying days of slavery on the plantation where the story takes place.

Very close to my heart was Radio Girls, by Sarah-Jane Stratford. It's about the beginnings of the BBC and the role women played in the early years of radio production.

And it breaks my heart that I didn't include The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton -- another author with a library of books I'm adding to my 2020 reading list. Her richly told fantasy takes place in a land called Orleans, where everyone is born grey and can only become beautiful with the help of a Belle. I loved it and wanted more.

Now, I'm working on my reading wish list for 2020. Which book did you read this year that stuck with you the longest? What was the best thing you read? And what are you looking forward to reading next year?

You’re going to want to enter this contest.

If you read this blog at all, you know I’m a big fan of R. R. Haywood’s Undead series and that I love hanging out in his Living Army Facebook group. It’s a lively place with lots of motley characters who all have a love of the written word either as readers or as writers.

About six months ago, Haywood held a *Write A Chapter* Contest. He provided a prologue and then asked contestants to add 500 words to it. The one who made the best use of those 500 words was the winner.

Guess who won. Go ahead. Guess.

Yep. That was this girl (double thumb point).

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If you haven't found it already, 'Book Reviews N' Stuff is a public Facebook group  started by R.R. Haywood as an offshoot of his The Living Army  closed page. It's a great place to read honest reviews on a variety of books in a wide range of genres. If you're an author, it's also a place where you can go to request reviews. Just be prepared for the reviewers to be honest. They are not about sugar coating and since they aren't being paid for their efforts, their reading time is precious to them. If they didn't like your book, they will tell you and anyone following the page, what they really think.

One of the intrepid reviewers, Lyndsey McDermott, had this to say about Rich Restucci's book, Chaos Theory:   The zompoc genre is very easy to do badly and it can be hard for an author to stand out amongst the crowd. The author manages to keep the action going, our interest held and aforementioned gripes aside, was a good read which has the potential to be far better. It ends on a suitable cliffhanger leaving the reader eager for the sequel.

Lyndsey has a lot more to say about the book. You can read the entire review here. After reading Chaos Theory myself, I had a few questions for the author.  In his bio, Rich Restucci describes himself as "a practicing chemist and writer. His stories have been published in Dead Worlds 7 and Feast or Famine. He enjoys drinking beer, stocking up on weapons and supplies, and reading/writing anything zombie related. Rich resides with his family in Pembroke, Massachusetts."

Me: In the acknowledgements of your book, you thank people for encouraging you to publish. Did you write this story without the intention to publish? Has the experience of publishing this series been what you expected?

 Rich: This book was written with the intent of publishing each chapter, one at a time, to a website in blog format. The website is zombiefiend.com. I did that for a while and the readers seemed to enjoy it. Several of the readers and many of my online friends told me I should self-publish it, which I researched. I compiled the blog posts and ended up going with Severed Press, who had already published my first novel, Run. Severed was excited to get a second story line from me, and their excitement got me excited. Insofar as my expectations, I really didn’t have any. I was hoping the book would be well received, and it seems to have been. I don’t think of myself as a professional writer, more of a hobbyist, so when the book began to sell, I was very happy. (more…)