Top Ten Tues: 2014 Best

Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and The Bookish, and feature lists related to all things bookish–characters, authors, titles, and favorites. They’re an excellent way to find new interesting books on a variety of topics, and to find bloggers that love the books you do.

Check out their blog for their top ten and lists of other bloggers who participate!

December 16: Top Ten Books I Read In 2014.

These are all 5-star books I’ve read this year.

1) 14; Peter Clines. Horror is hit-or-miss with me, but this one is a winner for sure. It’s about a weird apartment building, with a new tenant who decides to start investigating–and the more he finds, the stranger things get.

2) Ancillary Sword; Ann Leckie. (#2) The first book introduced Breq the ancillary (AI run bodies of captured enemies), who had her ship-body and all but one ancillary destroyed, and wants vengeance. This book is focused less on world-building, explaining the ideas, and how angry the main character is, and more on her acting, her thought processes, and her attempts to make change.

3) The Brothers Cabal; Johnathan L. Hubbard (#4). A book about a necromancer who isn’t as bad as he wants people to think–and likable despite himself. And his brother–watching siblings squabble is always fun.

4) Burn for Me; Ilona Andrews (#1). I am so excited to see how this magic family-run world develops, especially since these are mobster style families, with power-hungry killers in them. And the characters have a real spark, though it is nowhere so near as romance-driven as the cover suggests.

5) Future Falls;Tanya Huff (#3). This book has a character really coming into her own, a weird magic dominated family, some science, and an asteroid about to destroy the Earth.

6) Raising Steam; Terry Pratchett (#40). Steam power comes to Discworld! Can they handle the changes a train will bring?

7) The Raven Boys; Maggie Stiefvater (#1). I finally got around to this book about magic seeping into the life of some private school boys, who tangle with the daughter of a psychic. There’s a scary promise made in the beginning, that having read Stiefvater before, will happen–but not how you expect.

8) Republic; Lindsay Buroker (#8). This is actually the last book in a series about a woman and a rather unusual collection of individuals trying to clear their names and/or help the emperor. A few of them got 5 stars from me, but this one has a bunch of character development with its usual madcap adventure.

9) Skin Game; Jim Butcher (#15). Hey, it’s Dresden. He’s an amazing wizard. But this one has some extra special maneuvering. If you like Urban Fantasy, and you haven’t started this series… you should.

10) Swamp Ghosts; Marcia Meara (#1). I’m totally biased for the author on this one, but it has just the right balance of creepy–but not too creepy–a nice twisty puzzle, laughs and mayhem, and some illegal use of wildlife.