Angieville

It is the last day of the year. Are you with me? We made it this far. I think we'd better keep going. I always enjoy arriving at this final post of the year so much. I love seeing all of your lists and all of the books and words and hearts and monumental efforts that gave you life this year. That helped get you to this point. With me. I have felt rather keenly these last 365 days how in it together we are. How we have to be. And I am grateful for you. For each of you who leave comments and send recommendations and write and read and push forward into the darkness. I'm so grateful for you.  And so here I leave my best books of the year. It's a whopping 28 titles, guys. Twenty. Eight. I haven't had a list that long in a handful of years at least . That is something to smile at. A record of a year well read, indeed. Photo by @aamith (in the order in which I read them) Circe by Madeline Miller The Prince by Katharine Ashe Burn Bright by Patricia Br

This title. This title is my favorite book title in ages . No question. It made me feel things for the titular character, made me long to meet her and join her on her completely fine journey, long before I ever picked up the book itself. My mom gave me a copy for my birthday back in the summer, and I kept it on my nightstand for ages just admiring the colors and the font and the general splendor of what might lie within. Basically just another example of present day me wanting to kick past myself for not starting a book sooner. Because this book is so much better than fine. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is Gail Honeyman's debut novel. I am waiting in delicious anticipation for her sophomore novel. Eleanor learned long ago that the only socially acceptable answer to the question "How are you?" is "Fine." She learned long ago, reinforced by her mother's constant and stringent dictums, that she wasn't like other people. And, what's more, she

This series. My feelings for it are fierce and tangled, much like the ties that bind its protagonists. Charlotte, Lord Ingram, Livia, Inspector Treadles, Bancroft,  Lady Ingram  . . . characterize them each how you will, but there is nothing equivocal about them. While there is infinite room for every sort of gray area in their circumstances, their histories, and their difficult presents, the feelings that they engender (at least in me) are nothing if not strong one way or the other. And really, I wouldn't have it any other way. Who wants to feel the least bit milk-soppy about the people who inhabit their wonderfully complicated Victorian mysteries? Not me. That is who. Which is to say that I was prepared for a tumult of emotions as I embarked on this the third volume in Sherry Thomas 's Lady Sherlock series . Just, as it turns out, nowhere near prepared enough. Be warned: unavoidable spoilers for the first two books abound. Death has finally found its way to Lord Ingra

I looked forward to this book with barely restrained delight from the moment I heard the first faint whisperings of its existence. I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it, and then life got in the way (as it is wont to do), and I never quite got around to reviewing it. But I flatly refuse to let the year end without talking about this first book in Sarah MacLean 's new series. Just in case you haven't, you know, read it yet. That way you'll have time to fit it in before the second book comes out next July. As I have mentioned before, it was a Sarah MacLean novel that first got me into reading historical romances just a few years ago. And then earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet her and tell her that, to tell her how much I love her books and just how much finding them meant to me. I hope you all have that chance someday. I've been fortunate enough to meet many of my very favorite authors. And while my facility with language generally flees when