Paperbacks – Page 10 – Lyndsey Hall

My top five books of 2017

Hello! Well, November wasn’t the best month for writing, I didn’t win NaNoWriMo, in fact I only managed to crack 10k (which is an achievement in itself and I’m still pretty pleased with my progress). I’m attempting my first contemporary YA novel so it’s not flowing as easily as a fantasy maybe would, I’ve thrown in a few fantastical elements (because, why not) but I’m really trying to get the vibe right and it’s just a bit slower going than I’m used to.

But enough about my Nano fail, you’re here for my top five books of 2017! I’m cheating a little bit here, these aren’t all 2017 new releases, but books I’ve personally read this year and loved. So, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for a book lover check out these fabulous reads, and you might even get them a little cheaper because they’re not brand new! (You’re welcome.)

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (2017)

Let’s start with my Book of the Year 2017, the dreamy, magical and brutal Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. If you’re a Laini fan already and loved the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, you’ll adore this new novel in her signature style of YA fantasy (and the sequel is coming in 2018!).

Lazlo Strange is a librarian who, after years of reading about incredible adventures in far off lands, finally gets to go on one (every book lover’s dream). A war between gods and men years ago left an entire generation of orphans, all given the surname Strange as a permanent reminder of their status, and resulted in an entire city disappearing into legend, known only as Weep, as the memory if its true name is erased from history.

Lazlo dreams of a blue-skinned goddess, but he doesn’t discover his true destiny until a mythical hero named Godslayer arrives and Lazlo is whisked away on the journey of a lifetime.

It’s beautiful, captivating and utterly, utterly heartbreaking. You’re going to love it! (Don’t @ me when you’re a broken heap of feels.)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (2017)

Looking for a hilarious historical romp across Europe? You’ve come to the right place. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is the funniest book I’ve read all year, but it’s also touching and heartwarming with a diverse cast of awesome characters.

Monty (a.k.a. Henry Montague) is the son of an English aristocrat, a loveable rogue, and completely in love with his best friend, Percy. After getting kicked out of boarding school for one transgression too many, Monty’s father sends him on a tour of Europe as a last ditch attempt to “straighten” him out before grooming him to take over the family business. Percy and Monty’s sister, Felicity tag along for what turns into a thrilling race against time across the continent.

The characters in this novel are some of the most inclusive and diverse I’ve ever come across in one single story. Percy is an epileptic, which was very misunderstood during this time period, and not only that but he’s dark-skinned and constantly assumed to be a servant despite his noble status. Felicity falls somewhere on the asexual/aromantic spectrum, and Monty is gay, which was illegal and considered a sin at the time (not least by Monty’s father).

If you’re looking for a funny and gripping historical read, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Nevernight (2016) & Godsgrave (2017) by Jay Kristoff

Can’t get enough of bloody, brutal fantasy? Pick up the Nevernight series by Jay Kristoff! It doesn’t get darker or more satisfyingly murderous than this.

Read my spoiler free review for Nevernight.

Mia Corvere is out for revenge, the kind that’s best served cold. After watching her father hanged for treason after a failed rebellion against the corrupt government, her mother and baby brother were thrown into the Philosopher’s Stone – a terrifying prison built into a mountainside. Mia is taken in and trained up by a cranky old antiques dealer with a secret life as a hired killer. Years later she’s finally ready to be inducted into the most brutal school for assassins in the Republic – the Red Church.

Like Hogwarts, but for murderers, the Red Church is a hidden sect that trains young assassins in the many skills necessary to be an elite killer. With only two Blade positions available, every student is out to win and every day could be Mia’s last. Can she achieve her lifelong goal of becoming a Blade of the Red Church and avenging her father’s death by killing the two officials who ordered it?

This is a super dark, sexy and graphic series, jam-packed with jaw-dropping fantasy elements and shocking twists and turns. Don’t expect a YA friendly experience, despite the protagonist’s young age, but if you’re OK with steamy sex scenes and visceral torture and murder then you’ve found your perfect series.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (2011)

Fans of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle or The Wolves of Mercy Falls, if you haven’t read The Scorpio Races you are missing out. This is my official favourite Stiefvater book, it’s a standalone fantasy about flesh-eating water horses and the jockeys who race them every November.

Read my spoiler free review of The Scorpio Races.

Puck is an orphan with two brothers and a family home she won’t let them lose just because the island of Thisby is tiny and there are no jobs to be had. Sean is a talented horse racer with a winning capaill uisce (water horse) and a famous father whose name weighs heavy on his shoulders. When November rolls around again, both enter the Scorpio Races in the hopes of winning the prize money. But catching, training and riding a water horse isn’t easy, in fact every year in November someone dies. But who will survive, and who will win the coveted prize money and escape their personal prison?

The magical elements in this book are so well crafted and blended into the plot that you could almost believe them to be real. The capaill uisce don’t seem so incredible, the strange belief system held by the residents of the island isn’t as unusual as it might be in the hands of another author. Stiefvater’s skills at blending reality and fantasy come into the fore in this novel, forming a background to the most important part of any of her stories – the characters and their relationships with one another. The Scorpio Races combines the believable fantasy elements of Shiver with the essence of friendship and individuality from The Raven Boys. Read it and fall in love with Thisby and her complicated inhabitants.

And I Darken by Kiersten White (2016)

Alternate history? Check. Gender bent? Check. Diverse? Check. And I Darken is a twisted retelling of the Vlad the Impaler legend with Ladislav (Lada, for short) in the lead role as the Daughter of the Dragon.

Read my spoiler free review of And I Darken.

Lada and her brother Radu are dragged from their home in Wallachia and abandoned in the Ottoman court by their father. A born fighter, Lada takes to training like a fish to water and soon makes a name for herself amongst the soldiers. Radu, on the other hand, is softer and gentler, with a natural charm that Lada envies. The Dragwyla children are schooled alongside the sultan’s son, Mehmed, forming bonds that are tested and broken and mended over the years in dozens of ways. Because Mehmed and his father are the enemy, and both Lada and Radu must fight their feelings if they are ever to return to Wallachia and their father’s kingdom.

We’ve all heard the Dracula legend several times, and this is yet another version, but with such an exciting new take on the original as to feel like a completely new story. A female Vlad the Impaler is a fascinating concept, especially as women were considered more like property than people in this historical setting. White’s Lada is a feisty, independent and complicated character, and she isn’t always likeable, which only makes me love her more. I cannot wait to read the sequel, Now I Rise, which came out this summer, and find out how Lada becomes the legendary leader and brutal killer we all recognise from the history books.

And those are my five favourite books of 2017! Have you read any of these? Let me know which was your favourite book of the year in the comments.

There’s still a couple of weeks left of 2017, and I’m currently reading Leigh Bardugo’s The Language of Thorns, which is a collection of fairy tales and fables from her Grishaverse, and a very festive read for this time of year! I haven’t quite managed to read my yearly target of 36 books, I’ll be at 30 once I finish my current read, but that’s still a massive improvement on last year’s 22 books, so I’m counting it as a win.

Have an absolutely fantastic holiday season, however you choose to celebrate, and I’ll see you in 2018!

Lyndsey

My Summer TBR

It’s been a few months since I shared what I’ve got on my to-be-read pile, so I thought I’d give you all a little insight into what I’ll be reading and listening to over the next couple of months.

King of Thorns & Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

I picked these up from the library today after putting them on hold pretty much as soon as I finished reading Prince of Thorns. I can’t wait to get lost in Jorg’s deliciously dark and bloody world again. If you love adult fantasy like Game of Thrones then you’ll love the Broken Empires series by Mark Lawrence. I think I’ll move onto Red Sister once I’ve finished this series, and then jump back to The Red Queen’s War series.

Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

I also grabbed this from the kids’ section of my library while I was there (all the best books seem to end up in the children’s section – this, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Ness, Terry Pratchett…). I got the Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them companion books when they originally came out, so this is the only one I never got my hands on and as soon as I saw it I had to bring it home. It’ll be a nice, heart-warming read after the Broken Empires series. Or, if the Deathly Hallows tale is anything to go by, it won’t be.

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

I bought this book on Amazon after coming across it whilst researching similar titles to my current WIP, The Fair Queen. I figured I should give it a read now I’m almost finished so I can use it as a comparable title in my query if it really is similar. I’m excited to read it and see how Pierce has done it – here’s hoping it doesn’t make me hate my own work, either for being too similar or painfully inferior!

On the other hand, I’m always keen to read fantasy authors I’ve never come across before, so I’m looking forward to discovering a potential new favourite!

The Scarecrow Queen by Melinda Salisbury

I cannot wait to read the conclusion of The Sin Eater’s Daughter trilogy! I’ve seen some great reviews online, and this has really become one of my favourite series, so I know it’s going to be a great read. I’ve also seen that there’s a new e-book collection of companion stories so I’ll be getting my hands on that as soon as possible when I finish this one.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

No TBR list is complete without at least one Stiefvater book. I’ve just finished listening to the audio book of The Dream Thieves (review to come) and I’m still absolutely adoring this series, so as soon as I’m done listening to A Court of Wings and Ruin by S.J. Maas I’ll be diving into the third book in the Raven Cycle series.

There you have it, those are the books I’ve added to my towering TBR and am hoping to read by the end of this summer. I’m sure my pile will continue to grow (I’ve still got a couple of others on hold at the library that haven’t come in yet) and I’m still trying to catch up with some of the books I already had, but I’ve almost finished my second draft and will soon be shipping my novel off to beta readers which will give me more time for reading.

What’s on your list for summer reading? I’m dreaming of reading more YA contemporary, but I keep being sucked back in by fantasy books! There have been so many incredible new releases this year, I’m spoilt for choice, but leave your recommendations in the comments!

Lyndsey

To DNF or not to DNF

For those of you who haven’t come across the term, DNF is short for Did Not Finish. I don’t tend to stop reading books without finishing them very often, but that might be because I’m pretty selective about what I read. I don’t read hundreds of books per year, my Goodreads challenge this year is set to 36 books and that will probably be a record for me, except for maybe when I was a kid and books were less than 100 pages.

First of all, I’d like to say there’s no shame or failure in putting down a book you’re just not enjoying, or not in the mood for. There are millions of books in the world, and thousands more being written and published every year, don’t waste your time slogging through 350-500 pages of a story that bores you or characters you hate. Life’s too short. Put down the classic or literary fiction book you thought you should read and pick up the romance or YA contemporary you really want to.

Reasons you might DNF a book:

You’re not into the plot – boring? Cliche? Put it down and try something else.
You hate the MC – you don’t want to spend hours or days stuck inside the head of someone awful, DNF it.
The genre isn’t doing it for you – not your usual bag? Drop it and read your fave genre, don’t feel like you have to love crime thrillers or erotica if you just don’t.
Not in the mood – we all have book slumps, hangovers and times when we just really fancy a specific kind of story. If it’s not doing it for you right now just put it down and come back it another time.
It’s offensive/triggering/contains bad or zero representation – if you genuinely feel like continuing to read this book could be harmful, or you don’t want to support the book or author, please just DNF it.

Books I Did Not Finish

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

I loved the film when it came out, it was so moody and atmospheric. There’s just something about the South that makes it the perfect backdrop for stories with magic and witches and mystery. That said, I found the book so boring I had to give up halfway through. I tried, I really tried. I kept it on my bedside table for about a year but every time I picked it up and read a few pages I just couldn’t get into it, it wasn’t pulling me into the story or the characters’ lives.

This should have been exactly my cup of tea, I love YA, especially fantasy, anything with magic, curses, historical back stories and star crossed lovers. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

I was bought this one for my birthday because it was getting a lot of hype at the time, it isn’t at all my kind of thing but I gave it a shot because so many people had said how good it was. It wasn’t the worst, but it was sort of slow and I struggled with the MC as she’s an old lady with dementia.

Apparently, the author has a relative with dementia and it’s very well researched and depicted (I know someone whose mother has dementia and she read this book and said it was exactly like her experience with her mother). I think it’s great that mental illnesses like dementia and Alzheimer’s are being represented in literature, but I couldn’t really get on with the story due to it jumping about all over the place. I might return to this one eventually, my Mum is borrowing it right now (she’s had it months and hasn’t finished it either), but it’s definitely on my DNF pile for now.

Like I said, I don’t DNF books very often, there are probably one or two more, but I tend to persevere to the end, even if it takes me months. Sometimes, when I come back to a book after a break I find I actually enjoy it, and it was me rather than the book that was just not quite right at the time.

My one piece of advice for you would be that if you DNF a book because you’re not feeling it right now, or not enjoying it even thought it would normally be right up your street, come back to it later. Read something else, or take a break from reading for a while – it’s easy to get overwhelmed by our TBRs and end up DNFing every other book because we weren’t hooked by page ten, but if you pick it up again later you might find yourself enjoying it.

One of the more controversial sides of DNFing is whether to write a book review or not. Some say you can’t review a book you didn’t finish, or didn’t even get halfway through, others are happy to learn from your bad experience and not waste their money. I can see it from both sides, as an author bad reviews, whilst part of the job, can be a huge blow to both confidence and reputation, and one where the reader didn’t even read to the end, where you might feel all their complaints would have been resolved (unlikely, and probably means you should have worked harder on the first half), might just feel like a slap in the face. As a reader they can be interesting and useful, if the reason the person didn’t finish isn’t something that bothers me I might still read it, but if I was having qualms about a certain book anyway I might now not.

Basically, DNF reviews have their place, and can be really useful, but explain your reasons for not finishing so that others can at least learn from your experience, don’t just shout about how much you hated it without any constructive criticism.

Which books have you DNFed? One series I think I’m going to DNF is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, I’ve read King’s Cage and just have no interest in continuing so I think I’ll call that one DNFed and maybe check out the spoilers for the next book so I at least know what happened.

Until next time!

Lyndsey