Best Books of 2017

This post is a bit late coming, given that we're already halfway through February.

Every year I set up a 'Goodreads' challenge to read so many books in a year. On average it takes me about a week to read one average-length novel. Most of this is down to my long commute - I spend the best part of 3 hours a day every working day on public transport, travelling to and from work, and I use most of that time to read. I am also quite a fast reader, especially if the book is exciting, and I find myself turning pages faster to find out what happens next.

In 2017 I set myself a goal of reading 68. Happily I exceeded that goal and a read a total of 70 books last year. Six of those books I gave a five-star rating to, and this my criteria for the 'best books of the year' list.

In no particular order, they are:

Pet Sematary: Stephen King
Heart-Shaped Box: Joe Hill
Behind Her Eyes: Sarah Pinborough
X: Sue Grafton
Bones Never Lie: Kathy Reichs
Soul Music: Terry Pratchett

No real surprises here - these are all authors whose books I enjoy, and three of my four all-time favourite authors - Stephen King, Sue Grafton and Kathy Reichs - are in this list. The only one who isn't is Sara Paretsky, and that was only because I did not read her 2017 release (though I bought it, at Bouchercon in Toronto) last year.

More details about these books and why I enjoyed them can be found below.

Pet Sematary:
 The first time I read this book was over 25 years ago. I had to re-read it last year for my horror book club, and I had forgotten just how good it is. This is an almost-perfect horror story that contains all of the characteristics of King that made him my inspiration.
Louis Creed, doctor and Ordinary Guy moves his family to rural Maine when he takes up a job as resident physician on a university campus. The road outside the house claims the lives of many pets, so many that a pet cemetery has been set up by local children. But there's something much darker lying beyond the cemetery, and Louis' descent into madness is creepy and downright disturbing.

Heart-Shaped Box:
I got to meet Joe Hill at Fantasycon in Scarborough a couple of years ago, and end up buying a few books of his which he signed. This was one of them. It involves a fading, self-absorbed rock star with a fascination for collecting macabre items who ends up buying from the internet a suit that allegedly has a ghost attached to it. The suit turns up in a heart-shaped box and the promised ghost does indeed come with the suit, but as always the story is far more complex and it soon takes a sinister turn.
Though not in the same league as his famous father, Stephen King, Joe Hill is still an accomplished horror writer in his own right, and this is a creepy and rather disturbing tale.

Behind Her Eyes:
 I know Sarah Pinborough personally through both the crime and horror convention circuits, and I am always impressed with both her versatility and her writing style. The author of 20-plus published novels, this is the one that seems to have moved her up into the big leagues, and well deserved that move is to.

'Behind Her Eyes' starts out as effectively a love triange between David, Adele and Louise. David is a doctor, Adele his apparently fragile wife, and single mother Louise his secretary. But she meets him in a bar and shares a kiss with him before she starts her new job and realise that he's her boss. Meanwhile Adele offers a hand of friendship to Louise and she finds herself getting closer to Adele, whilst feeling guilty about carrying on a relationship with David. Alternating between Adele and Louise's point of view, it soon becomes apparent that this is not a typical psychological thriller, and it has an ending that will blow you away.

X:
I was not to know, at the time I read this book, that it would be Sue Grafton's penultimate novel and she would tragically leave us before getting to the end of her 'alphabet' books. I have been with Grafton's couragious female PI since 'A is for Alibi'. Kinsey Millhone isn't married and doesn't seem to be able to commit to relationships, has no kids and no desire to have any, doesn't cook and doesn't play particularly well with others. I think she's wonderful. In 'X' Kinsey ends up crossing paths with a particularly vicious villain, and the encounter will have long-term repercussions for her.

I am aware that Grafton's writing style, and her character, has influenced my own crime series. Sue Grafton is the only one of my favourite crime writers I never got to meet, and I wish I could have
.
Bones Never Lie:
Kathy Reichs is another one of my favourite crime writer, and one I've had the privilege to meet. Forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan shuttles between Montreal and North Caroline, uncovering murders in her examination of bones, and with a long-standing on-again off-again relationship with Montreal cop Andrew Ryan. She also has a daughter, Katy, whose chronological age marks the passage of time in the series, though by now Katy is grown up and off doing her own thing.

This one was very typical of Kathy Reichs' style. But I freely admit I love the formula, and I found this one a proper page-turner.

Soul Music:
 I've been re-reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series for a while, and I expect it to take me quite some time yet, since there are over 40 books in the series and this is #16. And eventually I will get to books I haven't read before, since I didn't get through them all the first time around.

My favourite books are the ones about the witches, but Death comes a close second and this one features the latter. In this chronicle of the fantasy world, the inhabitants discover Rock Music, and the spirit of teenage rebellion it inspires. Pratchett's books are always entertaining, and are always a good thing to read when I need my spirits lifting.

So there we have it for the best books of 2017. For 2018 I've decided to play it safe and set a goal to read 70 books. Nearly 7 weeks in I have read 7, which puts me a bit behind schedule. But I am sure I shall catch up!

And if anyone is on Goodreads and wants to link up there, this is my profile page.Best

Sara Paretsky, Shara Summers and Feminism

I read a great many books - on average, just over one a week.  I have read so many books that I find it impossible to pick out just one favourite.

I do, however, have several favourite authors.  Authors whose books I constantly go back to, and it feels like visiting an old friend.  Books which affect me in such a way I have to choose carefully what I read following them, because everything else will just seem inferior.

One such author is Sara Paretsky.  I discovered her V I Warshawski series in the early 1990s, back when I was first aware of enthusiastically embracing feminism.  It was a revelation.  Here for the first time I encountered a heroine who represented everything I wanted to be.  A fiercely independent woman who was brave, resourceful, unafraid to speak her mind and without need of a man to define her existence.  Single and childless, V I is sarcastic, blunt and able to hold her own in a fight.  I thought then, and still think now, that she is a fantastic role model for young women.

And even in the 21st century, there are few heroines like her.  Sue Grafton has a similar independent minded, single and childless heroine in Kinsey Milhone.   Kathy Reichs, another writer I admire, has a strong woman in Temperance Brennan, but unlike V I Tempe is a mother, and does occasionally need rescuing by men.

Not everyone shares my adoration of V I, as reviews on Goodreads and Amazon testify.  Some readers - among them women, I was surprised to note - find her too unlikeable.  They don't like her sarcasm and confrontational manner.

I do not deny that my amateur sleuth Shara Summers was inspired by V I Warshawski.  When I set out to write a crime series, I wanted a heroine like V I - someone courageous and independent minded, who was not afraid to speak her mind.  But I wasn't brave enough to write a police procedural, so I went for an amateur sleuth.  And in many ways Shara is very different from V I.  She's not as brave.  She's not the champion of the underdog the way that V I is.  And she does occasionally get rescued by men.  And because I'm just not as good a writer as Sara Paretsky, sometimes I don't pull off what I'm trying to do.  Maybe Shara just comes across sometimes as being bitchy instead of courageous.

It's also clear that Shara is not everyone's cup of tea.  DEATH SCENE racked up 31 rejections before it was published by Lyrical Press.  One of the most common reasons for the book being rejected was the character not being likeable enough to take through a series.

The revelation that not everyone loves V I Warshawski - because I've been enthusiastically recommending these books to everyone for the last 20 years - was a bit of a surprise, and I've recently been ruminating on that.  V I is sarcastic, snarky, and blunt.  She can be downright rude - especially to arrogant and patronising men.  In the early books, which seem to be set in the early 1980s, V I is unusual in being a woman P I, and she encounters a hostile reaction to this by many people.  Especially men.

Women are not supposed to embody these qualities.  Even in these times, they are generally expected to be soft, caring and nurturing, and I think this is the main reason that women who don't possess these qualities are regarded with suspicion.  They are considered to be not 'normal' women.

I like the fact that V I is snarky, blunt and rude.  But there are some people out there who might say I embody similar qualities.  And the same people who wouldn't like V I for these qualities probably don't like me much, either.

I must confess that now I'm the wrong side of 40 I've got to a point in life where I don't really care if people don't like me for being me.  As a woman gamer, role-player, and horror writer, I've encountered a number of men over the years who don't know what to make of me.  The fact that I'm deliberately childless also causes resentment in certain people - it's surprising (and depressing) how many people, even in this day and age, who assume that all women want children and any who don't are instantly labelled as being abnormal and not to be trusted.

None of these things matter that much to me these days, but I'm pretty sure that the people that fall into the aforementioned categories are not my target readership.

For the length of time that human beings have existed on this planet, we've proved to be depressingly stagnant in moving on with our thinking.  I will go on recommending Sara Paretsky's books to everyone I have a conversation about crime books with - particularly women.  I would like every young women to read at least one V I Warshawski book.  For every one who comes away thinking, "this is the sort of woman I want to be," then a battle will be won.

There's a long way to go before we win the war, though.

Best Books of 2012

At this time of year, I like to look back at all the books I've devoured over the last 12 months and decide which ones I rate highest. As I've mentioned before, I read a lot of books. For 2012 I set myself a goal of 60 books, and I managed to achieve it. Most of my reading time is during my commute. I spend over 2 hours a day travelling to and from work on public transport, and this is mostly why I get through so many books.

My favourite crime writer Sara Paretsky recently put out a call on her blog asking for people's favourite reads of 2012, to increase her own TBR pile. I was very flattered that she included my response in her post.

 I've mentioned before my love of Goodreads. Not only does it allow me to keep track of exactly what I've read and when, and list things I want to read, but I also use their guidelines for my star ratings (with one star meaning 'didn't like it' and five stars meaning 'it was amazing'). I don't throw five stars around lightly. Most books I will enjoy, but they have to be pretty special to warrant a five star rating.

However, it so happens that in 2012 I gave no less than six books five stars, which makes choosing my best picks a bit easier Many of them I've also reviewed on Goodreads, and in each case there's a link back to the review, to save me repeating myself here. They are in no particular order, apart from the order I read them in.

BODY WORK - Sara Paretsky: I don't mean to become a dribbling fan girl whenever the esteemed Ms Paretsky's name is mentioned, but I can't help it. This is the fourteenth book in her series about the tough woman detective VI Warshawski, and I have loved every single one of them. VI is older in this one, but still charging in without thought, in her desire to save the world from the bad guys. Ms Paretsky never disappoints, and neither does VI.

 THE ASSASSIN'S PRAYER - Ariana Franklin: This fourth book in the series about 12th century doctor Adelia Aguilar, will sadly be the last because Ariana Franklin died in 2011. Adelia is a wonderful character. Not only is she a doctor specialising in forensics, at a time when the medical profession was viewed with suspicion, but she is a woman doctor to boot. A fact she tries to keep hidden, because in primitive England she would be burned as a witch. Instead, Adelia travels in the company of a Moor, who pretends to speak no English, so they can pretend that he is the doctor and she is his nurse and translator.

FLASH & BONES - Kathy Reichs: Another writer who, in my view, never fails to deliver. This fourteenth offering in the adventures of forensic pathologic Temperance Brennan is the best in some time, I think. Set in the exciting world of motor racing, it was tense and thrilling and had me turning the pages.

ODD APOCALYPSE - Dean Koontz: This is the fifth book in the series about a strangely named young man who can see ghosts, and I was introduced to it when I had to review this book for Shotsmag. I enjoyed it so much I immediately bought the first book in the series as soon as I finished this one.

ODD THOMAS - Dean Koontz: Hence why this, the first book in the series, I read after the fifth book in the series. Start with this one and get introduced to Odd properly.

11/22/63 - Stephen King: This time-travelling thriller from the Master of Horror seems to be the Marmite of the literary world - you either love it or hate it. I loved it.

And what of my reading target for 2013? I could have been ambitious and upped the stakes. But since my job hasn't changed I don't anticipate any more or fewer hours of reading time, so I've set myself the same goal again. I average a book a week. I aim to read 60 books in 2013, which is more than a book a week, but it does depend on the length of the book, and how much time I spend sitting on the beach (for every day I spend doing nothing but lazing around on holiday reading, I can get through one book). So, we shall see if I can reach the same target again.

What are your reading goals for this year?