Best Books of 2019!

I had a wonderful time reading the first half of 2019. I continued taking very few review books and focused on just reading for fun. Freebies, from the library, from my own shelves for a change. I tried out KU and picked up some random suggestions from friends. And it was fantastic! Things did go sideways mid September and I haven't really read since then but before that I read 144 total books. Which is pretty amazing since I've only read 3 since September! But I hit my Goodreads goal which is great. Anywho...

5--Print
124--Ebook

16--Audio

New to Me Authors-- 25

These were my favorites...

Best Books of 2018!

2018 was a weird reader-blogger year for me. In February-ish I decided I wasn't going to take review books anymore. Or at least drastically reduce them. I went from doing 95% review books to maybe 5% review books.

It was the best decision I've made in a long while.

5 stars [quotetastic] The Vixen and the Vet (A Modern Fairytale #1) by Katy Regnery

Whew. The Vixen and the Vet was just...everything. What a read!

The Gist: Savannah needs a career save. All she has to do is find a human interest piece that'll impress a newspaper editor. And that comes in the form of her broody neighbor... a severely disfigured war veteran who's become the town recluse. She gets a bit more than she bargained for when she meets Asher. That's for sure.

The Best Books of 2017!

Top Ten (or so): Favorite Books of 2017

5 stars-- Exclusively Yours (Kowalski Family #1) by Shannon Stacey #PickOfTheLitter

So a (long) spell back I won a copy of Exclusively Yours from a giveaway Jaci Burton was holding and ohmygod I absolutely loved it! Seriously LOVED it! Exclusively Yours was like slipping into my favorite pair of pjs--cozy and comforting. I easily fell into Stacey's writing and enjoyed every second of watching Keri and Joe get to know each other while surrounded by his wacky crazy family--who managed to be endearing as hell and seriously loved to give each other grief over pretty much everything.

Top 20 (ish) Reads of 2016!!

As part of Authors for the Holidays I'm doing some random posts just from mwah! And one of those is...my favorite reads from 2016. There were so pretty dang good reads. I'm sharing...20ish of them.

Would love to hear if you've read any of them! ~anna

5 stars!! Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1) by Chanel Cleeton

Wow. Just...wow. Yall, Cleeton left me smiling, with tears in my eyes, and desperately needing book two of the Wild Aces series. Fly With Me blew me away. What a stunningly wonderful mix of humor, love, lust, heartbreak, and dreamy romance. *serious reader-girl sigh*

The quick of it is that sometimes the Fates they do conspire a girl meets her the man of her dreams while wearing a bobbing pink penis headband and rocking out to music at a Vegas night club. Yeah. Not the most glamorous of moments but one that sparked off an instant connection and a whirlwind romance between Noah and Jordan. Two very different people with a connection that refused to be ignored despite everything standing in their way...including an entire country.

Quote-tastic/Review--Off the Clock by Roni Loren

Join us every Monday and share a favorite quote that's grabbed ya for one reason or another.

You can add a review or post just a quote. You can post other days of the week too. Totally flexible.

Everyone's welcome to join in. Authors, bloggers, readers. The more the merrier!

Just grab the button and toss up your post :) No blog? No worries, just leave your favorites in the comment section or in a FB post and link it up.

---

Hot dayum! This book was so damn good, yall. And my first Pick of the Litter for 2016. Yup. A 5 star read. Crazy rare around here but Loren kicked off her newest series. I couldn't resist more than one quote this week. Some funny, some scorching hot, some downright dirrrty and a little sweet too. Seriously this book had it all. Yum!

This first one just made me snort.

**Pick of the Litter** Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist

As preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair set Chicago and the nation on fire, Louis Tiffany—heir to the exclusive Fifth Avenue jewelry empire—seizes the opportunity to unveil his state-of-the-art, stained glass, mosaic chapel, the likes of which the world has never seen.

But when Louis’s dream is threatened by a glassworkers’ strike months before the Fair opens, he turns to an unforeseen source for help: the female students at the New York Art Institute. Eager for adventure, the young women pick up their skirts, move to boarding houses, take up steel cutters, and assume new identities as the “Tiffany Girls.”

Tiffany Girls is the heartwarming story of the impetuous Flossie Jayne, a beautiful, budding artist who is handpicked by Louis to help complete the Tiffany chapel. Though excited to live in a boarding house when most women stayed home, she quickly finds the world is less welcoming than anticipated. From a Casanova male, to an unconventional married couple, and a condescending singing master, she takes on a colorful cast of characters to transform the boarding house into a home while racing to complete the Tiffany chapel and make a name for herself in the art world.

As challenges mount, her ambitions become threatened from an unexpected quarter: her own heart. Who will claim victory? Her dreams or the captivating boarder next door?

Type: Historical Fiction
Heat: N/A
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars **Pick of the Litter**

Amazon | All Romance | Book Depository | BAM | Goodreads

Breathtakingly beautiful. It's not often that a novel leaves me stunned. Where I find myself closing the book and looking around the room with tears in my eyes wondering what in the world I'm going to do with myself next because I've just read something so overwhelmingly moving I'm simply stunned trying to process all of the emotions it's ripped out of me. Tiffany Girl..joined the ranks of the elite few that left me completely spent and raised the bar to near impossible heights for any future reads. Even weeks later as I'm sitting here editing this post one last time it has me fighting back tears just thinking about Flossie and everything she went through.

Promise Me This (Between Breaths #4) by Christina Lee *Pick of the Litter*

Nate has developed quite a playboy reputation around campus. It's not that he doesn't respect or trust women; he doesn't trust himself. The men in Nate’s family are prone to abusive behavior—a dirty secret that Nate’s been running from his entire life—so Nate doesn't do relationships. But he can’t help himself around one girl…

Jessie is strong, independent, and works at a tattoo parlor. Nate can’t resist getting close to her, even if it’s strictly a friendship. But it doesn't take long for Nate to admit that what he wants with Jessie is more than just friendly.

With Jessie, he can be himself and explore what he’s always felt was a terrifying darkness inside him. Even when Nate begins to crave her in a way that both shocks and horrifies him, Jessie still wants to know every part of him. Testing their boundaries together will take a trust that could render them inseparable… or tear them apart.

Type: New Adult
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5-- Pick of the Litter

Amazon | All Romance | Goodreads

So this...was pretty much me the entire time I was reading Promise Me This.

You know how sometimes you read a book and it just takes a hit at your heart and when you turn that last page you're left sitting there just...kind of holding your breath because, whew, yeah....it was that powerful? And you really don't know what to do with yourself next? That was Promise Me This for me. And I don't even know if I can explain why exactly. It just...was.

Virgin River (Virgin River #1) by Robyn Carr

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population six hundred. Make a difference against the backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal-clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included.

When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache, and to re-energize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving: the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her. Realizing she's made a huge mistake, Mel decides to leave town the following morning. But a tiny baby, abandoned on a front porch, changes her plans...and a former marine cements them into place. Melinda Monroe may have come to Virgin River looking for escape, but instead she finds her home.

Type: Contemporary Romance
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5 *Pick of the Litter*

Amazon | All Romance | Book Depository | BAM | Goodreads

So, I read Virgin River...ages ago and the review kinda got lost in my drafts folder but I wanted to post it now because this was just an amazing read. Carr blew me away with her writing and the story of Mel and Jack as she comes to the small town of Virgin River for a fresh start and finds so much more than she expected from both the town and a hunky former Marine that catches her eye.

A Lady Never Surrenders (Hellions of Halstead Hall #5) by Sabrina Jeffries

When the youngest Sharpe sister hatches a plan to gain marriage offers, the straight-laced Bow Street Runner Jackson Pinter knows he'll do whatever it takes to ruin her scheme...

Lady Celia Sharpe hopes that if she can garner offers of marriage from several eligible gentlemen and show her grandmother she is capable of gaining a husband, she can convince Gran to rescind the marriage ultimatum for her. And if that plan doesn’t work, at least she’ll have a husband lined up. But Bow Street Runner Jackson Pinter seems determined to ruin her plans by disapproving of every suitor she asks him to investigate. It’s only when she and Jackson work together to solve her parents’ murders, plunging them both into danger, that she realizes why--because the only man he wants her to marry is himself!

Type: Historical Romance
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Amazon | All Romance | Goodreads

This. was. the. best. freaking. book! I love the Hellions of Halstead Hall series but A Lady Never Surrenders was by far my favorite. I'd been looking forward for Jackson Pinter's book and damn it was good. Fantastic dynamic between the hero and heroine, full of action and danger, twists and turns, snark, humor and a meddling family. And a romance that'll make a girl envious. Seriously, I loved every single effing page as the last of the Sharpe siblings surrenders to their grandmum's ultimatum of finding love and marrying.

If I Were You (Inside Out #1) by Lisa Renee Jones

Okay. So this review is totally out of order. I kinda missed reviewing it somehow even though I'd read it ages ago. The rest of the series has been reviewed on the blog and, well, yall are getting this one now too :)

When Sara McMillan finds a stack of journals in a storage unit, she’s shocked and enthralled by the erotic life the writer led. Unable to stop reading, she vicariously lives out dark fantasies through Rebecca, the writer—until the terrifying final entry. Certain something sinister has happened, Sara sets out to discover the facts, immersing herself in Rebecca’s life.

Soon she’s working at the art gallery Rebecca worked at and meeting Rebecca’s friends. Finding herself drawn to two dangerously sexy men, the manager of the gallery and a famed artist, Sara realizes she’s going down the same path Rebecca took. But with the promise of her dark needs being met by a man with confident good looks and a desire for control, she’s not sure anything else matters. Just the burn for more.

Type: Erotica
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Amazon | All Romance | Book Depository | Goodreads 

It took me a really long time to convince myself to read If I Were You after seeing the dreaded "Fifty Shades" comparison--which is always an instant mood killer for me--but I'm damn glad I finally dove into it because Jones is an incredibly talented writer and put together an amazing and intriguing story that drew me in completely and left me panting for the next installment. (yes, this is a trilogy and Jones is well known for her killer cliffhangers so be warned) And, seriously, absolutely nothing like Fifty Shades. Not sure how they came up with that other than it's a trilogy and he's rich and a little kinky.

5 stars!! Playing Doctor by Jan Meredith *Pick of the Litter*

When a fellow RN jokingly predicts that Beth Roberts will meet a tall, ripped and totally lick-o-licious stranger who will fulfill her deepest desires, it’s supposed to be from across a crowded room, not giving CPR to a wedding guest. Given her tragic love life, Beth has no desire to become involved again, but who could have predicted the ponytailed doctor with the mischievous smile would break through her defenses?

Dr. Gabriel North blamed himself for his wife’s death. Now, after two years of battling guilt and meaningless hookups, he’s ready to move on. When he sees the sexy brunette at his friend’s wedding, his attraction is swift and strong, and he wastes no time in pressing his advantage. One night with the woman who makes him feel alive again isn’t enough, but gaining her trust as a man was going to take more than medical school had prepared him for.

Type: Contemporary Romance, novella
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5 *PICK OF THE LITTER*

Amazon All Romance Goodreads

Okay, so I can't get the goofy grin off my face after finishing Playing Doctor. Because, damn, *this* is how you write a novella. I loved everything about it. The characters, the set up, the scorching hot sex scenes ::shivers::, the growth both Beth and Gabe experienced. All of it. Meredith knocked it out of the park and has an instant fan.

5 stars! Christmas in Lucky Harbor by Jill Shalvis

Love, love, love Lucky Harbor. It's one of my all time favorite small towns. Christmas in Lucky Harbor is a collection of stories from the series. Books 1 and 2 and then two short stories. I'd read all but one of the short stories previously and Shalvis wow'd me again with Kissing Santa Claus. If you haven't picked up this series it's a must read if you enjoy contemporary small town romances. Steamy, sweet, a little spice and just hilarious as all kinds of delicious alpha males fall for quirky, strong and spirited women...

Love awaits in Lucky Harbor...

Type: Contemporary Romance, Small Town
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5


Amazon All Romance BAM Goodreads

Okay so a couple wee tiny re-cap reviews on the ones I've read/reviewed already and a little on the newest short included in the book :) Check em out and let me know what you think...

Fool's Gold Cookbook by Susan Mallery *pick of the litter*

Fool's Gold is known as the Land of Happy Endings, but it's also the land of hearty appetites. Throughout the series, the residents of Fool's Gold have found joy, comfort and good times through food. Now two local Fool's Gold chefs will also find love through food! Join them as they flirt, fight and fall in love, one season at a time.

You'll also find favorite recipes from popular characters in the series.

With chapters for summer, spring, fall and winter, you can find the perfect recipe for everything from holiday get-togethers to cozy date nights, always using the freshest ingredients. And the heartwarming love story that is woven throughout is Susan Mallery at her finest.

The more than 150 recipes and dozens of gorgeous photographs in this book will inspire you to find perfection in the simple and the seasonal. And with all of Fool's Gold with you in the kitchen, your every celebration will have a happy ending!

Type: Contemporary Romance Novella & a cookbook!
Heat: 1 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Amazon Book Depository Goodreads

Seriously I cannot stop smiling. Mallery was absolutely genius in putting The Fool's Gold Cookbook together. I wasn't sure how it was all going to work with the whole cookbook/romance combo but it was utterly and deliciously perfect.

After Hours by Cara McKenna-- *5 stars! Pick of the Litter*

A dangerous infatuation with a rough and ready man…

Erin Coffey has been a nurse for years, but nothing’s prepared her for the physical and emotional demands of her new position. Needing to move closer to her dysfunctional family, she takes a dangerous job at Larkhaven Psychiatric Hospital, where she quickly learns that she needs protection—and she meets the strong, over-confident coworker who’s more than willing to provide it.

Kelly Robak is the type of guy that Erin has sworn she’d never get involved with. She’s seen firsthand, via her mess of a sister, what chaos guys like him can bring into a woman’s life. But she finds herself drawn to him anyway, even when he shows up at her door, not eager to take no for an answer.

What Erin finds even more shocking than Kelly’s indecent proposal is how much she enjoys submitting to his every command. But he can’t play the tough guy indefinitely. If they want to have more than just an affair, both will have to open up and reveal what they truly need

Type: Erotica/Contemporary Romance
Heat: 3.5 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Amazon B&N Goodreads

McKenna made working on a psych ward so fucking sexy. I loved everything about After Hours. Hot hero, strong/determined heroine, unique setting, sex that was so fucking hot it could singe the pages and just the right amount of drama added into the mix to make things even more exciting.

The Duchess Hunt (House of Trent #1) by Jennifer Haymore

Simon Hawkins, duke of Trent, is no stranger to scandal. Rumors and innuendo have darkened the House of Trent for decades, and it has fallen to Simon to restore his tattered family name. He lives by a strict code of honor, but when he is called home to investigate his mother's disappearance, the distinguished duke will tangle with temptation. For there waits the only woman he has ever loved--and the last woman he should desire...

Sarah Osborne has spent her life dreaming of Simon's touch. But dukes do not long for lady's maids--or so Sarah believes, until a stolen kiss sparks a passion that could be her ultimate undoing. As the couple begins a forbidden romance, a cunning enemy plots to destroy the duke and everything he loves. Now, caught in a blackmailer's web, Simon faces an agonizing choice: sacrifice his family's future or break Sarah's heart.

Type: Historical Romance
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Amazon B&N Goodreads

Total. Book. Swoon. 375 pages and I adored each and every single word. The Duchess Hunt is exactly what I look for in a historical romance. A story where I can get completely and undeniably lost in it's pages and in a world that feels so incredibly real you can almost taste it. Where it breaks your heart and mists up your eyes and makes you smile in pure joy as the characters you meet fight for their happily ever after.

Wilde Nights in Paradise (Wilde Security #1) by Tonya Burrows

He’ll guard her body all night long.

Former Force Recon marine Jude Wilde’s motto has always been “burn bridges and never look back,” so nobody is more surprised when Wilde Security is hired to protect assistant district attorney Libby Pruitt, the woman he loved and left. Although she makes it clear she wants nothing to do with Jude, they’re forced to fake a relationship for her safety. He can’t ignore the heat still simmering between them, and when her stalker’s threats escalate to attempted murder, he’s left with no choice but to whisk her away to a friend’s safe house in Key West, FL.

Cooped up in paradise together, Jude begins to chip away at Libby’s resolve to hate him. But even as she gives in to his proximity and her body’s demands for his, she refuses to fall for his charms again. Maybe a torrid affair in the sun is exactly what she needs to get him out of her system. But when her stalker tracks them down, can they escape the steamy Key West night without anyone getting hurt?

Type: Contemporary Romance, Light Suspense
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Amazon B&N Goodreads

It's one thing to create an enjoyable story. Lots of authors manage that, right? It's an altogether different thing to make your readers LOVE your characters. To make them want to climb in the book and pound on people when they're giving the hero or heroine a hard time. To set off that protective don't you mess with my baby hand on the hip pissed off mama bear reaction in someone. And that's where Tonya Burrows gets me. She makes me freaking love her characters.

Undeniable by Madeline Sheehan

Warning: This is not a typical love story. This is an all-consuming, soul-crushing, tear-your-heart-into-pieces story. It’s intense, gritty and raw, dark and disturbing, and it doesn’t happen overnight. This is an epic love story that knows no boundaries and has no time limits. It grows and develops—with hurt, sacrifice, and heartache—over the span of a lifetime. 

Eva Fox is the princess of the Silver Demons Motorcycle Club. Growing up with bikers in the club lifestyle is all that she knows. When she’s a young girl, Eva meets the reason for her existence. Deuce West is the sexy, biker bad-ass of the Hell’s Horsemen Motorcycle Club. Like Eva, he was born and raised in the club—but that’s where the similarities end. Their first meeting is innocent, but as Eva matures into a woman, their chance reunions evolve into a fit of lust and love. Fate continues to bring them together time and time again, but their twisted journey is filled with pain, betrayal, and bloodshed that could tear them apart. Eva sees in Deuce what he cannot see in himself—a man worthy of love—and Eva spends her lifetime proving to him that her undeniable love is the one thing he can’t live without. 

This is Eva and Deuce’s story. 

It wasn’t easy. 
Nothing worth doing ever is.
And love is worth everything.

Type: Dark Romance? 
Heat: 3 out of 5
Rating: 5 out of 5

Fuck me. Yall this book was unlike anything I've ever read before. These are some majorly fucked up people doing some majorly fucked up things and hell if I know what it says about me but I fucking loved it.

Take the warning with this one seriously. This is not a romance for everyone. It's dark and gritty and incredibly twisted. It's not a pretty thing to watch, not even close. You'll hate the characters but at the same time love them in all their incredibly messed up glory. This is one that will push your buttons, make you uncomfortable and if you're like me completely rock your reading world.

** there will be some spoilers for things that I thought merited a warning or two-- just a heads up**