My personal top ten books of 2019

My top ten reads 2019:

Everybody's doing it! Compiling lists of their top 10 top 20 or top whatever reads of the year. I usually do this so here are my very best reads of the last 12 months, They are the books I've completely enjoyed reading and which have stayed with me.

Some of them have been books I reviewed as part of blog tours and as always I am very grateful to be included in events for new books. Others are books I chose to read just because they called out to me or because I heard about them from book loving friends. 

I adore books which take me on a journey, whether that is a virtual journey to pastures new from my armchair or an emotional journey, here are the books which carried me away this year.

I have reviewed them either here on my blog, or on Goodreads.

Thankyou to everyone who has helped me discover these books I've loved, I hope this list might help you find one or two too. Click on the book title to be taken to my original blog post and review.

In no particular order they are:

The Glittering Hour - Iona Grey:

My thanks go to Anne Cater of #Randomthingstours for introducing me to this wonderful romantic novel which took me on a journey of the heart.

"an utterly delightful love story, revealed in spoonfuls that I guzzled down. It honestly made my heart ache"

The Giver of Stars - Jojo Moyes:

It wouldn't be a list of my favourites if it didn't have at least one book by the wonderful Jojo Moyes who gets it bang on every time.

"heart-warming and lovely, a stunning story, filled with wonderful characters, diverse women and a few totally vile men"

The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow

A wonderful fantasy for all ages to rival His Dark Materials, a journey of magical new worlds.

"As soon as I started it, I slipped into a magical world where Doors to other worlds exist"

One for The Blackbird One for The Crow - 

Here to Stay - Mark Edwards

Thrillers by Mark Edwards are always deliciously dark, very twisty and somewhat manic. This one is no exception.

"This is a brain-numbingly intense read, that creates the inlaws from hell, brings them into your beautiful posh house and when you're ready to scream with frustration the bloodshed begins"

Bone China - Laura Purcell

Wow!! @SpookyPurcell does it again, delves into the past and pulls out a ripe juicy plum of a story which carried me back in time.

"Haunting and mesmerising, Bone China is set over 2 historical periods of time 40 years apart."

A Transcontinental Affair - Jodi Daynard

A sweeping historical romance taking me on an epic journey across 1970s USA on the Pullmann Express.

"The main characters are wonderful, especially the women. and I was rooting for Louisa especially"

The Gates of Eden - Nadine LeCheminant

This book took me on a journey of hope and discovery by wagon train, based on the Authors true family history I loved every step of the way.

A story about everyday folk making a pioneering epic trek, overcoming desperation and hardship.

One for the Blackbird one for the Crow - Olivia Hawker

Set in Wyoming this historical novel is a haunting story about friendship and forgiveness.

"lyrical in the lavish and haunting descriptiveness of the wildness of the vast prairie"

The Whisper Man - Alex North

"Whisper man is a fabulous crime thriller which scared me witless and has me in tears more than once."

Attend by West Camel

And last but not least a book i really loved but haven't yet written a lengthy review for as it was just so good it left me lost for words, quirky and different I highly recommend this one.

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Two for the weekend - reviews of 2 forthcoming psychologically twisted novels

Two for the weekend are reviews of the latest 2 new psychological novels I've read.
Both books are dark and twisty and feature very flawed and damaged young women, There the similarity ends.

Firstly is The Recovery of Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobels

Here are my thoughts:

Dark and twisty

This is a deliciously dark and twisty psychological tale with not one but 2 devilishly complex and flawed female leads.

Rose Gold, who is now an adult, but when she was a child she was treated appallingly by her Mom Patty, who has served time for attempting to poison her only child. Although what she really seems to have done is poisoned her mind. For one woman is as bad as the other and you never quite know who is telling the absolute truth... who to have a little sympathy for... who is the most unreliable narrator... who is the sickest in the head!

It would seem that having served her time Patty is desperate to make amends with her daughter, denying the abuse she is accused of and insisting everything she has ever done was for the love of her daughter

Will she forgive and forget?

Rose Gold would appear to be ready to forgive and forget, but it's probably not as easy as that. She is alone, a single parent with a baby boy. How can she ever trust Patty around him?

A devilish twist

OMG this is one warped and sick, fiendishly twisty and utterly compelling read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it had a devilish twist I can't believe I didn't see coming.

The Blurb

Rose Gold Watts believed she was sick for eighteen years. She thought she needed the feeding tube, the surgeries, the wheelchair . . .

Turns out her mum, Patty, is a really good liar.

After five years in prison Patty Watts is finally free. All she wants is to put old grievances behind her, reconcile with her daughter and care for her new infant grandson. When Rose Gold agrees to have Patty move in, it seems their relationship is truly on the mend.

But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty won't rest until she has her daughter back under her thumb. Which is a smidge inconvenient because Rose Gold wants to be free of Patty. Forever.

Only one Watts will get what she wants.

Will it be Patty or Rose Gold?


Mother, or daughter?

My Second read is 

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Damaged or disturbed?

Not sure exactly how I felt about this book about another flawed and damaged young woman, well written and gripping. Compelling reading, but I didn't find it so much shocking as just rather tragic and sad.

The story of a precocious teenage girl who seduces her middle aged teacher. Well that's how she sees it.
It's a teenage crush taken to obsession but who is obsessed with who? It jumps about in time quite a bit which I found a little confusing.

Vanessa was a schoolgirl of 15 when she began a long lasting affair with her teacher. She is an adult now still in touch with Jacob Strane, the teacher who everyone insists abused her, whilst she continues to view it as the love affair of her life.

Love? Or dark obsession?

It has certainly made a lasting impression on her, so much that she still keeps in touch with her lover and even when he is accused of similar acts that people have said he committed against her, she defends him vehemently.

The one thing which sustains her, even now she is a lonely grown woman who drinks too much, is her own conviction of her own power, the knowledge that she instigated everything, she used her attractiveness, her wiles, her seductiveness to woo him. She revels in the feeling that she is a bad girl and she always will be.

She sees herself as some kind of femme-fatale with this power over men, she harbours dark desires, she is Lolita, she is different, she is special .... (the reality is she is flawed and she is broken)

She is unable to sustain relationships because everything she does and everyone she grows close to pales in comparison with the intensity of feelings aroused by her illicit affair with this older man.

But undoubtedly he was culpable, he was the adult he should have known better and he should never, ever have given in to the temptation of taking this pretty young girl into his bed.

Having lasting repercussions this is one affair which was never going to end well for anyone involved.
Dark, moving and compulsive reading.

The Blurb

Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?


Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

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Best of the best books 2018

Beadyjans favourite books 2018 My top 10

We're all doing it - frantically compiling lists of our favourite reads in 2018. 

I don't know why we readers feel compelled to make lists of everything but its a common trait, and we love reading other peoples lists too. So while I should really be making a shopping list, a packing list for my festive break etc, here's a list of my very favourite reads over the past 12 months.

UPDATE: - Already I'm fretting that I missed a few books I adored and then I've just finished reading yet another which really blew me away. Do not view this as a definitive list!!

2018 has been a year of change for me, we bought a little holiday home in the sun which has proven to be rather a mixed blessing and I finally escaped the job I loathed and have landed firmly on my feet working for the most amazing and lovely small family business, who have all but adopted me, not just employed me. I only wish I'd started working for them donkeys years ago and could have made a lifelong career with them rather than working out my last few years until retirement.

It has also been the year before Brexit which is grieving me so sorely I can't bear to speak more of it, so here we go with something more cheerful: 

Books I've loved reading this year.

Some are titles I've been fortunate enough to read in advance of publication and a few may not be published until early 2019. As a Book-blogger I'm brought into contact with many authors and titles I may not otherwise have discovered and I'm in the privileged position of reading many new books as soon, or even before, they are published. For this, I thank all the publishers, authors and blog tour organisers for helping me find so many books which have made a great impact on me.

2018 for me, has been THE year of the historical novel. 

I just don’t seem to have been able to get enough of escaping the madness of 2018 by travelling back into the past and there have been some damn good offerings so that it’s come as no surprise that the majority of my top ten are from the historical genre:
My top 10 books are as follows:

1. The Corset by Laura Purcell 

The Corset is a very worthy successor to her extremely good previous book The Silent Companions. However for me The Corset is in a league of its own. The book I wish I’d written and will probably still be telling people to read in ten years time.

2. The Binding Bridget Collins

So good I want to cry just thinking about it.

3. Walls of silence - Ruth Wade 

Wonderful story telling with a killer twist that punched me in the gut.

4. Blackberry and Wild Rose – Sonia Velton

DO judge this book by it's cover - the words inside are as glorious as the image on the outside, a stunning debut novel built around the lives of Huguenot silk weavers.

5. The Story Keeper Anna Mazzola (review to follow as part of the blog tour in January)

Beautifully descriptive, set on the Isle of Skye following the Highland Clearances.

6. Salt Creek – Lucy Treloar

Stunning award-winning novel set in the far-flung Coorong Australia.

7. When Winter comes – VA Shannon

Truly wonderful gripping book about the tragedy surrounding the real pioneering Donner Party.

8. The lighthouse keepers daughter – Hazel Gaynor

Lovely romantic fiction based on the life of Grace Darling.

9. Ghost – Helen Grant

Delightful dual-time frame novel of the lives of two young women, past and present which become entwined.


10. The Perfect Friend – Barbara Copperthwaite

The only contemporary thriller in my top  this year and no surprise it’s by my go-to author when I want a shiver to run down my spine – the sublime Barbara Copperthwaite who nearly always manages to get into my top reads lists and if you haven’t read any of her books yet – start now.

That's my top ten and I really must add an honourable mention to The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber which really should be on my list too and a nod to 2019 and a note to watch out for this one ..... The Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacNeil and apologies to anyone else whose book I've loved, there were just too darned many this year!!

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My favourite reads 2107 - another darned list!

As everyones doing it at this time of year I may as well join in by listing my favourite reads of 2017. I'm quite disappointed with myself, at how few books I actually managed to read right to the end this year, perhaps because I did end up with quite a few duds which just didn't float my boat enough to finish them but I struggled on trying to get into them and losing time which could have been spent reading something I loved.

Here are a few of the books which did float my boat and kept me joyously entertained throughout.

Starting with possibly the most enjoyable read this year for me, the perfectly stunning Sealskin by Su Bristow an absolutely enchanting and captivating, tear at your heart, love story with the twist that it’s based on a legend yet is completely believable.

Before the Rains is a great historical romantic read by one of my go to authors for escapism Dinah Jefferies

The Wild Air by Rebecca Mascull is yet another historical book that stayed with me, a coming of age, a love story and a historical novel about early flight which swept me away.

He said, She Said by Erin Kelly is a delightfully different and darkly convoluted contemporary psychological thriller/ domestic Noir drama that gripped me and twisted my brain.

The very clever Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski blew me away with its quirky take on podcasting and a twisty crime story from six viewpoints.

Exquisite by Sarah Stovell is a darkly twisted story of a toxic relationship between two women. A stunning and immaculately fragmented tale of twisted perfection.

The amazing Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine is an utterly captivating and delightful genre bending book which defies categorization being both hilariously humorous yet darkly profound too.

Maria in the moon by Louise Beech, is also a light/dark book, dealing with a desperately dark subject in a heartwarming and accessible way threaded with wry humour.

The next two books are yet to come for most readers and I appreciate the greatly privileged position I'm in to have had the chance to read them both in advance of publication.

Two to look out for in 2018 are the wonderful

Sal by Mick Kitson

and Three Things about Elsie by the amazing Joanna Cannon

It would be remiss of me to publish this post without a warm mention and LOUD "thank you" to the quite superb Orenda Books from whom many of my very best reads this year have been. 

Many of their titles seem to be tailormade for me and I consider it a real privilege to be afforded advance copies of some of their titles.

If you're reading this maybe we share similar reading tastes, so do yourself a favour and have a browse through their current and forthcoming titles.

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