Reading Year in Review 2018

I think we all can agree that 2018 was a dumpster fire of a year and yet, somehow, I managed to get through 95 books.  My reading goal is always 100, so while I did fall short, 95 is the most I've managed to get through since 2014 (when I read an incredible 119).  Here's how it all broke down (and yes, I count DNFs):

5 Stars (A Grade) = 7

4 Stars (B Grade) = 27

3 Stars (C Grades, includes some "low B-") = 38

2 Stars (D Grades) = 10

1 Star (F Grades) = 3

DNF (Did Not Finish) = 10

Audiobooks = 28

My A grades were up this year (although pretty consistent from previous years - I rarely assign 5-Stars in the double digits), my DNFs were up a smidge, my audiobook numbers were down (shorter work commute after I moved last year!), and my C grades outpaced my B grades (which is not great).  But, I'll take it.  This was the most productive reading year I've had in a dog's age.

Now, for what everybody cares about: the books!  A reminder that this is a recap of what I loved and read during 2018, but not necessarily books published in 2018.  I'm perpetually behind, so most of my Best Of list will be books that will, hopefully, be lurking in TBRs already or easy to score at your local library.

Note: Title links will take you to full reviews

The Romance:

Burn Down the Night (2016) and Wait For It (2017) by Molly O'Keefe - After not a single romance garnered an A grade from me in 2017, I vowed to start off 2018 on the right foot - with an author who consistently works for me.  The final two books in a quartet series, Burn Down the Night gives me the closest thing I've read to a true Bad Girl Heroine in the genre and Wait For It is an example of an Asshole Hero done right.  I didn't read these books so much as inhale them.

Breathe (2016) by L. Setterby - My contest judging this year was largely meh, but holy hell where has this book been all my life?!  A perfect example of starting a book, reading the first sentence, and just falling head over feet right into the world.  I'm so hooked that I downloaded the Wattpad app to read the next book in the series (still being released in weekly installments as I write up this post).

An Extraordinary Union (2017) by Alyssa Cole - A historical romance with legit high stakes conflict.  I loved this heroine so much I'm thinking of taking the Gone Fishin' sign off of my ovaries.

The Tycoon's Socialite Bride (2014) by Tracey Livesay - Here it is, the best category romance I read this year.  Livesay hit all her emotional beats, right on time.  I loved the heroine's family baggage and the hero bent on revenge but not needlessly cruel (although this one does rip your guts out in parts).  Don't think you like category romance?  Try this one.  It's damn near magical.

Indigo (1996) by Beverly Jenkins - Arguably the book that Jenkins is best known for, and it's easy to see why.  She puts so much into this story, addressing racism, colorism, and sexism, without preaching from the pulpit or losing sight of the romance.  Also, I've always felt that Jenkins' strength (well, besides her dynamite heroines) is her world-building.  The community she creates in this story, using the Underground Railroad as a backdrop, was so well done.

The Soldier Prince (2018) by Aarti V. Raman - This is my cracktastic read of the year, basically a category romance about a former Black Ops-style soldier, who is really a prince, who falls in love with a struggling college student waiting tables in a New York City deli.  This one is full of ALL THE TROPES and I couldn't get enough of it.  Raman needs to publish the next book in this series, like, yesterday.

Delicious Temptation (2015) by Sabrina Sol - Believable baggage (seriously, families can be the worst), and I loved the East LA family bakery backdrop.  Is it because I live in southern California and know the area?  Maybe.  Because Sol writes it so very well.  My runner up for best category read of the year.

Not Romance, Still Awesome:

The Broken Girls (2018) by Simone St. James - It's to the point now where I'm a squee'ing unreasonable fangirl for Simone St. James, but seriously, I loved this one.  A time slip novel with converging 1950 and 2014 plot treads and a nice "romantic elements" secondary thread involving the 2014 heroine and her cop boyfriend.  

Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow - A long book (47 hours on audio!), this one is worth the time investment.  Grant's life exemplifies the old "truth is stranger than fiction" adage.  That this man, basically a failure is every other aspect of his life, defeated the Confederacy, saved the Union, and became President is simply remarkable.  This is my new Read A Book Already book.  Plus, I learned stuff.  Which is always nice when reading non-fiction.

Jane Doe (2018) by Victoria Helen Stone - The revenge thriller I didn't know I needed.  A cool, methodical heroine who exacts her revenge against the worst sort of hypocritical DudeBro.  I loved every blessed minute of it.

Charlesgate Confidential (2018) by Scott Von Doviak - A crime novel set in Boston with three converging timelines. It did take a while for me to sink into this story and I did have to read about the damn Red Sox way too much for my liking, but this one is excellent.  Excellent world building.  Excellent mystery.  Interesting characters.  It kept me guessing all the way to the end.

Comfort Read/Author of 2018:

Marcia Muller - Every reader I know has what they call "comfort reading."  Either a favorite book or author, maybe a favorite genre.  For me, that's mystery.  I fell in love with reading via mysteries.  I devoured them as a teen, so there's a really high nostalgia factor at play here.  Given what a mess 2018 was, it's probably not surprising that I read 14 books in the Sharon McCone series this year.  I got through books 3 - 15 and one short story collection this year, in a mix of audio and print.  Technically these were all rereads for me, revisiting books I first read or listened to on audio as a teenager and in my early 20s.  Yes, some held up better than others, but the world building! The character arcs! I wanted to read more in the series this year, but other obligations have kept me from them.  I plan to pick up again with book 16 in 2019.

And that's my Year In Review for 2018.  I'm quite pleased with myself, but continue to hope for bigger and better in 2019.  The goal, once again, is 100 books.  Let's see if I make it.

Review: Charlesgate Confidential

My timing couldn't have been worse for reading Charlesgate Confidential, Scott Von Doviak's debut novel from Hard Case Crime.  The news has been filled with nothing but hate and reports of man's vile inhumanity against man, so an intricately plotted crime novel when I probably was in a mood better suited for a Calgon-Take-Me-Away Fairy Tale Romance made for slow going.  Also, the story is set in Boston and I had to read about the effing Red Sox more than was tolerable.  What would be tolerable?  Not reading about them at all.  But at least Von Doviak had the good sense to set part of this story in 1986.  God bless you Bill Buckner.

This is an ambitious novel that features not one, not two, but three dueling timelines.  I've seen this go horribly awry with authors just tackling two timelines, but three?!  And while it did take some time for me to sink into the story, the intricacy of the plotting and how the author weaves all three timelines together is pretty remarkable.

The story opens in 1946 when two brothers and their cousin rob a mob-connected poker game at the Charlesgate Hotel.  Naturally, they can't keep their mouths shut about it - so the guy who runs the poker game, Dave T, catches up with them.  But instead of burying them in concrete on some construction site, he essentially blackmails them into pulling off a heist for him.  They lift some priceless paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and, of course, it all goes horribly wrong.

In 1986 the Charlesgate Hotel is now a dormitory for Emerson College.  Tommy Donnelly is a student who can actually write, so the school paper assigns him a series profiling the Charlesgate.  There's a slew of rumors, ghost stories and urban legends, and hey - Tommy lives there.  He starts digging into Charlesgate's past, stumbles across the story of the Gardner heist, and the fact that the paintings were never recovered.

In 2014 the Charlesgate has been turned into luxury condos and a real estate agent showing a prospective client a vacant unit is strangled for her trouble, her keys to the entire building stolen.  Detective Martin Coleman catches the case, stumbles across the Gardner link, and hits pay dirt when a Charlesgate resident returns from a business trip to find her condo has been broken into.  Jackie St. John was a former student at Emerson, lived at the Charlesgate in 1986, and Tommy Donnelly was one of her friends.

It takes a while to get there, but eventually the author begins to mesh all three timelines to bring the entire story behind the art heist into focus.  What went wrong, why, and more importantly - what happened to those paintings?  What I liked best about this story is that it kept me guessing.  Everything about this crime story was a mystery.  How the author was going to bring the three timelines together, the twists along the way, and finally what happened to the stolen paintings.  I had no idea where the author was taking me until I actually got there, and after a lifetime of reading suspense novels (oh, just 30 years is all...), it's always a small miracle when an author can surprise me about...well, everything.

I really wasn't in the right head space to read this when I did, but it's a really well done novel, the kind that should get award recognition.  Despite my intense loathing of the Red Sox, there's no denying Von Doviak's world building and the plotting of this story is top notch.  He's set the bar high with his first novel.  I eagerly await the second.

Final Grade = B+