Best Books of 2019 and Happy Holidays!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I wanted to do a quick post before I left for our Christmas vacation to wish our readers a great winter break and to do a quick recommendation for the best books of 2019.

I hope you enjoy all the festivities, and or, a good book or two!

I will be away for just over two weeks visiting my family in England! This is my favorite time of year when I get to have fabulous feasts and lots of catching up with friends and family. I can’t wait to see everyone!

Some housekeeping:

We will be back in 2020 with our regular monthly reads.

Heads up, we will be reading The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian for January 2020. This book should be a great fun thriller to start the new year off. Summary of the book will be up at the beginning of the year. Or you can check it out here.

Also, we are thinking of reading Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout for either February or March suggested reading.

Since I missed the post for holiday reads this year, I am going to do a quick recommendation on some of my 2019 favorite reads. You can check out my mid year update with some of the best books that I loved this year here.

Book Recommendations:

Young Adult:

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor was one of my favorite young adult reads this year. This book is the sequel to Strange The Dreamer. If you haven’t read this series, you should definitely check it out!

Call Down The Hawk (The Dreamer trilogy) by Maggie Stiefvater was fantastic. This is the first book of her new series and I loved it! It was great to be back in Ronan’s world. Check out The Raven Boys by this author for another brilliant series to read.

Fantasty:

I absolutely loved Circe by Madeline Miller. For readers who like mythology this one is a must read. I loved this book so much that I followed it up with reading The Song of Achilles by the same author. It was also a great read. She’s definitely on of my favorite authors now!

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom is not a recently published book but it was so good! The writing was awesome and I loved the man who became Father Time.

Science Fiction

Recursion by Blake Crouch was an awesome read! If you haven’t read Dark Matter, you should also check it out.

Literary Fiction

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri was a really fantastic moving book. Lefteri’s poignant portrayal of the immigration experience was informative and heartbreaking. The Beekeeper of Aleppo will be added to my top books on the immigration experience.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane was another fantastic book that surprised me with how good it was. Beautifully written, insightful, and layered with emotion, this book was a very satisfying read.

Historical Fiction

The Huntress by Kate Quinn was one of the best historical fiction I read this year. I enjoyed Quinn’s book so much that I read her blockbuster book The Alice Network right after. She is just an awesome writer!

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson was a surprisingly great read! This was such an interesting read about pack-horse librarians. Oh so very unique!

The Night Tiger by Yangze Choo was another awesome read! This book has elements of everything I liked and was a page turner. Choo is an excellent story teller.

Thriller/Mystery

The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter was a pager turner. She’s another fantastic author that I just love.

The Other Woman by Sandie Jones was a fun thriller to read! I just didn’t see it coming at all.

The Chain by Adrian McKinty was a roller coaster of a ride! The premise of the book was scary and the book stayed with me long after I put it down.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper was awesome! I loved the setting and the characters in this book.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides was a fantastic psychological thriller. Loved the ending of this book.

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sajuta Massey was a fun historical mystery read. I’ll be looking out of more of her work!

I hope you get a chance to read some of these fabulous books!

Let me know if they are on your to read pile or if any of them pique your interest.

Happy holidays!