2017 End of Year Book Survey

It's time for the 2017 End of Year Book Survey hosted by The Perpetual Page-Turner!

Number Of Books You Read: 170
Number of Re-Reads: 6 novels
Genre You Read The Most From: YA Fantasy

1. Best Book You Read In 2017?

SCIENCE FICTION: Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre
FANTASY: The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye (review)
CONTEMP/HISTOR: Murder, Magic, & What We Wore by Kelly Jones (review)
NON-FICTION: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
MANGA: The Ancient Magus' Bride vol. 6 by Kore Yamazaki

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Starfall by Melissa Landers (review)

3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read? 

Good: Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller (review)

4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?

Murder, Magic, and What We Wore by Kelly Jones (review)

5. Best series you started in 2017? Best Sequel of 2017? Best Series Ender of 2017?

STARTED: The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye (review)
SEQUEL: A Poison Dark & Drowning by Jessica Cluess (review)
ENDER: Kamisama Kiss vol. 25 by Julietta Suzuki

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2017?

A. Lee Martinez (via The Last Adventure of Constance Verity)

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller (review)

8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

Nyxia by Scott Reintgen

9. Book You Read In 2017 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2017?

Roar by Cora Carmack

11. Most memorable character of 2017?

Nadim from Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2017?

The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye (review)

13. Most Thought-Provoking/Life-Changing Book of 2017?

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2017 to finally read? 

Top Ten Clues You're Clueless by Liz Czukas

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2017?

I didn't mark any this year (I'm so bad about quotes)...

16. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2017? 

SHORTEST: Explorer: The Mystery Boxes by Kazu Kibuishi
LONGEST: Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (re-read)

17. Book That Shocked You The Most (Because of a plot twist, character death, left you hanging with your mouth wide open, etc.)

A Poison Dark & Drowning by Jessica Cluess (review)

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!) (OTP = one true pairing if you aren’t familiar)

Zadim from Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year

Zadim from Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2017 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray (review)

21. Best Book You Read In 2017 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure:

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller (review)

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2017?

Abel from Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray (review)

23. Best 2017 debut you read?

Nyxia by Scott Reintgen

24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye (review)

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight vol. 1 by Rin Mikimoto

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2017?

Kamisama Kiss vol. 25 by Julietta Suzuki

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

Murder, Magic, and What We Wore by Kelly Jones (review)

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

A Poison Dark & Drowning by Jessica Cluess (review)

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2017?

Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2017 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2018?

Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda

2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2018 (non-debut)?

Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston

3. 2018 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?

Ink, Iron, and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare

4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2018?

Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray

5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading Life In 2018?

Read more backlog!

6. A 2018 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone:

Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

*          *          *

And that's it! Did you read any of these? What did you think of them? And if you filled out the survey as well, leave a link to your post in the comments below!

WoW: An Unkindness of Magicians (Kat Howard)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly blogging event hosted by Breaking the Spine, in which one spotlights an upcoming release they are eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Title: An Unkindness of Magicians

Author: Kat Howard

Release Date: September 26, 2017
Publisher: Saga Press

Summary:

There is a dark secret that is hiding at the heart of New York City and diminishing the city’s magicians’ power in this fantasy thriller by acclaimed author Kat Howard.

In New York City, magic controls everything. But the power of magic is fading. No one knows what is happening, except for Sydney—a new, rare magician with incredible power that has been unmatched in decades, and she may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness that is weakening the magic. But Sydney doesn’t want to help the system, she wants to destroy it.

Sydney comes from the House of Shadows, which controls the magic with the help of sacrifices from magicians.

Add to Goodreads

Why I'm Looking Forward To It: I am always game for a magical NYC story! And this one sounds deliciously sinister.

So what book are you waiting on?

BOOKBURNERS Excerpt Blitz

A secret black-ops team backed by the Vatican that hunts down dangerous books containing deadly magic? Welcome to BOOKBURNERS, a multi-author collaboration formerly serialized online by Serial Box now finally in print from Saga Press! Check out an excerpt below and then get yourself a copy today!

~*~                    ~*~                    ~*~

An Excerpt from Bookburners Episode 1: Badge, Book, and Candle

He set his hand on the book’s cover. Sal hadn’t noticed before how the leather was discolored: most of it matched Perry’s skin, but a crimson bloom spread beneath his fingers. She heard a sound she couldn’t name: a footfall, maybe, or a whisper, very soft. Goose bumps chased goose bumps up her arms.

“Perry, who are the Bookburners? Do you think someone’s following you?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

 She leaned over the couch, over his shoulder, and checked through the blinds. Street still bare. Red Toyota pickup. Honda Civic. Garbage. E-Z Carpet Cleaner van.

“Please, Sal. They would have nabbed me on the way. They did not. Ergo, I wasn’t followed.”

“What the hell is going on?”

Someone knocked on her door.

“Shit,” Perry said.

“Jesus Christ, Perry.” She grabbed her phone off the living room table. “Who is that?”

 “Aiden. Probably.”

 “Mister Brooks?” The man on the other side of the door was unquestionably not Aiden—too old, too sure, too calm. An accent Sal couldn’t place twined through his words. “Mister Brooks, we’re not here to hurt you. We want to talk.”

“Shit,” Perry repeated, for emphasis.

Sal ran to her bedroom and returned with her gun. “Who are you?”

“I’m looking for Mister Brooks. I know he’s in there.”

“If he is, I doubt he’d want to see you.”

“I must talk with him.”

“Sir, I’m a police officer, and I’m armed. Please step away from the door.”

“Has he opened the book?”

 “What?” She looked into the living room. Perry was standing now, holding the book, fingers clenched around the cover like she’d seen men at bay clutch the handles of knives. “Sir, please leave. I’m calling 9-1-1 now.” She pressed the autodial. The line clicked.

“Stop him from opening the book,” the man said. “Please. If he means anything to you, stop him.”

 “Hello. This is Detective Sally Brooks,” and she rattled off her badge number and address. “I have a man outside my apartment who is refusing to leave—”

Something heavy struck the door. Doorjamb timbers splintered. Sally stumbled back, dropped the phone, both hands on the pistol. She took aim.

The door burst free of the jamb and struck the wall. A human wind blew through.

Later, Sal remembered slivers: a stinging blow to her wrist, her gun knocked back against the wall. A woman’s face—Chinese, she thought. Bob haircut. Her knee slammed into Sal’s solar plexus and she fell, gasping, to the splinter-strewn carpet. The woman turned, in slow-motion almost, to the living room where Perry stood.

He held the open book.

His eyes wept tears of blood, and his smile bared sharp teeth.

He spoke a word that was too big for her mind. She heard the woman roar, and glass break. Then darkness closed around her like a mouth.
© 2017 Max Gladstone, with permission from Saga Press

THE BOOK

Title: Bookburners

Created By: Max Gladstone

Authors: Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, Brian Francis Slattery

Publisher: Saga Press

Pub. Date: January 10, 2017

The critically acclaimed urban fantasy about a secret team of agents that hunts down dangerous books containing deadly magic—previously released serially online by Serial Box, now available in print for the first time!

Magic is real, and hungry. It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.

Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.

ADD TO GOODREADS

PURCHASE LINKS:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound

THE AUTHORS

MAX GLADSTONE has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia, drank almond milk with monks on Wudang Shan, and wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat. Max is also the author of the Craft Sequence of books about undead gods and skeletal law wizards—Full Fathom Five, Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, and Last First Snow. Max fools everyone by actually writing novels in the coffee shops of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. His dreams are much nicer than you’d expect. He tweets as @maxgladstone. Bookburners, which he wrote with Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

Before joining the Bookburners, MARGARET DUNLAP wrote for ABC Family’s cult-hit The Middleman in addition to working on SyFy’s Eureka. Most recently, she was a writer and co-executive producer of the Emmy-winning transmedia series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and co-created its sequel Welcome to Sanditon. Her short fiction has previously appeared in Shimmer Magazine. Margaret lives in Los Angeles where she taunts the rest of the team with local weather reports and waits for the earthquake that will finally turn Burbank into oceanfront property. She tweets as @spyscribe. Bookburners, which she wrote with Max Gladstone, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

MUR LAFFERTY is the author of The Shambling Guides series from Orbit, including the Netfix-optioned The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to New Orleans. She has been a podcaster for over 10 years, running award-winning shows such as I Should Be Writing and novellas published via podcast. She has written for RPGs, video games, and short animation. She lives in Durham, NC where she attends Durham Bulls baseball games and regularly pets two dogs. Her family regrets her Dragon Age addiction and wishes for her to get help. She tweets as @mightymur. Bookburners, which she wrote with Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

BRIAN FRANCIS SLATTERY is the author of Spaceman Blues, Liberation, Lost Everything, and The Family Hightower. Lost Everything won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2012. He’s the arts and culture editor for the New Haven Independent, an editor for the New Haven Review, and a freelance editor for a few not-so-secret public policy think tanks. He also plays music constantly with a few different groups in a bunch of different genres. He has settled with his family just outside of New Haven and admits that elevation above sea level was one of the factors he took into account. For one week out of every year, he enjoys living completely without electricity. Bookburners, which he wrote with Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Mur Lafferty, is available from Saga Press in January.

Check out the BOOKBURNERS BOOK TOUR!

Week 1:

2/6: The Irish Banana Review - Excerpt

2/7: Books, TV, and More ... Oh My! - Spotlight

2/8: Fiction Fare - Q&A

2/9: Lisa's Loves (Books Of Course) - Casting Couch

2/10: Resch Reads and Reviews - Guest Post

Week 2:

2/13: Just Commonly - Q&A

2/14: A Binding Attraction - Playlist

2/15: Kara the Redhead - Top 10

2/16: Wandering Bark Books - Spotlight

2/17: I Heart Romance & YA - Clothing Inspirations

Week 3:

2/20: I Love Books Club - Review

2/21: Novel Ink - Review

2/22: The Story Sanctuary - Review

2/23: Never 2 Many 2 Read - Review

2/24: Owl Always Be Reading - Review

Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases For The First Half of 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases for the First Half of 2016

1. Raging Sea (Michael Buckley) 
2. The Girl From Everywhere (Heidi Heilig) 
3. Tell the Wind & Fire (Sarah Rees Brennan) 
4. Dark Energy (Robison Wells)
5. A Criminal Magic (Lee Kelly)
6. Night Speed (Chris Howard)
7. The Crown's Game (Evelyn Skye)
8. Starflight (Melissa Landers)
9. The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love (Sarvenaz Tash)
10. Thief of Lies (Brenda Drake)

So what are your most anticipated 2016 releases?

Top Ten Books I Wouldn't Mind Santa Leaving Under My Tree This Year

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

Top Ten Books I Wouldn't Mind 
Santa Leaving Under My Tree This Year

(Please remember, Santa: ARCs and Paperbacks preferred!) 

RELEASED 

1. Ten Thousand Skies Above You (Claudia Gray)
2. Their Fractured Light (Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner)
3. Pretending to be Erica (Michelle Painchaud)
4. The Rest of Us Just Live Here (Patrick Ness) 
5. Life In Outer Space & The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl (Melissa Keil)

FULL WISHLIST HERE


UNRELEASED

1. Raging Sea (Michael Buckley) 
2. The Girl From Everywhere (Heidi Heilig) 
3. Tell the Wind & Fire (Sarah Rees Brennan) 
4. Dark Energy (Robison Wells)
5. A Criminal Magic (Lee Kelly)

FULL WISHLIST HERE

So what books are on your list to Santa?

WoW: A Criminal Magic (Lee Kelly)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly blogging event hosted by Breaking the Spine, in which one spotlights an upcoming release they are eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Title: A Criminal Magic

Author: Lee Kelly

Release Date: February 2, 2016
Publisher: Saga Press

Summary:

THE NIGHT CIRCUS meets THE PEAKY BLINDERS in Lee Kelly's new magical realism, crossover novel.

Magic is powerful, dangerous and addictive - and after passage of the 18th Amendment, it is finally illegal.

It's 1926 in Washington, DC, and while Anti-Sorcery activists have achieved the Prohibition of sorcery, the city's magic underworld is booming. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime sprees. Smugglers funnel magic contraband in from overseas. Gangs have established secret performance venues where patrons can lose themselves in magic, and take a mind-bending, intoxicating elixir known as the sorcerer's shine.

Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from Norfolk County, Virginia accepts an offer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, the Shaw Gang, when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, a first-year Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws.

Through different paths, Joan and Alex tread deep into the violent, dangerous world of criminal magic - and when their paths cross at the Shaws' performance venue, despite their orders, and despite themselves, Joan and Alex become enchanted with one another. But when gang alliances begin to shift, the two sorcerers are forced to question their ultimate allegiances and motivations. And soon, Joan and Alex find themselves pitted against each other in a treacherous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.

A CRIMINAL MAGIC casts a spell of magic, high stakes and intrigue against the backdrop of a very different Roaring Twenties.

Add to Goodreads

Why I'm Looking Forward To It: An alternate 1920s where Prohibition is against magic instead of alcohol? I am so in.

So what book are you waiting on?