Jeffe's Top Five - er, Twenty - Books Read in 2013

Tis the season and yesterday I attended my local chapter's holiday party for a lovely afternoon with some of my writing besties. Here I am with Katie Lane and Darynda Jones, who are participating in my blog countdown to Christmas, the Twelve Days of Gifts. Today, former Word Whore Carolyn Crane is playing, so be sure to stop by for a chance to win her giveaway and be entered for the super cool Grand Prize. They're all helping me celebrate the release of Five Golden Rings, which is just lovely of them.

I'm also being interviewed at Steamy Guys today and am offering up my *amazing* sugar cookie recipe. You totally want it.

Our topic this week is one that's not easy for me - our Top 5 Books Read in 2013.

I kind of hate being forced to rank stuff, especially books. If I love a book, I love it. I don't like to elevate one above another. However, my task is a bit easier this year because I kept a list of the books I read. My goal was to read at least a book a week, which might sound pretty pitiful, but it's a real effort to me - an important one - to keep reading a part of my life. Reading time is often easily crowded out, alas.

I kept two lists. A public one on Goodreads and a private one. Goodreads shows me as having read 39 books in 2013, but those are only books I ranked as three stars or higher, and does not include the witty and generous Megan Mulry's A Royal Pain, which I'm still reading, but will almost certainly be a five-star winner.

My private list has 70 books - yay, I surpassed my goal already! - but it includes books I did not like or did not finish (DNF).

Of the public list, I gave 19 of those five stars. (Two, A Rose in Winter and Dreamsnake, were re-reads, so they were already ones I knew I loved.) In no particular order that *I* can discern (pasted this from Goodreads - oh! I think they're in reverse order of when I read them!), they are:

Master of Crows	Draven, Grace *
Witch Bound (Twilight of the Gods, #2)	Stone, Eleri *
Demon Crossings (Twilight of the Gods, #1)	Stone, Eleri *
The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away	Offill, Jenny
Ghost Planet	Fisher, Sharon Lynn *
Magic Rises (Kate Daniels, #6)	Andrews, Ilona *
Too Good to Be True	Higgins, Kristan *
Aftermath (Sirantha Jax, #5)	Aguirre, Ann *
Killbox (Sirantha Jax, #4)	Aguirre, Ann *
Doubleblind (Sirantha Jax, #3)	Aguirre, Ann *
Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, #1)	Aguirre, Ann *
Garden Spells	Allen, Sarah Addison *
Fire & Frost (Iron Seas, #3.4; Code of Shadows, #0.5; Midnight Liaisons #2.3)	Brook, Meljean *
Dreamsnake	McIntyre, Vonda N.
A Rose in Winter	Woodiwiss, Kathleen E.
Hearts of Darkness (Deadglass, #1)	Brady, Kira *
Calculated in Death (In Death, #36)	Robb, J.D.
Riveted (Iron Seas, #3)	Brook, Meljean *
Song of Scarabaeus (Scarabaeus, #1)	Creasy, Sara *

and

A Royal Pain (Unruly Royals, #1)

Mulry, Megan *

I refuse to narrow them down from there - loved 'em all!