Fireside Favourites | Best Reads of 2018

Fireside Favourites | Best Reads of 2018
For my second day hosting Bookending Winter I’ve given the prompt for us to list our favourite reads of the year to pick up and pass the time whilst snuggled in with a hot coco next to the fire.

If you’ve written your own post for this prompt please feel free to leave a link in the comments so myself and others can see your Fireside Favourites! Alternatively you can tag me on twitter.

Also wow, can you believe I’ve had this post ready since 2nd September! I’ve added and altered as needed too.

H O R R O R

It was very difficult figuring out which books to feature as my favourite reads of the year so I decided to split it up into categories.

I’m starting off with horror as its easily one of my favourite genres that I don’t read enough of and in here includes the book I have recommended the most since finishing due to its amazing representation and three strong female main characters – Sawkill Girls.

We Sold Our Souls left me speechless. I could definitely see this being translated well on screen. I love the lead character in this, she kicks ass and fights for everyones safety without ever being asked.

Whilst Silver & Bone isn’t strictly horror, its a very good Vampire story and possibly my favourite I’ve read in a while! Lots of murder and things to solve here.

Alice and The Red Queen are possibly the best retellings of Alice in Wonderland ever. I devoured this and enjoyed them so much that I am absolutely clueless in how to approach reviewing them. Alice and Hatter are an amazing pair and this has such a gangster feel to it with lots of magical horror too.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand | We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix | Silver & Bone by Claudia Cain | Alice and The Red Queen by Christina Henry

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 A U T H O R S  O F  C O L O U R

When I was organising my 5 star reads into for this post I didn’t originally have this category/these books seperated but I realised it would be worthwhile as I know there is a huge push to read more authors of colour and I just happened to have read a great handful!

The best of these to check out would be A Thousand Beginnings and Endings as its an anthology of East and South Asian mythologies so its awesome to be introduced to a lot of authors at once!

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns is an amazing villain creation story; a retelling of The Evil Queen from Snow White from her point of view. I loved this so much as we see there are so many elements of her story that lead her down this path and it kind of seems like just a few small steps to power.

I will also recommend Girls of Paper and Fire to anyone willing to listen and everyone I’ve spoken too who has read this has also loved it! Seriously this is the queer fantasy story you’re all in need of.

If you’re a fan of Graphic Novels then the Monstress series is a must read. It follows Maika Halfwolf as she battles with an evil that leaves beneath her skin, is on a mission to find out the secrets of her family, and is hunted by more than  few parties.

Lastly but definitely not least we have The Heart Forger and The Shadow Glass (this one is out next March but like how could I not mention it?)

A Thousand Beginnings and Ending by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman | Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao | Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan | Monstress, Vol 2: The Blood by Marjorie M. Liu | The Heart Forger and The Shadow Glass by Rin Chupeco

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F A N T A S Y

Maybe you’re in the mood for some good old fantasy books though? Good! ’cause I definitely have a few of those I can recommend too.

At the start of the year I devoured Uprooted; I was thorougly invested in the magic system in this story and how frustrated the Dragon was and the story behind the woods was great too. My only complaint was it should’ve been gay.

To Kill A Kingdom is another retelling and whilst I’ve now met Allie Christo 3 times I’ve not written a review for this book. Ooops. However, I loved the whole concept; forbidden love, murderous mermaids, and so much sass.

For me The Cruel Prince was a book slump saving book. I had only been reading average or bad books so I was very thankful that I picked this up, it was super refreshing. I physically did not want to put this down. I loved getting to see a fae world from a different perspective and all the plotting that had to happen for survival.

This year is the year I finally read some Schwab books! The first was This Savage Song for a read-along with my book club which omg loved it! Its dark and gritty and about a world fighting for survival against monsters; a girl fighting to become a monster; and a monster fighting for survival against his own inner turmoils.

A Darker Shade of Magic was also for a read-along with my book club and also had its darker aspects. I also devoured this and can’t want to continue this series as I have a feelings its only going to get better as we explore these worldd with its different narrators.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik | To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo | The Cruel Prince by Holly Black | A Darker Shade of Magic and This Savage Song by V.E. Schwab

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G R A P H I C  N O V E L S

& lastly we can’t have a Lauren recommends post without talking about graphic novels can we?

Especially when I have so many people always tell me how much they love my reviews for these.

But because I had such a hard time narrowing this down to 5 for this section I’m just going to remind you that you can read my graphic novel reviews here and instead list 3 that I haven’t reviewed!

Locke & Key: Master Edition Vol 1 by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriquez is honestly a fascinating story. Its so weird! Sometimes you just find a key that lets you leave your body, or view inside your own head and take something out! No biggies. Its just every day here.

Saga Vol 7 and 8 were the latest I read in this series this year and I still love it, one of these volumes absolutely tore me apart and I was so sad! I love where this story is going and can’t wait to be able to afford to read more.

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This is part of the Bookending Winter Events – the full schedule can be seen here – and updates are also released on their twitter account.

I can’t wait to see everyones posts for this event! Are you taking part?

Also if you want to join the New Bloggers discord group feel free to message me for an invite.

Don’t forget to share your Fireside Favourites posts with me!

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