Best books ~ 2011

It is so hard to pick a best of books for the different categories this year since I have read some awesome books. I will do my best. If you have read any of my favorites or any that you would like to suggest to me, feel free to hit up the comments section below. You can pick up any of these titles by clicking on the cover art (I linked to buy sites to help you out.)

Best of 2011 YA Dystopian

Possession by Elana Johnson

This book inspired me. The writing in it is simply delicious and the characters are so likeable... It reminded me of Madeline L'Engle in it's style. Loved this book and cannot WAIT till the second book, Surrender, comes out. You can read my blog here on it. You can find info about picking it up here.


Runners up: None. This book was AWESOME




Best of paranormal YA

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

City of Bones captured our family this year and we were driven to pick up the whole series including the newly released City of Fallen Angels. We cannot WAIT for the next in this series. You can read my review of the series here.



Runners Up: The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab (I forgot to review it but loved this book. You can read part of my opinion here.), The Marked Series by PC and Kristen Cast


Best YA Fairytale with a Modern Twist

Sweetly by Jackson Pearce

Another one I forgot to review but brilliant. This book was a companion to Pearce's amazing Sisters Red and it didn't let us down in the least. I am looking forward to Purity and Fathomless... Future works by this fun and fresh author.

Runners Up: None. Loved this book






Best Romantic Comedy

My One and Only by Kristan Higgins


I have Until There was You on my kindle and have to read it as well but I love this authors style. I literally snarfed coffee all over my computer reading her. I cried. Awesome.


Runner Up: The Real Housewives of Olympus by Saranna DeWylde (you can read my review here.)




Best MM erotic

Upon Midnight by Buffy Christopher

This sexy little book inspired me to dare a little more in my own writing. And she wrote more of them. *fans self* Awesome.


Runners up: None. When it comes to sexy m/m action, I liked this.







Best action sequence in a sexy romp

The Path to Freedom by Lisa Pietsch

Sarah Stevens is kicked out of the military and dumped by her boyfriend. She manages to go to fatcamp, learn to kick ass and meet some very sexy men on her journey to becoming a weapon herself. This book had a little bit of everything. If you are looking for a sexy and yet fun ride, this book is your ticket to intrigue. Awesome.


Runners Up: Again, I am a runners up fail. This book was great.




Okay, those are the ones that stick out in my memory. I think I shall start doing this quarterly since I have a terrible memory and I am sure I am missing some fantastic books that I read this year...

What books moved you? What is your top list for books to read? Let me know :)

Happy writing! (Or reading as the case may be...)

Loss and failure... or is it?

Today's blog was inspired by another author who wrote this blog about how being published made her feel.

I think that there is this image in our heads, brought on by Stephanie Meyer and J. K. Rowling, about us getting published and suddenly we are a rockstar. So for some reason signing a contract seems like it should change the rest of your life.

I think any published authors out there can agree with me that it doesn't. We are still, at the end of the day, writers. We sit down and do probably one of the loneliest jobs out there. What is a more solitary work than sitting down at a keyboard and vomiting up your soul? And then we sell bits of it with each book. This goes for every book... even the erotics. If you think it doesn't, then you know nothing of the writing process. Every book has a little piece of us in it. When we write vampires, psycho killers, love stories... any genre you can name, these authors sit down and use their own frame of reference and lives to come up with the plot.

Stephen King wrote what scared him. But there are other characters in those stories with the brutal deaths and scary monsters... there are mothers, friends, fathers, sons... all of these the author pulled out of their own lives, regurgitated and turned into fodder for storytelling. If you think it is easy to sit down at the computer and bleed, then you think I am exaggerating.

But that is what makes the stories come to LIFE. I'm not exaggerating. And if you want it bad enough, you KEEP SITTING DOWN TO BLEED...

So here we are, bleeding souls onto paper, and we get that contract and think that our lives are going to change. That somehow, everything is different now.

(It is a little like what I have heard about patients after gastric surgery... they think that now that they have lost the weight, the image in the mirror will look different. That people will treat them differently. Too often, the outside change doesn't leave time for the inside to catch up. So emotionally, when they look in the mirror, it is still the same image. And it hurts to see that. Ditto for publication... we think that the image will have been altered somehow but instead the outside doesn't catch up with the inside...)

And then we find ourselves going about our lives as they always have been. We shop at the same market. We have the same friends and family. Nothing changes, not really.

And it is this huge emotional rollercoaster...

I am so excited/happy/jubilant!! I did it!! I made it!! I am a published author!!

No one is reading it. Shouldn't my release day have more confetti or something? Why doesn't anyone see how HUGE THIS IS???

Oh, I am a failure. Why did I bother? No one is reading my book. Okay, not many people are. Someone pass the damn ice cream.

Who cares if they aren't reading it? I did it!! I wasn't doing it for the money! I did it to write a good book and I DID IT!!

I remember when I was excited about two books that I had releasing in the same month, I told a good friend of mine. His response summed up everything. "Yeah."

Me- Aren't you excited!! I have TWO books releasing this month!!"

Him- Well, you have lots of books out. Do you get excited about every one?

Yes. As an author we jump back on that emotional rollercoaster for every one. Even if we think-this time is different. This time I am not going to be surprised that there is no parade in my honor... no accolades from my peers... no buckets of money pouring down my chimney.

This time I am going to be okay with it being just another day.

Nope. We aren't. Our baby is being born... And we somehow expect the whole world to stop and oooh and aaaaw...

But the world keeps turning.

So for all the other authors out there who are in the same amusement park as me, riding that rollercoaster, whether you are at the top and screaming with your arms in the air or at the bottom with your stomach sitting in your throat, I offer up this vlog song from Jackson Pearce's YouTube channel. I still tear up watching it.

It sums up everything nicely... Happy writing!

Disorganization is the key?

Jackson Pearce, who quickly jumped onto my list of favorite authors and blog/vloggers in the past year, did a vlog this past week called Life Fail. I will embed it below.

And I had a similar case of the duh's this week when I was working happily at my desk.

I was in the zone… writing away with happy clickity clacks and having the story flow like music from my fingertips. In a haze of happy artist, I sipped the sweet tea my kids were kind enough to pour into a mug from the fridge for me. On the second glass, I glanced into the cup for some reason.

And realized the kids gave me moldy tea and I had already drank a glass and a half.

It made me wonder, between my experience and Jackson's, if this is some kind of writerly necessity...

Maybe we have to have the ability to tune out the real world- to the point of dropping a couple of lifes little juggling balls- to be able to truly focus on the unreality floating around like thought flotsam in our heads. Maybe it is important to focus single-mindedly on our characters and our world and the plot to the point of looking like a bit of a space cadet to be able to craft something really good.

Have you had any experiences in which you flaked out on some of your real life?

Enjoy Jackson's blog: