Friday, December 30, 2005

2005 Favorites

After Christmas I started looking back over this year's reading with my book spreadsheet and compiling my list of favorites. Then I noticed KristieJ had beat me to it :) As she says "great minds think alike". So true. Heh. But Kristie was cooler than me 'cuz she include images of the covers. OK, now I have to do that. I'm such a copycat.

These were A or A - for me:

Match Me If You Can by SEP
This was a continuation of the Chicago Stars series with appearances by Phoebe (It Had To Be You) and Molly (This Heart of Mine). I loved the heroine, a matchmaker with a sassy attitude. My favorite contemporary of the year.

Black Ice by Anne Stuart
Anne Stuart is definitely a goddess when it comes to romantic suspense and this one was one of her best. I loved the very dark hero. My favorite romantic suspense of the year.

Ride the Fire by Pamela Clare
A surprisingly excellent book I read from a recommendation from KristieJ. My favorite American historical of the year.

The Courtesan by Susan Carroll
This was a wonderful, lush read in an unusual place and time (Renaissance France) for a romance. Loved both the hero and heroine.

Prairie Wife by Cheryl St. John
St. John has the ability to bring out the tears for me. This one really hit home.

Passion by Lisa Valdez
Wow, the most erotically luscious read as well as my favorite European historical of the year.



These were B+ (not quite excellent but great reads):

Breaking Point by Suzanne Brockmann
After about 4 clinkers in the Troubleshooters series in a row (I'm a glutton for punishment), this 9th book was a welcome surprise. I thought it was the best one since Out of Control. I've decided to quit on a high note so I'm going to resist any additional books in the series. I just don't care anymore.


The Dark Queen by Susan Carroll
My first SC book and I was truly impressed with her writing style.

Killing Time by Linda Howard
Most people didn't like this one, but I really enjoyed it. A time travel book that really worked for me. I'm a total Linda Howard fan-girl.
The Veil of Night by Lydia Joyce
This book was very dark, almost gothic in tone, which I love. LJ is a new author and I'll be watching for more of her work.

The Givenchy Code by Julie Kenner
I don't read many chick lit, but this one was more like a RS to me. The math puzzle angle really appealed to the mathematician side of my brain.

A Taste of Crimson by Marjorie M. Liu
Liu did an excellent job of world building in her contribution to this vampire/werewolf/demon series by multiple authors. Much better than the previous one in the series.

His Secondhand Wife by Cheryl St. John
The story of two emotionally scarred people and the healing power of love.

Carved in Stone by Vickie Taylor
A buried treasure. Not much buzz about this book but I thought the gargoyles world was very well done.

Dark Lover by J. R. Ward
Lots of well deserved hype on this vampire romance. Not perfect but a real gem none the less. I'm chomping at the bit for the next one in the series.

Black Rose by Nora Roberts
Typical Nora but I loved the older heroine aspect.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Fabulous young adult vampire book that I will be writing a review for.



I still have a few 2005 books in my TBR to read so I may need to update this before the AAR 2005 reader poll.

That's it. I'd love to hear your favorites too.

8 comments:

Rosario said...

We share a couple, but I've still got to read many of those. Way too many are still en route to me!

PS - Ok, tech question. How do you get the text to start on the top right-hand corner of the pic? I tried for hours and the best I managed was to have it start at the bottom right-hand corner!

ReneeW said...

Oh, OK, in the HTML code you add the tag 'float: left' in the style portion so it looks like this:

<(img style="FLOAT: left; cursor: hand; height: 100px" ).... etc.

Remove the ( ) . I had to add them 'cuz blogger comments doesn't like html tags.

Does this make sense?

ReneeW said...

PS. If that doesn't make sense I can email you an example.

Tara Marie said...

Boy, do we have similar taste!! I have 7 of your 17 on my list and I could easily have included A Taste of Crimson, Black Rose and Match Me If You Can. Great minds really do think a like *grin*.

I'm so glad Rosario asked the tech question, I'm copying your answer and I'm going to see if it works--thanks.

Kristie (J) said...

I'm glad you enjoyed Ride the Fire as much as I did. It made Alyssa's list too. I'm going to have to try The Givenchy Code since it's on a couple of lists. I'm waiting for the Carroll books to come out in paperback. And I have A Taste of Crimson in my TBR pile - somewhere. I think the pile toppled though 'cause I can't seen to find it - but I KNOW I have it somewhere *mutter mutter*

Kristie (J) said...

PS - I'm glad Rosario asked that question too because I've also been trying to do that!!

Rosario said...

Thanks, Renée! I tried it, and the text did, indeed, start at the top right-hand corner now.

I have only a little problem now, though: with this, the next picture has moved and starts to the right of the first one, right under the text. Am I doing it right? This is what I put between the < >s:


img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/210/1884/200/secondhand-wife2.jpg" border="0" style="FLOAT:left"

ReneeW said...

Yes, Rosario, that code is exactly right. Float:left will make all text and images appear off to the right hand side. So what you need to do is insert some carriage returns. Hit the 'Enter' key a few times after the text for the first image until the second image drops down to the beginning of a line on the left hand side. I play around with it a bit using the preview feature of the editor until it looks right.

Let me know if that works. I can send you a code snippet if that's confusing.

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