[Blog Feature] Best Books 2017

Hello my lovely readers,

the year is almost over and of course I went through my read list on GR & my reviews here and pondered what my Best Books 2017 were from all those I’ve read within the year. ❤

As always the decision wasn’t easy & checking the books in retrospective is always astonishing. First because you realise that a bunch of amazing books were released, second because you start to remember why you love the books.
Hence these two reasons are what it makes so diffcult to pick, let’s say 10 top titles.
So, to avoid this and to limit myself totally I decided to create my top reads in different categories.
Per category I picked at least 5 titles but you’ll see I have sometimes more. But never more than 10 (with exception of the last category :))

So, read further to see what my Best Books 2017 were and maybe you find books you wanna add to your own list. 😉 You’re also invited to name your top lists in the comments, either tell me your titles or if you have a link, drop it there. 🙂 The links lead to my reviews & with a click on the cover you’re redirected to Goodreads for more details about the books.

Happy reading & I hope you have amazing last days in 2017.
Let’s hope 2018 will be better & that we’ll be again blessed with a lot of amazing reads. 🙂 But I don’t doubt it when I take a look at my list for 2018. 🙂

Let’s start with my picks for….

Best Debut Author & work*

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Well what should I say?! This category is one I dearly love & those 6 authors definitely blew me away with their unique writing, their almost flawless prose & the stories and therefore worlds they created. ❤ I love to explore new authors, and all these are true gems. ❤
With upcoming books by them we are truly blessed & I am thrilled to have ARCs for sequels in some of the author’s book series. Highly anticipated.

Best Work by Established Author

The category is, as named, full of those authors who write for a long time, also who I know for years, & of course a lot of them are or became auto-buys over the time. You maybe spot several authors I list in other categories too but depending on the date I read the books I couldn’t decide differently. 🙂

These books were also listed originally under “standalone” titles but for a few this isn’t fitting hence I changed it. The majority of these books are standalones or book one in a series and read perfectly for their own. ❤

All of these books are uniquely different but were equally astonishing. I also assume that a lot of the debut authors from the first category will be listed here next year. 🙂 I’m really looking forward to it. And of course I can’t wait to read more books by all these talented established authors. ❤ Nothing is more pleasant than reading a good solid written book with a thrilling story & were the writing skills are showing. ❤

Best Collaboration

Well, the title of this category is pretty clear & you see: this year we had a few power, killer combos & authors who wrote several collabs together. Whenever I hear about collabs I squeal & run like a maniac through my flat because, let’s be honest: collabs are the icing on the cake.  ❤ You get not only one but two authors. Exciting, right? *^*

And even if you don’t know one author, with those collaborations you can “test” another author. 🙂 I did it with a lot of those & I have now a lot of them on my auto-buy list. ❤
Well I certainly can recommend all of those collabs & to “rank” them was so diffcult… I actually can’t decide so please read the sorting like a vague one, they can be switched all the time. xD

Side note: did you noticed how the boys from the two MegTino titles are “looking” at each other? XD It’s cracking me up, but honestly the covers are astonishing. ❤

Best Book in a series

New authors, stand alones, all good but I love series, and therefore I am always thrilled to read new books in a series, sometimes long awaited, sometimes pretty surprising. ❤ In either way a lots of fun & even more when we have reappearing characters (when it’s a series with new pairings per book). All these things are dearly beloved & what make series so exciting. ❤

I love that this category seems to have a color family, dominated by a lot covers in purppe. xD It’s totally coincidentally but I can stare at these covers for hours. *^*

So, at this point I wanna make a shout out to all the amazing cover artists, designers, models & creative folks behind the scenes. ❤
Normally it’s “don’t judge a book by its cover” but damn, you all bring us so gorgeous pictures, you make this a hard intent. xD

Best Short Story (under 50 pages)

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I am a lover of short stories because it shows if an author is able to catch your attention even within a few pages. These short stories listed here are all under 50 pages long & some of them were smoking hot, other sweet & thrilling. I also included a whole anthology because I couldn’t select just one of those stories. XD This is especially worth a closer look and I recommend anthologies in general to “test” authors. For me this anthology by Interlude Press was a great “starter” for upcoming books in their catalogue and from their backlist. Also are these stories sweet & adorable. Most of them are stand-alone, completed stories but there is also one with an established couple.

It’s also funny that one author is pretty amazing in writing short stories and therefore listed two times but as I say: some authors just nail it with their skills, and Kasia Bacon is one of them. 😉

Some of the short stories belong to a series, concentrate on side characters or continue events in the timeline of the original book(s) but aren’t necessary for the understanding of the plot. Mostly they are a great addition to the series or books & therefore great to read inbetween. ❤

Best Novella/Novelette (+50 pages – 100 pages per story)

As I said short stories are amazing but novellas or novelettes are their own category too & should get the needed attention. I love to read a good novella because it gives you the possibilty to learn a bit more about characters but isn’t as long as a full book.

All these novellas/novelettes were exciting & entertained me, and I loved the fact that a lot of these had established couples or well known characters in it. ❤ This is a great display on how novellas/novelettes can be used by authors. ❤

If you wanna read a story with solid stories but don’t fancy a full lenght novel the best for inbetween is a novella or novelette. Also does novellas have the nice advantage that they maybe can get additions or further books. ❤

Best Translations (German)

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  • Aus dem Nichts (OT: Out of Nowhere) by Roan Parrish
  • Im Alleingang (OT: Breakaway) by Avon Gale
  • Sunset Park by Santino Hassell
  • Das Gesetz der Anziehung (OT:  Law of Attraction) by Jay Northcote
  • Broken Pieces – Zerbrochen (OT: Broken Pieces) by Riley Hart
  • Try – Versuch es (OT: Try) by Ella Frank

This category is pretty clear what it contains & I am thrilled to be able to read the books I know in English now in my mother tongue. It’s also the great chance to get more people in reading these titles because I hear from a lot of people that English is not their first choice when they pick up books and have difficulties with the language (some because of their age, some because they don’t like to learn a new language or have hard times in learning a new one, there are a lot and different reasons, all worth to consider).
This way a larger group of people is able to enjoy the stories. It’s a thrilling progress and shows that LGBTQIA+ books are becoming more popular in general. ❤

I also have to say most of the translators do a great job in delivering the original tone of the book and the author’s “voice”. It’s definitely not easy (as some people claim & “rant” about) to translate books full lenght novel (with 150 or more pages), to adapt the well written prose into a language which is sometimes totally different to the original & to create a coherent, fluid story & not a row of translated, stiff sentences.

I humbly say thank you to each and every one who make it possible that there are  translated works on the marked. ❤ This includes everybody, from the translation, graphics departement to production to the finished product. ❤

Most anticipated books 2017 I already have (unread, released 2017)

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  • The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic by F.T Lukens
  • Storm Season by Pene Henson
  • In Her Court by Tamsen Parker
  • Love on the Tracks by Tamsen Parker
  • Beulah Land by Nancy Stewart
  • Winterglass by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Of course next to those books I’ve read there were a bunch of those I already have (on my Kindle) but so far haven”t read – why doesn’t have a day more than 24 hours (dedicated for reading)? 😀

This category includes all these books I wanna read asap & I am soo looking forward to find a bit time to dive myself into these stories. ❤

I mean, take a look at these covers. *^* I am also happy to have unexpected picks on this list, like Winterglass, which was a total surprise in adding it to my list after I’ve seen it on my social media timelines because I haven’t heard of it before. 🙂

Most anticipated books 2018 (January till March)

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  • Abroad 2 by Liz Jacobs (January 2nd)
  • Darkling by Brooklyn Ray (January 8th)
  • Relay by Layla Reyne (January 8th)
  • Down by Contact by Santino Hassell (January 16th)
  • Seduction on the Slopes by Tamsen Parker (January 16th)
  • Contour by Meg Harding (January 23rd)
  • Dream by Garrett Leigh (January 23rd)
  • Zero Hour by Megan Erickson (January 30th)
  • On the Edge of Scandal by Tamsen Parker (February 6th)
  • Fire on the Ice by Tamsen Parker (February 6th)
  • Snowsisters by Tom Wilinsky, Jen Sternick (February 15th)
  • On the Brink of Passion by Tamsen Parker (March 6th)
  • Curved Horizon by Taylor Brooke (March 8th)
  • Exposed (Anthology) (March 13th)
  • Kim Reaper: Grim Beginnings by Sarah Graley (March 13th)
  • Bishop’s Move by Santino Hassell & Piper Vaughn (March 19th)

Hehe, I know people might say: what the heck, why so many titles? 😀

Well, I limited myself to ~15 titles over three month, so roughly 5 per month but you’ll see, this won’t fit every month.

In every way these are the books I am sooo looking forward in reading and well, already taking a look at these covers give me chills. ❤

Some of them are already read (lucky me, I know XD) or do I have as an ARC on my Kindle and therefore will be read asap. ❤ Most of them will be reviews, a lot of the books are part of promo tours or I’ve prepared author spotlights with interviews. 🙂 I can’t wait to show you all the planned events. ❤ So, be sure to visit my blog, mark my adresses & social media channel so you won’t miss it. 😉 Just saying. 😀

As I said earlier we can be expect a great year 2018 (and hopefully not only on the book front ;)), and that’s only a small selection. *^*
I can’t say how much I love to read and review a lot of them, if not all of them (I won’t make promises, but I try to review at least 95% of these titles within the next year. 🙂

I also realy hope these titles listed in this category are maybe some for your own collection or already highly anticipated. ❤

Well, I’m now at the end of my post. I hope you’ve liked it. See below the few general notes and leave – if you want – a comment of your Best Books, show me your lists & feel free to chat about any of those titles. 🙂

I wish you the best for the last remaning days of 2017 and hope 2018 will be a blast. ❤

General note:
– the (original) release date of all books is 2017; for the German translations the German publishing date counts
– with debut author/work (marked with the asterisk) I list those who are new to me or had their debut 2017
– the list contains all kind of sexualities & gender (M/M, M/M/M, M/M/F, F/F, M/F, NB, bisexual, transgender, demi, pan, ace, aro etc.), check the single books for more information or ask me 🙂
– the links lead to my reviews, those titles which doesn’t have one get hopefully soon a review (review links will maybe added later) 🙂
– clicking on the cover leads to the Goodreads entries for more information
– per category there are at least 5 titles & never more than 10 in total, exception is the last category 😀

How does your list looks like? 🙂 Feel free to tell me in the comments or list some of your special/best reads 2017. 🙂

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