In the Beginning, or the First Ten Books I Reviewed on the Blog

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl

It's been awhile, but this topic was too good to pass up. When I thought about it, I genuinely could not recall which were the first ten books I actually reviewed here on the blog. So then, of course, I had to know. The thing is, I originally started the whole thing simply posting a once a month list of my favorite reads and rereads of the month. That went on for some time until lo and behold I went ahead and wrote and posted my first review on November 9, 2007. In hindsight, I probably should have known exactly which book pushed me over the edge into full fledged reviews. So this was a rather delightful journey back in time. Do you remember the first book you ever reviewed (in any forum) or what made you take the plunge? Here are my first ten (and I have to say, looking at this snapshot from the past, these remain some of my absolute favorite authors and a pretty spot-on array of the genres I read and love today):

Bibliocrack Review | You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I've done a shamefully poor job of addressing my love for Cat Sebastian 's books around these parts. I've certainly noted each time her beautiful stories have appeared on my end-of-the-year best of lists, see: The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes , basically every book in The Cabots series , and of course We Could Be So Good . And the pull is, quite simply, this: nobody is as kind and gentle with their characters and with their hearts than Cat Sebastian. Nobody. I haven't always been one for the gentler stories, but I cannot overstate the absolute gift it is sinking into one of Sebastian's exquisitely crafted historicals knowing that I get to spend the next however many pages watching two idiots pine and deny that feelings exist and just take care of each other as they fall in love. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. Not this one or any other. Only two things in the world people count by months. H

Review | The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vols. 1 & 2 by Beth Brower

I feel a bit giddy finally talking to you all about this series. If you'll remember, I fell madly in love with The Q when it came out a few years ago. Now, Beth Brower is writing The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion — a series of novellas set in London in 1883. Each volume is an excerpt from the incorrigible Emma's journals, and the first two volumes are already available with the third on the way soon. I think they'd make rather perfect pandemic reading. Humorous and charming down to their bones, they're just what the doctor ordered to lift your spirits in this uncertain time that just proves to be too much some days. If you're experiencing one of those days, I suggest giving Volume 1 a go (it's only 99 cents on Kindle, $4.99 for a trade paperback copy). It will surprise exactly none of you that I own print and digital editions of both volumes. Miss Emma M. Lion has waited long enough. Come hell or high water (and really, given her track record, both a

The Year Fic Saved Me

Once upon a time, January came for us and proclaimed itself supremely uninterested in taking prisoners. Under the sustained assault, there were simply too many avenues of stress tearing into my brain. On one side of the field stood so many books (as they have always been there for me) ready to be read—to help. And on the other side loomed a distressing number of chasms inside me desperate to find solace and reprieve. But the two could not meet. No matter how many peace talks I attempted to broker. In February, in a move so unprecedented that I can only describe it as a lifeline thrown down into the deepest of the chasms, my exhausted mind decided it would be a good idea to finally give fanfiction a whirl. Now, there's no getting around the fact that for someone who has read as many novels that involve fic in some way or another as I have—seriously, novels that began as fic, novels written by authors who got their start writing fic, novels about characters who write/illustrate/love

Angieville

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