The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top 20 Lists. Check out his portfolio, he’s brilliant.
This list is also available on my Booktube Channel if that’s what you preferred: https://youtu.be/1gXaV7SQVio
Click here if you want to see the list of all the books I’ve read this year: Petrik’s Year in Books (2020) …
I received an ARC of The Trouble with Peace (Gollancz) in exchange for an honest review.
Cover illustration by: Tomás Almeida
The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Age of Madness (Book #2 of 3), First Law World (Book, #9 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 15th September 2020 by Gollancz (UK) & 15th September 2020 by Orbit (US)
A savagely stunning sequel.
The Trouble With Peace takes place shortly after the events of A Little Hatred and its ominous conclusion. Whilst peace has been hard-won, it is a peace built on shaky foundations and the title for this second book in The Age of Madness trilogy is not coy about the direction of this story.
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A Little Hatred
Cover illustration by: Tomás Almeida
A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Age of Madness (Book #1 of 3), First Law World (Book, #8 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 17th September 2019 by Gollancz (UK) & 17th September 2019 by Orbit (US)
As ferocious and fun as ever.
It’s been a while since I read a Joe Abercrombie novel, and the truth is that it has been too long. This dawned on me when I recently read one of his short stories in an anthology and was instantly reminded that he is one of the greatest fantasy writers of our era, with a writing style and tone of his own, and a gift for bringing words, thoughts and emotions to life like no other. A Little Hatred moved up on my TBR and when I saw that his latest book, The Trouble with Peace, was releasing soon I decided that there was no time like the present for catching up.
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ARC provided by the publisher—Gollancz—in exchange for an honest review.
Cover illustration by: Tomas Almeida
The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Age of Madness (Book #2 of 3), First Law World (Book, #9 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Pages: 512 pages (UK Hardback)
Published: 15th September 2020 by Gollancz (UK) & 15th September 2020 by Orbit (US)
Incredibly mesmeric and brilliant. The trouble with reading Abercrombie’s newest book is that there’s no more new Abercrombie book to read. …
2020 has so far been a truly strange, stressful and complicated year, but reading wise it has been pretty incredible for me. I’ve read/listen to 73 books during this first six months of the year and quite a sizeable chunk of these garnered 4-stars and above. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I’ve added so many books onto my favourites shelf in the same period of time. If you’re interested, you can see my year in books for 2020 right here.
Similar to my previous list, I do not limit this to only books released this year. There are simply too many great books that have been published prior and that I’ve yet to read, so there will always be older books included. Below are the parameters that I’ve set for the list.
None of these are ranked except for the top three, of which two are tied for first place. The rest, I’ve listed them in the chronological order of when I’ve read them this year. All of these have been reviewed by me on Novel Notions and Goodreads.
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The First Law (Book #3 of 3), First Law World (Book, #3 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 20th March 2008 by Gollancz (UK) & 8th September 2015 by Orbit (US)
I’ve been meaning to read The First Law trilogy for years, after hearing loads of accolades from far and wide across the fantasy bibliosphere. Now that I’ve done so, I could safely say that Abercrombie deserved all those praises, and I’ll contribute by heaping on more of the same.
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Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The First Law (Book #2 of 3), First Law World (Book, #2 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 15th March 2007 by Gollancz (UK) & 8th September 2015 by Orbit (US)
This is when I start to bemoan about picking up this trilogy so late. To think that I actually met Abercrombie at WorldCon last year before completing The First Law. It was such a travesty of an opportunity, and I’m repentant for it.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: The First Law (Book #1 of 3), First Law World (Book, #1 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 4th May 2006 by Gollancz (UK) & 8th September 2015 by Orbit (US)
Before anyone gasped in surprise that I’ve not read this excellent grimdark entry by Joe Abercrombie, allow me to provide a little backstory.
The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top 20 Lists.
Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m cheating… my Best Books of 2019 post is a little different from the rest of the Novel Notions team.
It’s felt like a bit of a strange reading year for me, with a lot of study, non-fiction, and comfort rereads. My number is sitting at 164 so far, with a whole load getting that very respectable 4 star rating. However, there have only been a small amount that have truly floored me, that have deserved the 4.5 or the big, shiny 5 star rating. These are the kind of books that stay in your memory forever, that you recommend EVERYWHERE and as often as possible. They’re the ones where it’s almost impossible to stop your eyes from flicking forward to see what’s coming next because you’re so excited to get there. When I made that feeling the criteria for my list, it made things immediately clear. I don’t have 20, I have 10. They were all published this year and I loved them all. I hope you consider giving them a go too…
The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top 20 Lists.
If you’d like to see more stats about my reading year, click here.
The literary world was kind to me this year. In 2019, I read over 115 books, and a ton of those have been 4 or 5 star reads. It was incredibly difficult to narrow my list down to my top 20 books, but I finally managed it. There will be a handful of honorable mentions at the end of this post, for those I just couldn’t bare to not include. I’m taking a page from Petrik and following three rules for my list:
1. Only one book per author.
2. Rereads don’t count.
3. The books were new to me, but didn’t have to be published this year.
For the first time, I’m ranking my reads for the entire year. That being said, every single book on this list was a 4.5 or 5 star read and I highly recommend them all. You can view my full review of each book (including the honorable mentions) by clicking the link in each title. And now, without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2019. …