Cover illustration by: Chris McGrath
White Night by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Dresden Files (Book #9 of 25)
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 528 pages (US Kindle edition)
Published: 4th March 2010 by Orbit (UK) & 3rd April 2007 by Roc (US)
I’ve mentioned this several times, but it’s always safe to rely on The Dresden Files for a quick entertaining read. …
The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top Books Lists. His work is amazing, and we feel incredibly fortunate to have been favored with it. Thank you so much, Felix!
If you’d like to see a list of everything I’ve read so far this year, you can click here to see my year in books for 2020!
So far, 2020 has been an incredible reading year for me. Between January 1st and June 30th I read right around 75 books, and have found a number of new favorites. I haven’t read as much fantasy this year, but I still managed to find some wonderful new stories that I know will stick with me for a long time to come. Thank goodness for books, right? I don’t think I could’ve gotten through the dumpster fire that was the first half of 2020 without them. It was incredibly difficult to narrow my list down to twelve 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.
Once again, I’m ranking my reads. That being said, every single book on this list was a 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 the past six months. …
Cover Illustration by: Daniel Dociu
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Series: The Expanse (Book #4 of 9)
Genre: Sci-fi, Space Opera
Pages: 587 pages (UK paperback)
Published: 17th June 2014 by Orbit
Cibola Burn brings The Expanse back to its good form. …
Click here if you want to see the list of all the books I’ve read so far this year: Petrik’s Year in Books (2020)
Between 1st January 2020 until 30th June 2020, I’ve read and reviewed 71 books (35.7k pages).
Please read this first. There will be three rules I set in this list in order for me to give appreciation to more authors rather than having only a few authors hoarding this list. These rules allow me to highlight more authors, and at the same time, I’ll also be able to include both new and older books (many of them still need attention) that I read within this year.
Do note that although there’s a rank to this list, I HIGHLY recommend every book/series listed below because I loved all of them immensely, and they received a rating of 4.5 or 5 out of 5 stars from me. Without further ado, here are the top 15 books I’ve read this year so far! (All full reviews of the books listed can be found on Novel Notions and my Goodreads page.) …
ARC provided by the publisher—Harper Voyager—in exchange for an honest review.
Cover Illustration by: JungShan
The Burning God by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Poppy War Trilogy (Book #3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy, Military Fantasy
Pages: 640 pages
Published: 26th November 2020 by Harper Voyager (UK) and 17th November 2020 by Harper Voyager (US)
Bursting with violence, devastation, death, and profound emotions. The Burning God is by far the best book R.F. Kuang has written in her career so far. …
Hi everyone! Petrik from Novel Notions here. We, the team at Novel Notions, are very thrilled and honored that we were asked by Orbit to participate in the blog tour for the We Ride the Storm, the first book in The Reborn Empire quartet, by Devin Madson.
I’ll keep this introduction brief, We Ride the Storm was one of my favorite self-published books, to have it picked up by Orbit—one of my favorite publisher—still gives me joy up to this day. With that in mind, on this blog tour I decided to re-post my review that I wrote two years ago when I finished reading We Ride the Storm—the self-published edition—for the first time. Once you’ve read this full-of-praises review, let it sink into your head that the traditionally published edition of We Ride the Storm is even more refined and polished. …
ARC received from the publisher, Tor, in exchange for an honest review
The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Genre: Historical fiction, mystery
Published: 23rd June 2020 by Tor Books
The Angel of the Crows was a decent and fun read, though not at all what I was expecting from the blurb. This book is Sherlock Holmes fan-fiction written in the subgenre of wingfic, where some of the characters have wings (in this case, they are angels).
Cover illustration by: Matt Duffin
The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 6 of 5 stars
Series: The Cemetery of Forgotten Books (Book #4 of 4)
Genre: Historical fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Translated Edition Published: 2018 by Weidenfield & Nicholson, Orion Books (UK) & Harper (US)
The Labyrinth of the Spirits is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It has it all – evocative history, engrossing mystery, atmospheric setting, compelling characters, incredible emotional depth – wrapped up in writing so beautiful that it moves your soul.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Change often starts with the smallest of whispers.”
How many books have been written proclaiming that different doesn’t mean wrong? Countless. And yet that message is still just as desperately needed, if not moreso, than it’s every been. We live in a world divided, a world in which diversity is still viewed with suspicion by many fronts. But though we still have a long way to go, inclusion and acceptance of those different than ourselves has come a long way over the course of the past century. While it may seem as though we’ve taken a step back in recent years, we’ve actually come so far that we’re better able to recognize our failings than ever before. Just as waking a sleeping limb is painful but necessary in order for our body to properly function, being able to see the areas in which we’re lacking is painful but necessary if we want to keep moving forward into a world in which people are valued for their souls and dreams instead of cast out for being different. After all, aren’t our differences what make us beautiful? The world would be a boring place if we were all carbon copies of one another. I for one am thankful to live in a world in which uniqueness abounds.
…
Cover illustration by: Micah Epstein
Of Sea and Shadow by Will Wight
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Series: The Elder Empire: Sea (Book #1 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy
Pages: 428 pages (Kindle edition)
Published: 30th December 2014 by Hidden Gnome Publishing (Indie)
This pirate fantasy was almost as good as its parallel novel.
“The successful man visualizes success rather than failure,”