It’s that time of year. As 2017 comes to an end it’s time for reflection. And one thing I find myself thinking about is all the great books I’ve read this year. I love reading and, although as a writer myself, I consider reading to be vital in helping my own writing to develop, I’d read whether or not it helped me as an author.

I’ve read around thirty books in the last twelve months and I’ve reviewed many of them here on the blog.

My 2017 reads have come from a mixture of genres and have been both fiction and non-fiction. I’ve enjoyed some more than others. That’s to be expected.

But even with the ones I didn’t enjoy or gave up on, I felt I’d achieved something – even it was simply that I learned I didn’t like a particular author’s style and why it didn’t appeal to me.

On a more positive note I enjoyed the majority of what I read very much indeed and picking just twelve has been difficult. The list is presented in the order I read them from January to December and among my main criteria for choosing them were the following:

• Did I keep reading the book way past my usual go-to-sleep-time?
• Did I find myself thinking about the book between bouts of reading it and after I’d finished it?
• Did I not want to get to the end but simultaneously was desperate to see how it would play out?

If I answered yes to all three the book made it to the cut.

And here they are:

1. Mary’s the Name by Ross Sayers
2. Blast Radius by RL McKinney
3. The Lavender House by Hilary Boyd
4. Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty
5. My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal
6. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
7. Maria in the Moon by Louise Beech
8. Rather be the Devil by Ian Rankin
9. The Angel in the Stone by RL McKinney
10. The Good Sister by Maggie Christensen
11. Madness Lies by Helen Forbes
12. A Biography of Story by Trish Nicholson

Have you read any of the above? Did you enjoy them? What would be your top choice(s) from your own 2017 reading list?

And before I go, I’d like to thank everyone who has followed the blog over the last twelve months, and everyone who has taken the time to read the posts and to comment on them. I appreciate it.

I’m taking a short blog break over the festive season and will be back on the 8^th January 2018.