Yes, I know I am running about 7 books behind in my goodreads challenge, but I’ve still done better than last year where I was a hopeless Netflix addict who read like basic 3 books through the year. While my top 3 reads of the first half of 2020 are out, here are all the books that I picked them from.

The Broken Girls: Perhaps one of the most hauntingly beautiful books I have read. I say that because The Broken Girls made me feel things I did not know I could – including having legit fear of nightmares, but also feeling the deep human bonds that define all that we are. This book is always going to be a precious one for me. It’s in my top 3 reads of 2020.
Read full review here

Neverwhere: A Neil Gaiman gem, I picked this up right in the first week of January and have been wanting to visit London, only to re-read and experience London through Richard Mayhew’s eyes. Neil Gaiman is the God of writing, along with Douglas Adams. Any books my these two are major reasons I’d wanna live in the UK.
Read the full review here

Credence: I cannot say this enough but I will someday be in hell just because I liked this book (a lot!) despite the taboo scenes within. It’s hot, it’s steamy, it’s romantic, and it’s raunchy. And amidst all this, Penelope Douglas has weaved in romance, as well as the story of Tiernan finding out who she is. While I have not written a review on this one, mainly because I was at a loss of words after reading it, this one too is in my top 3 reads of 2020.

Malice: Just when the pandemic broke, I read this book. It was scary, yes. And it has a very interesting take on time travel, unlike the other forms I have seen in movies and series. Written refreshingly, I have read Pintip Dunn’s book for the first time. It was great, but looking back it is not exactly the kind of books I have the taste for anymore. The ideal age range to read this one has to cap itself at 22.
Read full review here and see me talk about it on video here

The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires: One of my most anticipated books of 2020, this book was a wild ride. It started slow, but turned into a powerful statement on women and their resilience about anything in life notwithstanding the problem being domestic, professional or supernatural. I was so invested into Patricia’s life that I wanted that adventure for myself, bizarrely scary that it was – gross, even. This was an enjoyable read, but I did expect a little more considering the wildly fantastic synopsis it had.
See the full review here

Highfire: Another book I anticipated, but it did not meet my expectations as much as I thought it would. I wanted to finish it in one sitting, but the writing style was very different. I loved the Southern feel of this book – you can read the entire book in the Louisiana twang. But it had some extreme rapey-violent undertones that I did not like, despite the fact that I can take violence and gore, this book had a very disgusting take to it. Yes, it was fun. No, I would not want to read it again. Never read an Eoin Colfer before, but perhaps I may not after this book, and not after Kenneth Branaugh’s adaptation of his YA book series Artemis Fowl, the review of which you can read here.

The Wicked Deep: Oh. My. God. This book brought me to tears. I want to read Shea Earnshaw’s Winterwood next very soon after reading this. Mystery in a coastal small town that has to do with haunted beings from the water? HELL YEAH! This book is not just about the fantastical elements that it promises in its synopsis, but much more. There’s this feeling of haunting, but a lingering sense of comfort while reading it too. Shea Earnshaw’s books have a permanent place on my shelf after this absolute beauty.

The Spire In The Woods: So this is a book based on a reddit thread that is a coming-of-age horror story. And it is truly, truly disturbing and scary. I do read a fair amount of horror, but this played so much on my imagination I had a hard time sleeping. Now, I read this one not in a book format, but somewhere online only. The thread itself is long enough to fill maybe more than 100 pages on a word document. So yes, it’s one of the scariest reads. If you’re truly bored staying at home feeling alone, you’re not gonna feel that anymore after you read this.

Forever: Jude Deveraux is one of my favourite authors. This is the first book the her ‘Forever’ trilogy. But somehow, the first book itself disappointed me a little. It was fun, definitely. But then I did not wish to finish the trilogy after reading this. And that’s saying a lot because I happen to have closure issues. It’s a fun paranormal romance though, you can read it once. Jude Deveraux is, was, and will be one of the best Romance authors for me.

Eliza And Her Monsters: I cannot talk enough about this book. It’s everything I did not know I needed. It’s about love, romance, mental health, and most of all – finding your inner stability through your teenage years. Read the full review here

And Then There Were None: I realised that I have been reading so many female authors this year, I love it! this was my first Agatha Christie (Yes, but I needed to begin at SOME point in my life and better late than never). I love how I time travelled through this book and become a part of this closed room whodunnit. What drew me to this was the synopsis of Lucy Foley’s The Guest List. I have not read that yet, but atleast it brought me to Agatha’s sheer brilliance and I couldn’t be more glad to have read this one as my first!

The Surface Breaks: Sold to me as the feminist re-telling of The Little Mermaid, I think I would have bought this anyway. It was painful, yes. Slow, yes. Was it worth the ending? I don’t know. I enjoyed reading it for sure just for its world building. While there was the whole feminist angle through the book, it did not stand out but the end feels a bit of a deus ex machina. Again, it’s an age-group thing. If I were 16 and read it, it would be one of my favourites, but I’ve shed that tail a while ago. Pun intended? I dunno.

Coraline: It’s Neil Gaiman and it’ horror. It’s one of the most bizarre books I have read. It is supposed to be for kids, but it can scare adults too. It’s so simply written that you become a part of the narrative yourself – the absurdities become real and the fantasy keeps growing on you for very long time. Neil’s fascination for the ‘other worlds’ makes him write such books that are the reason why I read in the first place.

Stardust: Another of Neil Gaiman’s magical books. I re-read Stardust just to feel like things were in place in life no matter what went wrong. Tristan will always be my hero – especially when Charlie Cox was it.