My Top Ten (and a little bit more) Books of 2020

That time of the year again....

Usually I do a Top Twenty, but I haven't found so much reading time this year.  Out of the fifty-five-ish books I have read or started to read (not all of them reviewed on this blog), I have chosen my ten favourites, which is actually twelve, because two of them have a sequel or related book that I liked just as much.  They were not necessarily published in 2020, but this is when I read them.

At the bottom are three other books that were my nearly-favourites, so it's really fifteen, I suppose!  Please note - when reviewing, I may on occasion give a book 4.5* or possibly even 5* because I feel it is worthy of that rating, even if it wasn't quite my thing; I try to always review objectively.  This list, however, is made up simply of those I loved the most.  

These are in no particular order, but they all come with my highest recommendation.  If you click the title of the book, it will take you to my full review, with Amazon and Goodreads links.

The Heretic Wind by Judith Arnopp

~ Tudor historical fiction ~

The Covenant by Thorne Moore

~ 19th/early 20th century historical fiction ~

Rum Hijack by Phil Motel

~ Contemporary Drama ~

and

Plumas de Muerte by Phil Motel

~ Memoir ~

Abandoned Pennsylvania by Janine Pendleton

~Photography, with non-fiction historical text~

Cometh The Hour by Annie Whitehead

~6th-7th Century Historical Fiction~

Fame & Fortune by Carol Hedges

~ Victorian Murder Mystery ~

The World Without Crows by Ben Lyle Bedard

~ Post-Apocalyptic ~ 

and 

The World Without Flags by Ben Lyle Bedard

~ Post-Apocalyptic ~

(I said 'no particular order', but, okay, the following are my top three 😉)

Smile of the Wolf by Tim Leach

~ 10th Century Icelandic Historical Fiction ~

The End of the Road by Anna Legat

~ Post-Apocalyptic ~

Nest of Ashes by Gemma Lawrence

~ Tudor Historical Fiction ~

*

I'd also like to give a mention for these three, that almost made the top ten:

Obsession by Robin Storey

~ Psychological thriller novella ~

Singularity Syndrome by Susan Kuchinskas

~ SciFi/Climate Change/Dystopian ~

Gorge by Katherine Carlson

~ Dark Contemporary Fiction ~

📚 Happy Reading! 📚

PLUMAS DE MUERTE: Tequila Journals and Dreams by Phil Motel @philmotel

5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads
On BookBub 

How I discovered this book: Already a fan.

In a Nutshell:  Non-fiction: memoir, journal entries and poems.

The Blurb: 
Life in a long-stay motel, overseen by the on-site muscle: 'if this was a movie, he'd be played by Steve Buscemi'. Twelve-hour shifts at a mundane job alongside a host of strange characters with their own struggle to make it to the end of the day. Anecdotes from journals of adventures past: wannabe musicians, ill-fated relationships and the bottom of a bottle.

Musings on life, death, dreams, and the frustrations of the writing process: the journal entries were written while during the creation of the author's debut novel, Rum Hijack.

Dream Diary
The second part of Plumas de Muerte is as it says: a small collection of dreams: what goes on while we are asleep?

A raw ride that makes no attempt to gloss over the darker side of the author's life at the time, while acting as a cautionary tale about the nightmare of substance abuse - and the final road of alcoholism/addiction.


My review:
The 'Tequila Journals', the first part of this book, makes up 80% of the whole.  There are two main settings: an unnamed place of work, and the motel in which the diarist lives.  Doesn't sound very thrilling?  It is.  PM is one of those scribes who has the knack of making an after-work beer in a fast food establishment or wrangles over his room rent with the seedy 'Steve Buscemi' as riveting as any 'fast-paced' action thriller. I once noted that memoir writer Val Poore managed to bring tears to my eyes in a short chapter about the lighting of oil lamps.  This was similar; it's not the subject matter, but the innate talent of the writer.  

When I got nearer to the end I felt that, although maybe not meant as such, it does make up an actual story.  We see how PM's frustration with his working life and writing increases, how he becomes jaded with (and fails to chase up) possible romantic opportunities, how his depression about events from the past deepens, his drinking becomes more and more out of hand, until happiness visits his life once more, only to be ripped away—and sends his life spiralling completely out of control.  At the end, I turned over the page and thought, 'What, no more?  But what happens next?'.  I'm hoping he will write the next 'chapter' at some point.

One of my favourite sections in the Tequila Journals was a look back at a crazy, chaotic time spent in Colorado, which reminded me of a Kerouac novel, though there's nothing pretentious, plagiarised or 'wannabe' about PM's writing style; it's unique, and appears to be the sort of effortless that tells me he doesn't realise how good he is.  Throughout, every character is perfectly captured in just a couple of lines of dialogue.

The dream diary at the end: I am one of those who dislikes dream sequences in films or books, and suppresses yawns when people go into detail about a dream they had, but I liked these; they were well put together, not rambling, and the style and structure varied.  Also, having read the book, I could see what was behind some of them—some aspects of loss, isolation and anger.

I've read the novel, Rum Hijack, that PM was writing at the time these journal entries were made, and I loved it, but in a way I like some aspects of this collection even more.  Includes some relevant artwork and photos.  Highly, highly recommended.

RUM HIJACK by Phil Motel @motelacid

5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
Also free on Kindle Unlimited

How I discovered this book:  I read and loved the original version...

In A Nutshell: Darkly humorous literary fiction about a delusional would-be writer.

Rum Hijack was originally written as three novellas, some years ago; I read them all as they came out, and loved them - now they're back as one novel, a new and improved version that retains all that I liked about the original, but is much more streamlined, better edited and put together so well that you can't see the join, as it were.

The nameless young male protagonist tells his story in the first person; later to call himself Inkker Hauser, he lives alone in a flat left to him by his grandfather, does not work, and leads a rather lonely life; often, his only company is his beloved goldfish, Kursk (named after his favourite nautical disaster), and the staff and drinkers at his local pub.

Inkker is convinced that he is destined to become a writer of such importance that, once his masterpiece is written, all other literary works will pale beside it.  He pours scorn on self-published ebook writers, on the pretentious and the less intelligent, sure that once his words burst forth, the world will recognise and revere his unmatched talent.  His lack of production he puts down to 'writer's block', and, as his frustration mounts, his grip on reality slides slowly down hill, lost in alcoholic and drug-induced chaos.

Although very much a contemporary novel, with its references to the technology and culture of today, the book it reminds me of most is Victorian comic novel Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome; similarly, the young man darts off at tangents to talk about something else in such a way that you don't mind because it's every bit as entertaining as the main story.  Also, the observations about human behaviour are both amusing and remarkably astute, and the standard of the writing itself is as good as any cult literary classic. 

Aside from this, what makes the book work so well is the fact that the young man is oddly likeable, despite his deranged alcoholism and cynical outlook.  I found myself really wanting him to find some love and peace of mind.  He is kind to the less fortunate, and to the old lady in a nearby flat, and his love for his fish is very sweet and quite heartbreaking, because he has no one else on which to focus.  There's also a terrifically moving section in which he talks at length about a childhood outing with his grandfather.

His loneliness and shame over the consequences of his bizarre actions is sometimes painful to read - having said that, though, one of my favourite parts in the entire book is the cringe-making downward spiral of a disastrous date, in which his behaviour becomes increasingly out of control as he drinks far too much and tops it up with cocaine.  The best 'bad date' story I've read!

If you like Charles Bukowski, Hunter Thompson, Philip K Dick, William Burroughs... I hope this book can gain the visibility and readership it deserves, because I believe it could become one of those novels about which, in years to come, people will say, "What?  You haven't read Rum Hijack?"