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! 📚

OBSESSION by Robin Storey @RobinStorey1 #RBRT

4.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie's Book Review Team, of which I am a member; I enjoyed the last book I read by this author, Secret Kill, so chose this one straight away.

In a Nutshell: Novella, set in Australia, in which an intellectually disabled man becomes obsessed with a neighbour.

Intellectually disabled Benny Goodchild is in his early forties, works in a warehouse where he suffers taunts from colleagues, and lives alone.  His life is humdrum indeed, but trouble starts when he starts doing gardening work for Olivia, who lives nearby.  Then he gets the opportunity to earn some serious money—the sort of serious that he suspects might be illegal.

I was engrossed in this book all the way through, looking forward to getting back to it at each session.  It's written in the third person, with the deep point of view that allows the reader to see into Benny's often rather confused mind.  The story has been planned well, and I couldn't work out what was going to happen, at all—it could have taken a number of different turns.  Ms Storey has an easy, flowing writing style, and the characterisation is subtly but artfully developed, even for lesser characters.

I would have given it five stars if it wasn't for a practical issue that didn't convince me, but I do tend to read with an editor's head on, and I doubt it would bother most people; if Amazon ratings had a ten star range, I'd give it eight.  Overall, this is a highly entertaining book throughout which I was not tempted to skip-read once (which is something, for me!) and it comes with a definite recommendation.  Buy it!

SECRET KILL by Robin Storey

4.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie's Book Review Team, of which I am a member.

In a Nutshell: Novella.  Former criminal turned good guy is forced back into the underworld.  Set mostly in Melbourne.

I liked this book more and more as it went on.  Ex-crim Jackson Forbes is confronted by a grown-up daughter he never knew about - and she wants something from him.  Not just fatherly love, or money, but help; Frida is in trouble, and Jack is about to be pitched back into a world he thought he'd left behind.

This is a novella (40K words or under; I imagine this is around 40k), and I appreciated the way in which the story fitted perfectly into the shorter length; there was no feeling that it needed more detail anywhere, which in turn made me feel as though I had read a full-length novel.  Any longer, and it might have dragged, or been filled with superfluous detail.  It's an easy read and well-written, with a convincing plot.

I read another book by this author and my main complaint about that was that the characters didn't come across.  In Secret Kill, however, I felt that Jack and Frida were completely real; there were no sudden shifts in personality like before.  There was one revelation about Jack's past that made me less sympathetic towards him, but, boy, did he pay for it.  I was fairly set on 4* all the way through, but the unexpected and unusual ending made me want to add an extra half star.  Good one.

MURDER UNDONE by Robin Storey

3.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie's Book Review Team, of which I am a member.

In a Nutshell: Woman murders husband.  Gets chance to go back in time and make different decisions.  Involves drugs, sex, criminal underworld.

This book starts well, with main character Eva poisoning her cheating husband.  Fast forward twenty years: she's married again, and living with the fall-out.  Except she can't deal with it; she drinks too much, and goes into bars to pick up men for casual sex.  Then she is offered a chance to go back in time, still retaining her memories of her 'real' life, and not murder Cheating Charlie after all....

I found this author's style pretty readable; I'd suddenly realise I'd galloped through 10 pages or so, without thinking about stopping to make notes, which is a good sign.  I was moderately drawn in when I first started to read, but as soon as Eva got a chance to go back in time, I thought, ah—now I'm interested!

The story continued to zip along in a readable fashion, but I did have some problems with it.  Eva's character seemed more like a vehicle for the plot that the other way round; I never believed in her.  One minute she is the pampered, submissive wife of a millionaire businessman, the next she is daredevil sleuth, able to talk her way into any private location, and mixing with the criminal underworld without turning a hair, to the extent of having sex with them for information (and enjoying it despite the guy having had a knife to her throat, but I'm not even going to go there; the cocaine she'd taken, alone, would make her paranoid and agitated in this situation).

I was dubious about some dialogue (the way one of the female characters talks about sex would make Samantha from Sex and the City cringe) and unconvinced by some events; for instance, before she goes back in time, Eva is around 60 years old, but gets hit on/approached for casual sex every time she enters a bar to have a drink.  However glamorous and well-kept a woman of that age may be, I found this a little unlikely.

One other point is something the author might want to consider for future work of this genre.  Later in the book, Eva is caught driving under the influence of cocaine.  There was a detailed chapter about her court appearance, ending with the news report about it on TV.  Why not just cut the whole court thing, and start the chapter with the news report, ending with a paragraph or two about how she felt, watching it broadcast to the world?  That would have given all the information the reader needed, and let them get on with the more juicy stuff, like infidelity, deteriorating marriage and underworld dealings ...

... because it is a rip-roaring tale, and not badly put together at all, generally. 
The basic idea is great, though I didn't feel enough use was made of the fact that she was living her life over again; I expected more references to the past, and perhaps the steering of other events, too.  It's a bit like a watered-down Jackie Collins (that's a compliment, by the way!), but, alas, I need to be convinced by and become totally involved with the characters in order to really enjoy a book, and Eva never came alive to me.

To sum up: the author has much of the skill and writing style for this genre, but it still needs a bit of fine tuning!