Melanie's Favorite Books of 2013

This year I found a great website for finding good indie books. It is called The Fussy Librarian, and it allows you to set your preferences for genre, level of sexual content, violence and profanity, and then sends you emails with suggestions for ebooks that meet your requirements. The site also uses the amazon rating system to bolster the chance that the books you pick are high-quality. The most expensive book they've ever recommended to me was 4.99, but most of them are cheaper than that, and occasionally even free. 

The Best of 2013:

The Way of Kings 

So, this book wasn't published in 2013. It was published in 2010. But it was so long, I have to brag that I finished it, and so fantastic, I have to share. The sequel comes out in March!

The Bitter Kingdom 

This was the exciting conclusion of The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy. 

The first book will always be my favorite, but the other two are well worth reading as well.

 Vortex is the sequel to Insignia. This is thriller science fiction with a funny bone. Good stuff.

 Champion 

I just barely finished this one. 

I LOVED Legend and was pretty disappointed by Prodigy. It was a good read, it just wasn't fantastic. So I went into Champion with pretty low expectations, and it blew me away. 

 Perfect Scoundrels 

This is the third Heist Society novel, and it was my favorite. These are fun books, but the third one spent more time character building than the other two. As a fun plus, when I went to amazon to get a picture, I found an ebook called Doublecrossed that looks like a novelette set in this world. And at least while I was there, it was FREE!

 Dark Triumph 

This is the sequel to Grave Mercy. It centered on Sybella instead of Ismae, so it took a few chapters for me to get into it. These girls have been trained to be Death's Assassins, which makes for a darker book than most of the others I've recommended. Still, it was excellent.

 Earth Afire 

This is the sequel to Earth Unaware, which is a prequel to Ender's Game. It is the story of Earth right after the Formics invade for the first time. Finally Mazer Rackham makes more than a passing appearance. 

 Black Heart 

This is the last book in the Curse Workers series. It is also more edgy than some of the other books on my list, but I love the world building. Also, the cover of the version I had was much cooler than this one. 

The Storybook of Legends

I haven't actually read this one, because I bought it for my daughter

and she's been reading it and rereading it, and talking about it with her friends, 

and taking it to school. I'm hoping to read it over winter break

Not just this one, but all the Ever After High short stories 
are free (at this moment) on kindle, except 

The Tale of Two Sisters, which was $1.99. I haven't read them either, because 

I just bought them about 10 seconds ago, but I'm sure they are amazing.

 Alchemy (you knew that was coming, right?)

Funny Tragic, Crazy Magic

(This was published in 2013, wasn't it, Sheena??)

This is a great resource for the best books of 2013:

And just for fun, here are my most highly anticpated books of 2014 (so far):

1. Hidden Magic by ME!!! Mark your calendars my friends! It comes out on January 24, 2014

2. Pyromancy by Sheena Boekweg, ME and Sabrina West!!! This hopefully comes out in June, but we'll see...

3. Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive Book 2)

4. Dangerous by Shannon Hale

5. Ever After High: The Unfairest of Them All (Ever After High Book 2)

6. Earth Awakens by Orson Scott Card (Formic Wars Book 3)

7. Visitors by Orson Scott Card (Pathfinder Book 3)

8. The Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb

9.Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin Book 3)

10. Lady Thief (Scarlet Book 2) This is the Robin Hood one, not the steampunk one

Do you have a book you'd like to add to one of my lists?