Chronic Betty's Best of 2010

My original thought, when planning this post, was that 2010 was kind of a "meh" reading year for me.  But after flipping through my journal, I realised that there were some good things in there, just didn't find any new (to me) authors who absolutely knocked my socks off.

I discovered the very competent Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter.  (That's not the faint praise it sounds like.  I'm very picky about my Urban Fantasy.)  The first book in the series is Skinwalker.

I really enjoyed What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss.  I don't read much category romance anymore, but this one was good.  A well balanced combination of fun and emotion.  And to an Ugly American the New Zealand setting was just a touch exotic.  I definitely look forward to reading more from this author.

Exit Strategy and Made to Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong are the only two books in the Nadia Stafford series.  (So far.  I'm still hoping for more.)  I put off reading these for a while because I wasn't sure I wanted to read about a heroine who's a hitman... woman... whatever.  But Nadia has strong reasons for doing what she does, and it was easy for me as a reader to accept what her line of work.  I absolutely loved her mentor, Jack, and hope if there are further books in the series that they will develop the relationship between them.

Changes by Jim Butcher ended with a real shocker that leaves the whole Dresden Files series in question.  Can't wait to see what happens in the new one, due out this spring.

Draw the Dark by Isla J. Bick was excellent, and a book that I never would have discovered if not for Netgalley.  My review is here. 

Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews was good.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl was good.  I hope to get around to the sequel, Beautiful Darkness, sometime in the new year.

There were other books this year that, unfortunately, didn't live up to my hopes for them.  Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie, The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen, and Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn were all slightly disappointing.  None of them were bad books by any means.  But they didn't live up to the authors' previous books.

And then there was the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.  I found these books both obsessively readable and not very good.  The story is told in first person by MacKayla Lane, possibly the most insipid, TSTL heroine I've ever encountered.  In fact, there were times when she wandered past TSTL and into Why Aren't You Dead Yet?  I frequently longed to beat her over the head with one of her pretty pink shoes.  I only put up with Mac to get access to the delectable Jericho Barrons.  Who is also sometimes a bit of a tool-- if I were Mac I'd have planted one of my pretty pink shoes where the sun don't shine about 5 minutes after meeting the guy.  But honey, I'd still bang him like a screen door.  And so I will be putting up with the irritatingly ignorant Mac just to find out what happens to Barrons in the final book, due out in about 3 weeks.

So those were the standouts of my reading year.  For anyone who's curious, you can see my full 2010 reading list here.  Happy New Year, y'all!