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I had kept myself a challenge of completing at least 52 books in 2020 across all genres and in all formats. I outdid myself and I'm proud. I read 56 books a performance of 106%. Thank you to Goodreads for keeping track of all books read.
I was fortunate to have had the time to read a good amount of books in 2020. On retrospection I realized that I did manage to cover a lot of genres too, including my personal favorite – Thrillers. I plan on reading another at least 50 books in 2021 and exploring genres I haven’t ventured into before like poetry or mythology. And genres I haven’t given enough attention like YA or fantasy. Besides that I plan to read and assimilate at least one non-fiction book every month so I better myself in the coming year.
Since it’s a huge list and for sake of readability I decided to do this in two parts. In part one you’ll find all romance and mystery titles I read under fiction.
Fiction
Romance
Accidentally in Love by Belinda Missen
Katherine’s ideal world in London comes crashing down when she is passed up for promotion, and she quits to show her discontent. A couple of days later, she breaks up with her not really boyfriend, John, for his utter lack of respect for her and her work. A visit to her Dad’s house in Sheffield and Katherine realizes what she’s been missing all along. Kit, aka Christopher. – Full Review Here
Finding me by Kelly Gunderman
Finding yourself and finding forgiveness for those who have hurt you can be two of the most difficult things that you can do in your lifetime, but they are also two of the most worthwhile.
What would happen if you fall in love with the one person you’re not supposed to fall in love with?
That is Claire’s story in Finding Me. A drunk driver crashes into Claire’s car while her mom was driving. Claire’s mom is killed instantly while an injury to the spinal cord confines Claire to a wheelchair. Claire, paralyzed from the waist down, runs into further distress when her father decides to move her to her Grandmother’s place and get married to Sarah, a woman almost her age, who is pregnant with their baby. – Full Review Here
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
The Fault In Our Stars covers the story of Hazel Grace, a terminal cancer patient, who meets another cancer survivor Augustus Waters, an optimist, at her Support Group. A chance meeting turns into something more. But is it lifelong? Or is life for them not long enough? - – Full Review Here
Sing Me Home by Judith Cuffe
My favorite singer is you. Singing that song, slowly, to me.
Ann Maguire, is a lonely woman in her thirties, recently separated from her ultra-rich husband, returns to the place of her childhood memories, Knockmore. She wants to find home. She wants to find the love her parents shared. But like her friend Sophie puts it, Ann’s life is nothing less than a roller-coaster, never dull. She has choices to make will she choose a stable life or a life of passion? – Full Review Here
When Love Came Calling by Pretti Shenoy
“Sometimes we travel far to discover ourselves.”
Arush, a nerdy guy, and a British citizen of Indian origins, steps into India first time to volunteer for an Arts educational program. Puja, a confused Kochi girl with wealthy and successful parents, is yet to face the harsh realities of life and find her way in this life. Although very different, their energies are magnetic. Will opposites attract or repel? – Full Review Here
Yesterday by Samyann
“Your life is with me today and Yesterday.”
That’s the gist of the romance novel Yesterday. Amanda, the heroine, believes that anyone who gets close to her will die. Having lost her parents, older brother, and fiancé, she is afraid to love again. Mark Callahan, a Chicago policeman, lives the life that holds no guarantees. Will they find each other? Again?
Cry of the Wolves by Vonna Harper
Vonna Harper has written dozens of erotica and erotic romance from spanking to shape-shifting, from primitive tribes to science fiction. Many of those books revolve around capture and or submissive themes. Freud, if he hadn't been so hung up on his belief that only damaged people fantasize, might have tried to understand dom/ submissive dynamics.
Playing to Win by Stacey Lynn
Jude Tayor, a star hockey player, is forced to take a break from his hockey career due to a massive knee injury. His coach asks him to move to Chicago for therapy, where his family and also where Katie is. The girl he spent one beautiful night with in college. Meanwhile, Katie is shocked to see Jude Taylor on the news about his injury, and even shocking is the fact that he is going to have therapy at the institute she works at. – Full Review Here
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
The Notebook begins with an eighty-year-old man describing the most remarkable part of his life. The story then moves on to Noah and Allie when happenstance brought them together one summer. Then they never met for 14 years until one afternoon, Allie decides to visit Noah to tell him she is engaged to Lon. Or was that just a reason to see her first love once more. Noah is then sure he wants her back, but can Ellie stay back? – Full Review Here
The Ice In Our Hearts by B C Powell
“It was the way she felt when he smiled at her.”
Bryce, a 17-year old sensational American snowboarder, and Daria, a 16-year old phenomenal Russian figure skater, are about to enter the competition of a lifetime, the Olympics. But these are no ordinary athletes. Battling diseases they wished they never had, they find the love they never dreamt. Different countries, different languages, different backgrounds, different goals. But will this love across borders last beyond their thirst for the coveted Olympic Gold, or will it blossom into something breathtaking? – Full Review Here
Where Birds Fly by Cathrine Goldsten
“I am tired of being a plague you run from. Stop making me feel bad for being me.”
‘O’ just turned eighteen and wants to live her dream of becoming a painter. She joins her sister in New York to fulfill her dream and also to meet the man she’s forever crushed on, Douglas Craven. Twice her age, Craven (Cray) is her mentor. A world-famous sculptor himself, Cray cannot hide his inner feelings for O as they embark on a creative journey of art. Will O be able to fulfill a long-sought dream of becoming a painter? Will Cray own up to his feelings for O, will they finally find each other? – Full Review Here
One Way or Another by Mary J. Williams
One Way or Another is the first book in a series of four books subtitled the Sisters Quartet. Calder Benedict, the heroine of the novel, is the second eldest of four sisters who are children of divorce. Rich beyond words, beautiful and smart as they come, all the sisters are yet to find their prince charming. By the end of this book, maybe one of them (Calder) might get lucky.
Lyrebird by Cecelia Ahern
A moving, beautiful story portraying a 26-year old uniquely and naturally, talented Laura Button, nicknamed Lyrebird, and Soloman, the arbitrator, the peacekeeper, the counselor. Set in the beautiful mountains of Gougane Barra, Cork, Lyrebird is a captivating story that will immerse you in the world of the Lyrebird, a rare and shy Australian bird that mimics sounds. – Full Review Here
Mystery/Thriller
Murder in Paradise by James Patterson
Murder in Paradise consists of three short stories based on mysterious murders in places considered paradise, literally. – Full Review Here
Dead Air by Michael Bradley
Kaitlyn Ashe, a famous radio DJ in Philadelphia, has everything. She is happy, successful, and in love. But deep down, she knows she has been keeping her past a secret from everyone. A secret that someone else knows and is now threatening her with it. First, it starts with weekly anonymous messages, then things escalate, and Kaitlyn is terrified to go back to her own house. When will this stop? After justice has been avenged? Justice for what? What has Kaitlyn Ashe buried in the Shallows? – Full Review Here
Murder on The Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Revenge is a powerful emotion that directs action and intent. As Hercule Poirot (HP) perfectly puts it – “It takes the fracture of a soul to murder a human being.”
I would recommend you first read the book and then watch the movie if you haven’t already. Both are worth it. - – Full Review Here
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
The story starts with a Journal entry by Alicia Berenson, where she explains that she’s writing this journal because her husband insisted she writes it to express her internal thoughts. Alicia is a painter, and Gabriel Berenson, her husband, is a photographer. They are happily married for seven years. In the second chapter, we learn that one night Gabriel was (murdered) shot by Alicia in the face five times, and since that incident, she has become silent. Her enduring silence turns the story into a grand mystery. She hasn’t spoken to anyone except she drew a painting titled ALCESTIS soon after the murder. – Full Review Here
Whiteland by Rossie Higgs
Whiteland is beckoning, and she can only obey. Kira, her sister Romy, and parents, Anna and Matthew, are on holiday in a lonely Swiss mountain village. One their last night, Romy disappears, and when she returns, everything has changed. On the following day, Kira’s parents disappear. Determined to find out what haunts her family, Kira sets out into the forbidden land – Whiteland. – Full Review Here
Familiar by T.J. Blake
Arabella, the lead in the story, has inherited the capabilities of a psychic medium. At the beginning of the story, we are introduced to a homicide investigation where Arabella is a prime suspect. Gradually, we are taken through a series of encounters that Arabella experiences with the departed. She calls them friends. On the fifteenth anniversary of her popular show Familiar, Arabella comes face to face with her past. Her personal life gets entangled with her paranormal friends, and she is confronted with the evil living in her house. – Full Review Here
The Dark Web Murders by Brian O’Hare
The path the being spoken about in this quote from the book is the path of murder. The killer is on a spree of killings that he thinks are justified because those murdered deserved this punishment. Detective Sheehan and his team of law enforcement personnel are entrusted with uncovering these murders but get caught in a network of the upper crust of the society and their filthy and creepy fantasies. In this pursuit, they also come across a world of the Internet that is unknown to regular people like you and me but is available to very restricted people with exotic and weird tastes.
The Judge Part I and II by Ian R.B. Morris
Peter Ritchie, the central character, is a lawyer trying to work himself up to the who’s who in the legal business. Faced with failure in his recent case, Peter is unaware that his life is about to take a U-turn when he is called upon to identify the body of one of his clients, Bobby Black, a prostitute. Against his better judgment and the wishes of his new illustrious client, he is hell-bent on getting to the bottom of the mystery of Bobby’s death. Will he succeed in meting out justice, or will he perish? Will he ever be able to get back to his normal life after getting his longtime girlfriend almost killed?
An Imperfect Crime by Fred G. Baker
“A promise made is a debt unpaid.”
Two struggling writer friends hatch the perfect plot to make their next novel a bestseller. The catch--their plot is too perfect for someone else. Simpson-one of these writers is executed for Brown’s (the other writers) murder maintaining his statement that Brown will show up before the trial ends. Only he doesn’t.
The Ancestor by Lee Matthew Goldberg
“Chase for whatever it is you truly want and don’t’ stop until you have it firmly in your grasp.”
A man wakes up in present-day Alaskan wilderness with no idea who he is, nothing on him save an empty journal with the date 1898 and a mirror. He sees another man hunting nearby, astounded that they look exactly alike except for his own beard. After following this other man home, he witnesses a wife and child that brings forth a rush of memories of his own wife and child, except he’s certain they do not exist in modern times—but from his life in the late 1800s. – Full Review Here
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
Declared the Best Mystery of 2020 during Goodreads Choice Awards. Don’t miss this exotic thriller. A wedding party. A remote island. 150 guests. Each with a secret. Each with a motive to murder. A storm. A killer among the guests. – Full Review Here
The Heat by Sean O’Leary
Jake is a loner who works nights in a Darwin motel and lives at the YMCA. He’s in love with Angel, a Thai prostitute who works out of the low-rent Shark Motel.
A vicious murder turns Jake’s life into a nightmare. He must fight for his life on the heat-soaked streets of Darwin and Bangkok in the wet season to get revenge, and to get his life back.
“Great books, great films, and all kinds of art, they can make the troubles of the world seem less harsh, sometimes they disappear altogether.” – Full Review Here
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
“In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do-clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth-the naked shining truth.”
The Queen of mystery has done it again. Another Hercule Poirot Classic, soon to be made into a movie. Death on The Nile is about Linnet Ridgeway, a beautiful, stylish, young, and wealthy girl who has everything until she is shot dead on her honeymoon cruise on the Nile. – Full Review Here
The Woman in the Window by A.J.Finn
Anna Fox, a psychiatrist herself, hasn’t stepped out of her house for ten months. It is her habit to watch her neighbors from her window facing the park. Russell’s, her new neighbors have just moved in. Anna sees her own once happy but now separated family in the Russells. Until one day she hears a scream and watches something happen that nobody was supposed to see. But being a loner and a wine addict that she is, no one is ready to believe her. Circumstances reach a point where Anna begins to doubt herself. – Full Review Here
Ruby Falls by Deborah Goodrich Royce
On a brilliantly sunny July day, six-year-old Ruby is abandoned by her father in the suffocating dark of a Tennessee cave. Twenty years later, transformed into soap opera star Eleanor Russell, she is fired under dubious circumstances. Fleeing to Europe, she marries a glamorous stranger named Orlando Montague and keeps her past closely hidden. – Full Review Here
The House of Eire: A Hillary Broome Novel by June Gillam
Hillary is a journalist turned ghost-writer who is on vacation in Ireland with her husband Ed, an American cop, their daughter Claire and her motherly-friend Sarah. Hillary wants to enjoy her vacation in Ireland and find out more about her Irish roots, a country that turns out to be mystical and orthodox. But we are soon to find out that destiny has other plans for Hillary when she encounters multiple murders of her loved ones. Will she be able to save her family and friends from a greedy theme park developer with questionable family history? Will Hillary be able to return to her home, having solved the murders and unearthed information about her Irish roots?
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