Favorite Reads of 2019

January 2, 2020

I read a lot of books in 2019. Over the years, I have found that I cannot walk past a bookstore without going in. And, even if I don’t plan to, I will come out with at least one book that caught my eye. Some of these books were discovered by chance. The others were long-awaited and quickly devoured. And each one of them linger in my mind. These were the best books I read last year.

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
I picked up this book on a whim, simply because it sounded interesting.
The main character, Grace Healey, finds an abandoned suitcase in a train station filled with photographs of women who were deployed as Allied Resistance during WWII. Grace tries to discover the stories of these women and their fates, particularly that of young mother, Marie.

It has an easy narrative to follow, layering the stories of Grace and Marie together seamlessly. The mystery kept me intrigued from start to finish. That is the sign of a good book after all…

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
This was a reread in preparation for the next book in the Red Rising series, Dark Age.

Iron Gold is the first book in a second trilogy set in the Red Rising universe. The events of Iron Gold take place ten years after the end of the first trilogy. Rebellion and war rage on, and the hope for a united Republic seems farther away. The characters are older, wiser, but feeling the strain of conflict.

I enjoyed Iron Gold more this time, being able to pick up on a lot of the subtle hints as the plot advanced. This is one of those books, and one of those series, that will cause sleep deprivation. The story grabs you from page one and will not let go through all the twists and turns until the end.

When the Curtain Falls by Carrie Hope Fletcher
This book was hard to find. Carrie Hope Fletcher is a British author, whose books were only recently released in Canada. I waited a long time for this book, having stumbled upon Carrie’s videos on writing many years ago, and became interested in the stories she writes.

When the Curtain Falls is a historical fiction that draws on Carrie’s experience working in theatre on London’s West End. She manages to craft a novel that provides a captivating look behind the scenes at the theatre, as well as a look back in time. There are theatre ghosts from a past production, jealous lovers in past and present and a mystery spanning nearly seventy years. I read this book in a few days. It was well worth the wait.

The Huntress by Kate Quinn
I read Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network in a matter of days in 2018 and eagerly awaited the release of her next novel, The Huntress. It did not disappoint.

The Huntress is told through multiple POVs, all of whom are searching for a Nazi known as The Huntress. The story of Russian night bomber pilot, Nina, with a personal vendetta against the Huntress, blends seamlessly with Jordan’s, a young woman in Boston trying to discover the true identity of the soft-spoken German woman her father has married. I flew through the pages, staying up way later than I should have, just to see how it all ended.

The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World’s Longest Treasure Hunt by Randall Sullivan
I watched The Curse of Oak Island TV show from the time it premiered back in 2014. It was the one show I made sure I watched when I was home from university. And the one show I continue to look forward to watching each week.

It’s not the treasure hunt that intrigues me, rather the history behind the island. From the moment Randall Sullivan appeared on the show, documenting some of the research for this book, I knew I would buy it. It took a considerable amount of time to read, just based on the sheer amount of information to get through. The theories as to what the treasure might be are discussed. The searcher history is told from start to finish. The sheer amount of effort, and money, that has gone into this tiny Nova Scotia island is incredible. And my favorite part: with each new discovery on the island, there is the chance that Canadian history will be rewritten.