Favorite reads of 2015

My last post summarized the books I read in 2015, and here were my top ten favorites from the year.

1. Armada - Ernest Cline
When I read this book, I thought it was specifically targeted to me because I could relate to so many of the references made. If you were a video-game-playing, sci-fi-loving kid of the 80's like I was, this book is for you! Despite the somewhat cheesy ending, I liked this book even more than Ready Player One.

2. Daughter of Smoke & Bone - Laini Taylor
Beautifully written, with characters and a story line that sprang from the pages to envelope me, this could have been my favorite book of the year just as easily as Armada was. Karou was a unique character who I found easy to root for. I look forward to finishing the series.

3. The Brothers - Katie French
The fourth and latest book in the Breeders series is my favorite so far! Read my review here.

4. The Benders - Katie French
Yup, two Breeders novels made my top 10 list this year! If you haven't started reading the series yet, you definitely should. Here's my review of The Benders.

5. A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
I liked Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking series, but A Monster Calls was even better. This story was touching and thought-provoking, yet simple and quick to read. Although the subject matter is best suited for a more mature audience, I think that readers from middle grade on up could benefit from this wonderfully written and illustrated book.

6. The One - Kiera Cass
Last year, The Selection made my top 10 list of favorite books. While The Elite suffered from Middle Book Syndrome, the series (or at least America's story) wrapped up nicely with The One.

7. Nil - Lynne Matson
I was skeptical at first about the premise of Nil (kids are mysteriously transported to an island where they have a year to escape or they die), but the plot and the characters wound up drawing me in. I plan to read the sequel this year.

8. Lake Ephemeral - Anya Allyn
Lake Ephemeral, the third indie book on my top 10 list, was a fun story that kept me guessing as to what was going on. Read my review here.

9. Choose Your Own Autobiography - Neil Patrick Harris
I loved the concept of an autobiography written in Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format. This book was as fun as I hoped it'd be. The only problem was, given the different lives that he lived depending on the paths I chose, I'm still a bit hazy on what really happened in Neil Patrick Harris's life. I guess I'll have to wait for his official autobiography to find out.

10. Love Songs - Jamie Campbell
Rounding out 2015's top 10 list is yet another indie book. You can read my review of this fun and touching love story.

What I read in 2015

At the beginning of the year, I joined the Goodreads reading challenge and set a goal of 100 books. If I had known how busy I was going to be this year, I wouldn't have. :-) However, as of yesterday, I somehow managed to finish my 100th book of 2015!

The ratings for the books I read this year broke down as follows:

• 5 stars - 25 books
• 4 stars - 44 books
• 3 stars - 29 books
• 2 stars - 2 book

This comes out to an average rating of 3.92 stars per book.

Of the 100 books that I read, 47 were indie published, which is almost half of all books read in 2015 and more than I read last year.

The ratings for the indie books came out to be:

• 5 stars - 11 books
• 4 stars - 25 books
• 3 stars - 11 books

As you can see, the average rating for the indie books (4.0) slightly beat out the rating for all books. That's right, the indie books I read this year were collectively better than the traditionally published ones! Furthermore, four of them made my list of the top ten books of the year, which is the highest representation among indie books since I started keeping track.

Next week, I'll list my top ten favorite books read in 2015. Stay tuned!

2015 Holiday Sale!

It's that time of the year again! I love the Christmas holiday season, and to celebrate it, I'm discounting ALL of my books on Amazon. Between now and the New Year, every one of my books will be on sale for 99 cents or FREE! Get them before prices go back up!

99 CENTS:

George and the Galactic Games	In the Hands of Children	Beyond New Eden	Keep Your Enemies Close

Gifted	Transmissions	A House in the Woods	Protect	Search

FREE:

Drive	Through a Tangled Wood	Celestial	Spectral Tales

Happy holidays!

Writing is like exercising

I recently completed my second NaNoWriMo, and I'm happy to say that I reached the 50,000 word goal for the second year in a row!

Compared to last year, this NaNoWriMo served as a kickstart for my writing. I hadn't been writing as much or as regularly in 2015 compared to previous years because of a greater workload at my day job. It got to the point where I was only writing on weekends, and then I'd have a hard time getting myself back into my story once I sat down to write. However, with NaNoWriMo last month, I found that, as the month progressed, it became easier to write, even during the week.

The experience reminds me of how I feel about exercising. I try to do some form of exercise every day, even if it's just twenty minutes on a treadmill. The reason is that, if I take a few days off from my workout routine, it becomes significantly harder to get back into it. By my rough estimate, for every two days that I don't exercise, it takes me a day to get back into shape. However, if I don't stop exercising, I don't get out of shape, and my daily routine doesn't feel like a chore anymore.

My writing followed the same pattern during NaNoWriMo. Last month, since I wrote every day, it was easy to keep on writing, even if it was just for half an hour. No wonder I felt so sluggish before November. I hadn't been exercising my "writing muscle." Since I didn't write for five days and tried to get back into it on Saturday, I wasn't able to get into a rhythm until the weekend was over. This year's NaNoWriMo has taught me that I have to try to keep up a writing routine every day if I can. It will actually make my writing easier.

Kick off the holiday shopping season with free books!

Today is Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season (at least in the U.S.). What better way to celebrate than with FREE books?!

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, a newly published anthology of ghost-themed YA stories that I participated in, Spectral Tales, is free from these retailers:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes
• Kobo
• Smashwords

Maybe ghosts aren't your thing? How about fairy tale re-tellings? Then check out Through a Tangled Wood.

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes
• Kobo
• Smashwords

 

Perhaps you'd like to read a YA short story collection centered around comets? Then Celestial is for you!

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes
• Kobo
• Smashwords

 

I should also mention that two of my own books are free today as well!

         

Spectral Tales

Once again, I had the fortune of working with the talented authors who brought you Through a Tangled Wood and Celestial. Our latest anthology is Spectral Tales, a collection of short stories based on ghosts.

You can download Spectral Tales for FREE from these retailers:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes
• Kobo
• Smashwords

And while you're at it, remember that Through a Tangled Wood and Celestial are also still free!

Whether they are spirits of the departed or figments of an overactive imagination, ghosts are a staple in fiction. Storytellers have portrayed ghosts as scary, friendly, or annoying across many genres. Now, eight authors offer their own interpretations of ghosts through a collection of short stories that will appeal to fans of horror, fantasy, or young adult fiction.

“Deathwatch” by Katie French - Teenage sisters Charlotte and Georgie stumble into a robbery, and their normal life gets flipped upside down. Worse, when the clerk kills one of the robbers, his face is covered in a supernatural swarm of bugs. Charlotte must be hallucinating. It's the only explanation for the terrible things she's seen. Everyone calls the clerk a hometown hero, but Charlotte's not so sure. Then a dead girl appears in her mirror with clues to the truth, and Charlotte learns there's more horror to this world than she ever expected.

“Tides” by Sarah Dalton - Andrea wakes with sand on her feet. She is sleepwalking down to the sea every night, but remembers little more than a vague recollection of a boy who lives on the beach. With an absent father and a mother who would rather walk along the coast than look after her daughter, Andrea struggles to get by. She’s haunted, but from a memory, or a spirit?

“Shadowspirit” by M.A. George - On a good day, Henta Mourngard is stalked by dreadspirits and netherphantoms, a living magnet for creatures of the afterlife. On a bad day, she finds herself communing with a demon of the underworld—worse yet, interrogating one—in a desperate attempt to track down the shadowspirit who has been her guide since infancy. Demons don’t take kindly to interrogation. And the search for a missing shadowspirit leads to places the living daren’t tread (lest they no longer qualify as living). ‘Tis unfortunate for Henta that today is not a “good day”.

“The Little Girl” by Jamie Campbell - Sixteen-year-old Penny is moving house… again. Starting out in a small town, she is hopeful this time will be the last. As long as the little girl doesn’t follow her, she will be rid of her past hauntings. The only problem is, the little girl won’t let her go and now she is about to grow stronger than ever before.

“The Ghost Below” by Ariele Sieling - White Rabbit gets sent to run cables in the bowels of the spaceship as a punishment. While working, she discovers that the ship's ghost might be more than he seems.

“Slave Runner” by H.S. Stone - Malika and her sister are captured by slave traders but receive an unexpected gift of freedom when their captors encounter a deadly gathering of ghosts. The sisters escape to a nearby village, where they learn that the new sanctuary isn’t as safe as they thought it would be, and ghosts aren’t what they most need to fear.

“Farewell Ohana (A Ghostly Mini-Wave)” by Sutton Shields - Maile Lahela is under attack by someone in the Kauai Camp for the Curiously Creepy. When she awakens one morning unable to see, her peculiar, yet loyal friends decide it’s time to escape the institution—something that’s never been done. But before they can leave, Maile has a mission of her own…one that could cost them their lives. Farewell Ohana is a short, fun-filled, emotional prequel to the events occurring in Overfalls, Wave Two of The Merworld Water Wars series by Sutton Shields.

“Ghost Girl” by Susan Fodor - Zoey Saunders has her future mapped out, but an accident brings her life to an untimely end. In her new state of being, Zoey feels compelled to seek justice for her death and bring healing to her family who have become a shadow of their former selves. But what constitutes justice and will getting even ever be enough to replace the life she lost? 

NaNoWriMo 2015

It's that time again! November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

Last year, I participated for the first time, and the effort led to my novella, Transmissions. I was also very pleasantly surprised to surpass the 50,000-word mark in one month. Here's a chart of my progress from last year's NaNoWriMo. Doesn't it look wonderful?

This year, I'm going to try something new. I'm going outside of my usual YA/MG genre to write a thriller. I like reading thrillers and have been wanting to try writing one for a long time, and NaNoWriMo seemed like a good opportunity for me to stretch my wings. We'll see how it goes. As with last year, if you want to follow my progress, you can stalk me on Twitter. :-)