Elin Gregory

I’ve been burning the post-midnight oil again. With a brain whose Hamster Wheel of Doom has been taken over by lemmings, 3 am is a time to catch up on reading.

Traditionally the first post of the New Year should be a round up of my favourite reads of the year but there have been so many of them – books written by boys or by girls , by dear old friends, by people of whom I’m in far too much awe to presume to call them friend and by people who, frankly, I have no idea who they are – and, ya know, I don’t really care! Oh I wish them well whoever and wherever they are, but most of all I’m grateful that they have written such fucking brilliant fiction. If ever I’m lucky enough to meet them I’ll go pink and mumble hello and wish I could give them a huge hug without being viewed as inappropriate or pushy [I’m a lot braver on paper or online than I am in person] then file them away in my head as “This is XYZ, who wrote A, B and C, and a really lovely person”.

Anyway, where was I? Yes, yes … I’m not looking back, I’m looking forward.

I’m looking forward to reading the next in Sue Brown‘s Sapphire Ranch shifter series, and to reading about the next  Melusine’s Cats book from Chris Quinton. Aleksandr Voinov has finished ‘the Bird Book’, a bit of which I was lucky enough to see a year or so ago and which I have been waiting for with fingers crossed. I can’t tell you anything about it until he’s ready to talk more about it but OMG I’m looking forward to the finished article so much. K J Charles‘ Jackdaw, where the obnoxious antagonist from Flight of Magpies becomes the protagonist, is out in February!! Not long to wait. J P Kenwood is cracking on with her next raunchy Roman story, The Lion of the Lucky Fourth, and I don’t even have to wait too long because sh’s posting bits on Tumblr!! Jordan L Hawke has started a new series of historical paranormals – first one called Restless Spirits – that I’m looking forward to starting. It’s not on my Kindle yet but it soon will be. There will soon be a new Thirds Book from Charlie Cochet. Alex Beecroft has a new series of crime novels coming out from Riptide! I’ve just bought A King Undone by Cooper Davis – looking forward to that too.

These are all new or recent things, but I need to catch up on some classics. Dorien Grey‘s Dick Hardesty novels are being re-released over the next year or so and I have some catching up to do there. I’ve read the first 3 of the Rifter series by Ginn Hall and they were terrific so I plan to read those as well.

Those are all things to make my heart soar, but there will also be all the unexpected treats, the authors as yet unknown to me whose books will delight and astound and inspire me, just as I have been delighted and inspired by people like E E Ottoman, Angel Martinez, Bey Deckard and Alexis Hall, and I’m looking forward to those just as much.

What are you looking forward to reading this year?