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Favorite 2018 books

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red805
Avid Reader
Posts: 303
Joined: August 2008
Preferred HF: I like a series the best - more to look forward to after one book ends. Masters of Rome, The Century Trilogy, & the Outlander series are some of my favorites.
Location: Southern California

Favorite 2018 books

Post by red805 » Thu December 27th, 2018, 10:32 pm

Thought I'd kick it off with my 2018 list of favorite historical fiction reads a few days early -

I, Claudius by Robert Graves - FINALLY got to this & glad I did
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey - a surprising little gem
Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon - like this author
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - despite objectionable race depictions, it's still a classic
Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones - just into it, but very good so far

... and a few non-HF favorites as well -

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - great best-seller
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides - an oldie but IMO better than The Virgin Suicides
The Prisoner by Alex Berenson - like this author too
the Red Sparrow trilogy by Jason Matthews (Red Sparrow, Palace of Treason, & The Kremlin's Candidate) - overall favorites of the year
Need to Know by Karen Cleveland - excellent debut

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Margaret
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Posts: 2440
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
Location: Catskill, New York, USA
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Re: Favorite 2018 books

Post by Margaret » Sun December 30th, 2018, 5:32 am

I, Claudius by Robert Graves - FINALLY got to this & glad I did
Oh, yes, I Claudius is fantastic!

Some of my favorites this year have been:

Abir Mukherjee's genre-transcending mystery novels set in Colonial India: A Rising Man, A Necessary Evil, and (due out in early 2019) Smoke and Ashes.

The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows (didn't want this to end).

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (I think that was this year, but I might have read it in late 2017)

Reviews of all but Smoke and Ashes are on my website.
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

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