Today my lovely friend Cait will be letting us know her Top 13 books of 2013!
Are any of her books on your list?
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Hello and Merry Christmas guys!
So with Christmas only a couple of days away, Zoe kindly asked me to write a guest post for her blog and of course I couldn’t say no!
Christmas is the perfect time to indulge in the best things in life, home baked Christmas treats, quality time with loved ones, long evening walks in the cold and of course, secret kisses under the obligatory mistletoe.
But before we get too swept up in holiday cheer and twinkling lights, let’s talk about this years book wonders. I’ve put a little list of favourites together and thought I’d share them with you!
Tis the season to enjoy, am I right?
And on that note, I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and successful New Year.
If you’d like to guest post on my blog, please do let me know! Just leave me a tweet and I’ll get back to you! @artis_ineptias
All the best,
Cait xox
Let’s start with the first category: Favourite Series read in 2013
#1 – The Caster Chronicles by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
The Caster Chronicles is a four-book series written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
The series was published by Little Brown on December 2009.
Amazon named it one of the top ten books of 2009 and the top pick for best Young Adult book of the year. The sequel to the pilot book Beautiful Creatures, entitled Beautiful Darkness, was released on October 12th, 2010. The third book was released, Beautiful Chaos, in Fall of 2011. The fourth, and final, instalment of the series, Beautiful Redemption, was released on October 23, 2012.
Overall summary: Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin County as the small Southern town he had always called home, a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world where a curse has
marked her family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. Mysterious, suspenseful and romantic, the Caster Chronicles introduce a secret world hidden in plain sight. A world where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen, sometimes even life-ending.
#2 The Mara Dyer Series by Michelle Hodkin
After surviving a horrible accident, Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger. Mara wakes up in the hospital with no memories of how she got there or of the bizarre accident that caused the deaths of her best friends and her boyfriend, yet left her mysteriously unharmed. The doctors suggest that starting over in a new city, a new school, would be good for her and just to let the memories gradually come back on their own. Her family moves from Rhode Island to Florida, where she tries to move past the accident, but found herself confused of what her nature is. She suffers from PTSD, trying to hide the hallucinations and nightmares that plague her waking hours as well as her sleep from her family and classmates. Her dreams slowly reveal the events of the night of the asylum’s collapse. She sees the faces of her dead friends everywhere, and when she suddenly begins to see other people’s deaths right before they happen, Mara wonders whether she’s going crazy, but will she find out the truth if she digs a little deeper?
The last and final book in the series ‘The Retribution of Mara Dyer will be out in June 2014.
#3 The Sweet Trilogy by Wendy Higgins
Embrace the forbidden.
What if there were those whose lives depended on being bad influences?
This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.
Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but Anna, the ultimate good girl, has always had the advantage of her angel side to balance the darkness within. It isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.
Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?
The last Book in the series will be out in April next year under the title ‘Sweet Reckoning.’
And Best Stand-Alone read in 2013
#1 A different Blue by Amy Harmon
Blue Echohawk doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know her real name or when she was born. Abandoned at two and raised by a drifter, she didn’t attend school until she was ten years old. At nineteen, when most kids her age are attending college or moving on with life, she is just a senior in high school. With no mother, no father, no faith, and no future, Blue Echohawk is a difficult student, to say the least. Tough, hard and overtly sexy, she is the complete opposite of the young British teacher who decides he is up for the challenge, and takes the troublemaker under his wing.
This is the story of a nobody who becomes somebody. It is the story of an unlikely friendship, where hope fosters healing and redemption becomes love. But falling in love can be hard when you don’t know who you are. Falling in love with someone who knows exactly who they are and exactly why they can’t love you back might be impossible.
#2 Back to you by Priscilla Glenn
When Lauren Monroe first laid eyes on Michael Delaney back in high school, she had every reason to stay away from him; within minutes of their first encounter, his volatile actions confirmed his notorious reputation. But Lauren saw something in him that caused her to question his bad-boy persona, and against her better judgment, she took a chance. She had no way of knowing that the unlikely friendship they formed would become so important to her.
Or that it would end so painfully.
Eight years later, when Lauren begins her new job at Learn and Grow Day Care, Michael is the last person she expects to see. Refusing to revisit the hurt and confusion of their past, Lauren vows to keep her distance from him. But staying away from Michael proves to be more difficult than she thought, despite her lingering grief and her instincts for self-preservation.
As Lauren and Michael recall the friendship that changed them forever and the events that tore them apart, will they finally be able to heal? Or will the ghosts of Michael’s past prove to be too much to overcome.
#3 Flat-out-love by Jessica Park 
He was tall, at least six feet, with dirty blond hair that hung over his eyes. His T-shirt read Nietzsche Is My Homeboy.
So, that was Matt. Who Julie Seagle likes. A lot. But there is also Finn. Who she flat out loves.
Complicated? Awkward? Completely.
But really, how was this freshly-minted Boston transplant and newbie college freshman supposed to know that she would end up living with the family of an old friend of her mother’s? This was all supposed to be temporary. Julie wasn’t supposed to be important to the Watkins family, or to fall in love with one of the brothers. Especially the one she’s never quite met. But what does that really matter? Finn gets her, like no one ever has before. They have connection.
But here’s the thing about love, in all its twisty, bumpy permutations—it always throws you a few curves. And no one ever escapes unscathed.
New York Times Best-selling author Jessica Park mines the territory of love’s growing pains with wit, sharp insights, and a discernible heat and heartbeat. Her previous novels include Relatively Famous and she authored the e-shorts What the Kid Says (Parts 1 and 2) and Facebooking Rick Springfield.
Z. Elizabeth 