Not an outstanding year of book reading, but not a bad one either. Historical fiction continues to give me some of the most satisfying reads - Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See gave me a new perspective on WWII - the French resistance, and the way German boys were trained and worked. McLain's Circling the Sun was a wonderful retelling of the story of Beryl Markham's life. Caldwell's The Fifth Gospel gave me insight into the Vatican. Diamant's The Boston Girl about early 20th century Boston.
I found a wonderful new 1920's mystery series by Australian Kerry Greenwood - with the bright, energetic, liberated woman Phryne Fisher as the resourceful investigator. Rarely do I go after a whole trilogy, or in this case a five book series, but I was thrilled with the science fiction young adult version of well known fairly tales in Cinder, Scarlett, Cress, Fairest and Winter by Marissa Meyer.
From my favorite authors, I read Isabella Allende's Maya's Notebook. A couple of books by Neil Gaiman were engaging - American Gods and Trigger Warning, the latter of short stories.
The Scandinavians continue to be a draw. Steig Larsson's story continued by Lagercrantz with The Girl in the Spider's Web. A strange, but eventually touching story was A Man Call Ove, and then I discovered Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen with a new flawed detective in The Keeper of Lost Causes.
Guilty pleasures continued with a few Nora Roberts and David Baldacci's books and a new flawed character Amos Decker in Memory Man. One more Daniel Silva book.
