Editors Choice: Top Reads of 2017

In this brilliant second book in The Hunters Trilogy Mouse, Crow and Sparrow are desperately trying to find the Storm-Opals before Stag can get to them.

Along the way they discover Sky-Tribes, Frog Men, secret libraries in the sky and forge new friendships.

Sky is the second book in the brilliant Huntress Trilogy. If you haven't already read the first book the review is available here.

Read the full review here

Edgar Hill is far from your typical hero. He is an overweight, middle-aged man who drinks too much. Ed would rather spend his time drinking than or nursing a hangover than spending time with his family.

Then an apocalyptic event occurs and Edgar finds himself separated from his wife and kids. Suddenly all he can think about is getting them back. He will do anything to get them, including run over 500 miles across the dangerous and desolate country.

I knew as soon as I saw the title of this book that I had to read it and that there was a high chance I would love it. Since finishing it I can say that The End Of The World Running Club is one of my new favourite books.

Read the full review here

Cassie and Margaret are two American expats living in Jordan a few months after the Arab Spring. Their friendship is one of circumstance, two opposites thrown together in the face of absent husbands.

When Margaret heads to the local police station to report a car accident Cassie stays behind to look after Margaret’s son, Mather. After a few hours Margaret hasn’t returns and Cassie starts to wonder where she has really gone and how much her actions have contributed to her disappearance.

This is a tale of jealousy, betrayal, clashing cultures and kindness.

The Confusion of Languages was a completely surprising book, from the blurb it could have been fantastic or terrible. Luckily for me it was the first one.

Read the full review here

The Wild Air is about a young girl named Della Dobbs whose whole life is changed when her Great Aunt Betty comes to stay with them from America.

Della has always been somewhat of an outsider in her family and feels like she is plain, uninteresting and has no skills. Aunt Betty shows her quite how wrong she is.

Through Aunt Betty Della discovers a love of building kites which gradually builds into a love of aeroplanes and the desire to be an aviatrix.

Della doesn’t count on the resistance she will face from her own family and from men in the profession. Just as it seems that Della is making progress War comes along and interrupts everything she has worked so hard for.

I loved the author's writing style and once I started reading it I couldn't put it down.

Read the full review here

This book is about an only child and her father, the monster who inspired Frakenstein, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Dracula.

The Only Child is one of the best books of it's kind I have read this year and probably for several years.

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Thirty years ago, in Brooklyn something terrible happened to Luna’s mother that changed her life forever. Something she is only willing to reveal to her daughter Luna and Pia after her death.

Still reeling from the unexpected death of their mother, the sisters decide to visit her mother’s birthplace in order to settle her affairs and discover more about the woman they loved so much.

Once they are there something impossible and magical happens to Luna and she meets her mother as a young woman in the Summer of 1977.

But when every action has a consequence, can Luna change her mother’s life without erasing her own?

Rowan Coleman has written a beautiful story full of surprises. 

Read the full review here

The Rules of Magic is a beautiful story about witches and magic but also about family bonds and love.

The Rules of Magic is about three siblings with some unusual magical abilities which their mother has done everything she can to try and suppress in the hope they can have a normal life.

Despite her best efforts though the children made it clear they were not like other children and refused to conform to her rules.

Then one summer Franny is summoned to visit their mother's aunt and their lives change forever.

Read the full review here

Charlotte Salomon is born into a family stricken by suicide and a country at war - but there is something exceptional about her. She has a gift, a talent for painting. And she has a great love, for a brilliant, eccentric musician.

But just as she is coming in to her own as an artist, death is coming to control her country. The Nazis have come to power and, a Jew in Berlin, her life is narrowing - she is kept from her art, torn from her love and her family, chased from her country. And still she is not safe, not from the madness that has hunted her family, or the one gripping Europe . . .

This book was outstanding. 

Read the full review here

“The old heroes were called Namsara after a beloved god, he said. So she would be called Iskari, after a deadly one.” 

From a young age Asha has been hated and feared by her people, called 'Iskari' and used by her own father to kill Dragons. 

Asha lives a very lonely existance. She knows what people think of her and she knows deep down that she is wicked. After all Asha was the one who told the old stories and drew the First Dragon to the palace where he killed many people.

The Last Namsara is one of the best fantasy books I have read this year. There are no words to accurately describe how much I loved this book.

Read the full review here

In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift - a precious jewel on a delicate chain,intended for his young daughter.

Uncertain of its meaning, the father hides the gift away and his daughter, Vasya, grows up a wild, wilful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.

The Bear and The Nightingale is without a doubt the best book of the year.

Read the full review here