Hello again, reader friends! Welcome to Part III of my annual Emoji Files celebrating my best reads of 2020. If you’ve missed either of the previous posts to date, make sure you check out The Swoony Awards and Got Me in the Feels.
Normally, the WOW Awards go to those books that kept me riveted with high-intensity action, pumping adrenaline, plot twists, or just some good old-fashioned suspense. And most of the books in this list did exactly that. This year, however, I’ve included two books that don’t necessarily meet that criteria: Lu. by Beth Troy and Heartless by Tamara Leigh, both of which WOWed me in their own ways.
In the case of Lu. it was a combination of fantastic writing and character chemistry, and one of the most authentic journeys to faith I’ve read in a while. I encourage you to get the full low-down by reading my review.
Tamara Leigh novels could fit in several of my Emoji Files categories because they excel in so many ways, but I have included Heartless in this list because of the very WOW way I received my copy! You can read about that in this post. Let’s just say squealing was involved! 
(For the record, all of Tamara’s books are WOW reads, even if they don’t fall into the suspense/thriller category.)
I discovered Lu and Louisa both this year and loved them sooo much.