The power of fiction, the beauty of words, and the God who made us to wield them for His glory.

Best of 2020 – Emoji Files Part III: The WOW Awards

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 necessary meet that criteria: Lu. by Beth Troy and Heartless by Tamara Leigh, both of which WOWed me in their own ways…

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31 December 2020

Best of 2020 – Emoji Files Part II: Got Me in the Feels

Yesterday I began posting my annual best-of series of posts, which I’ve dubbed The Emoji Files, since I group my favourite reads of the year according to the emotional impact they had on me. It all started yesterday with the Swoony Awards, so if you missed that, make sure you check it out here.

Today, I’m giving you the reads that ‘Got Me in the Feels’. These are the books that made me really emotionally invested in the story, sometimes to the point of tears (sobs, in at least one case!). Stories of consequences and difficult decisions, stories of loss, stories of transformation, and stories that just plain had my emotions in a tangle!

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30 December 2020

Best of 2020 – Emoji Files Part I: The Swoony Awards (and Top Ten Tuesday)

Happy Tuesday, reader friends, and welcome to the final Top Ten Tuesday for 2020 thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl. As always, this week’s topic looks back at our favourite books for the year. I’m also kicking off my annual Emoji Files awards where I break down my favourite reads for the year into the following categories:

The Swoony Awards – all the romance (le sigh!)
Got Me In The Feels – the books that reached in and plucked my heartstrings
The WOW Awards – suspense, thrills, high stakes, and surprises
Take Me Away . . . – fully immersive reads that took me to times and places far away
The LOL Awards – from light-hearted to bust-a-gut humour

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29 December 2020

Looking Forward to Speculative and YA in 2020

Welcome to my final Looking forward to… post for the first half of 2020! Today I’ll be sharing upcoming speculative and young adult (YA) releases in Christian fiction. Speculative fiction is an umbrella term that encompasses not only fantasy and science fiction, but also novels that speculate about future events or are set in our world but include an element of the supernatural.

Young adult novels feature main characters who are aged in their teens, and are therefore often aimed at the teen market, however my experience is that they can often be enjoyed by not-so-young adults as well!

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18 January 2020

Looking Forward to General Fiction and Time-Slip in 2020

Welcome, reader friends. We’re nearly at the end of my Looking forward to… series of posts discussing all the fabulous reads coming your way in the first half of 2020. Today I’ll be sharing the general fiction and time-slip titles that will be releasing, but before I do, a quick note about what you will and will not find in this list.

In this case, general fiction simply means fiction that isn’t written for a specific genre (romance, suspense, etc). It may still contain some or all of those elements, but the story is primarily about a character’s literal or figurative journey.

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16 January 2020

Looking Forward to Biblical Fiction in 2020

Welcome back, reader friends. Biblical fiction may not be a prolific genre, but it’s one of my favourites (hence my Biblical Fiction Finder), and I’m looking forward to so many of the biblical fiction releases that are coming up.

As there are relatively few biblical fiction releases, I haven’t separated them by publisher as I’ve done with my previous posts. Here, you will just find the traditionally published releases listed in chronological order followed by the independent and small publisher releases in chronological order.

And speaking of my previous posts, make sure you check them out if you’ve missed them!

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15 January 2020

Top Ten Tuesday – New-To-Me Authors I Read in 2019

Happy Tuesday, reader friends, and welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday post, thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl.

I’m actually doing a double post today, because I read so many new-to-me authors last year that I can give you ten new-to-me Christian fiction authors and ten new-to-me general market authors! I had no idea I’d read so many, and five of them are Australian authors as well! I’m hoping to read more from these authors in the future.

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14 January 2020

Looking Forward to Historical Romance in 2020

Hello, reader friends! If you’re a historical romance lover you are definitely in luck when it comes to Christian fiction. There are so many fabulous historical romance books coming your way in the first half of 2020—seventeen from Bethany House alone!

Just a quick note on what you WON’T find in today’s post. Historical romances which include suspense (such as Barbour’s True Colors series) are included in my Romantic Suspense post. Biblical fiction releases will be listed in a separate post tomorrow, and time-slip novels and general historical fiction will also be listed in a separate post later this week.

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13 January 2020