The Ninth Annual Westies - review of the year 2017

Well here we are again with another year that seems to have zipped by and so, as we gear up for Christmas and all things festive, it's time to indulge in the annual blog custom and remember the good books of 2017.

Once again, it's been a great reading year with a good mix of brand new novels alongside a few books that had spent far too long languishing on my TBR pile (plus a few welcome re-reads).  As always, the top 20 places were hard fought and, I think, show a nice variety in genre and tone reflecting my shift in reading from horror towards psychological thrillers (since I've been working on my thriller novel this year).  Where I've blogged about a book earlier, I've linked to it on the list.

This year features another tie for first place but since both books are very good and very different, I couldn't place one above the other.

Without further ado, I present the Ninth Annual Westies Award - “My Best Fiction Reads Of The Year” - and the top 20 looks like this:



1= The Summer Of Impossible Things, by Rowan Coleman
1= Behind Her Eyes, by Sarah Pinborough
3: The Little Village Christmas, by Sue Moorcroft
4: The Impossible Fortress, by Jason Rekulak
5: One Summer In Italy *, by Sue Moorcroft
6: Body In The Woods, by Sarah Lotz
7: The Pool House, by Tasmina Perry
8: Alexa, by Andrea Newman
9: I See You, by Claire Mackintosh
10: Disappearance At Devil's Rock, by Paul Tremblay
11: Naming The Bones, by Laura Mauro
12: Cockatrice **, by Stephen Bacon
13: Looking For Captain Poldark, by Rowan Coleman
14: The Surrogate, by Louise Jensen
15: The Escape, by C. L. Taylor
16: Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence, by Richard Farren Barber
17: Helene **, by Nicola Monaghan
18: When You Comin' Back, Range Rider, by Charles Heath
19: The A-Team, by Charles Heath
20: Ten Percent Of Trouble, by Charles Heath

* = This is Sue's second book of her second Avon contract (I read it to critique) which will be published in May 2018.  Her current release is The Little Village Christmas.
** = read to critique, not published yet


The Top 10 in non-fiction are:

1: A bientot…, by Roger Moore
2: Roger Moore As James Bond 007, by Roger Moore
3: How Star Wars Conquered The Universe, by Chris Taylor
4: Meryl Streep: The Reluctant Superstar, by Diana Maychick
5: The Man With The Golden Eye, by Peter Lamont
6: Alfred Hitchcock, by Peter Ackroyd
7: The Cinema Of George Lucas, by Marcus Hearn
8: Cinefex 51, by Mark Cotta Vaz
9: Kiss Me Like A Stranger, by Gene Wilder
10: The Cars We Loved In The 1980s, by Giles Chapman


Stats wise, I’ve read 74 books - 41 fiction, 22 non-fiction, 3 comics/nostalgia/kids and 8 Three Investigator mysteries.

Of the 66 books, the breakdown is thus:

6 biography
6 horror
15 film-related
11 drama (includes romance)
20 crime/mystery
3 sci-fi
2 nostalgia
3 humour

All of my reviews are posted up at Goodreads here


Just in case you’re interested, the previous awards are linked to from here:
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009