The Best of 2013

It's the 31st so it's time to share the favs of 2013.  Here are mine.  I've read 151 books in 2013 and these are my 14 favorites in no particular order:

1.  1635: Music and Murder - This is the latest in a series about a small West Virginia town sent back in time to 1630's Germany and turned the Thirty Years War on its head.  This one is about the introduction of 350 years of music does to the musical world....  

2.  The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor  This is the story of Phillip Blake, his family and friends as society collapses and the zombies take over.  This is his transformation from a man protecting his daughter to the lunatic we know and love from The Walking Dead.

3.  Star Trek: The Fall  This is a 5 book series and the final book isn't out until Dec. 31 but this is one of the best Star Trek story lines since the Dominion War.  It's intrigue, politics, murder ... lots of messy goodness.  (OK, this is 5 books - so sue me)

4.  The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes  I've put off Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels even though I've heard great things about them.  I've just read this volume this month and it's fantastic.  Now I want more ....

5.  God Plays Favorites  I just enjoy Charlie Carillo and this book doesn't disappoint.  This is the story told my a man looking back to his first journalism job in the late 80's for some NYC rag and the lessons it taught him about life.  Very good stuff.

6.  Tell Me Its Real  This is a m/m romance but it's not a formulaic thing like so many romances - it's smart, witty, sarcastic and thoroughly enjoyable.

7.  Black Wind  This is a large portion of historical fiction with some fantasy thrown-in.  Japanese American life in San Francisco in the 20's and 30's followed by a great story around World War II.

8.  The Accidental Proposal  Very entertaining Lad Lit about a guy unsure if he's really engaged and if his fiancé is really into marrying him.  Very funny book and part of a great series.

9.  The Old Man and the Wasteland  This takes Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea and sets it in the Arizona Desert 30 years after the Apocalypse.

10. The Perseid Collapse  This is the first in an Apocalyptic military thriller trilogy and the sequel to an earlier pandemic novel.  

11. The Given Sacrifice: A Novel of the Change  The final novel in the second series set in a world I've been reading in for a decade - with a very satisfying end for characters in both series.

12. I Am Not Myself These Days  The memoir of a 90's era drag-queen.  This is funny and disturbing and wonderful.

13. The Edge of the World (Terra Incognita)  The only one on the list I listened to as an audio book.  Complex fantasy in a world divided by religion and on the edge of an Age of Exploration.

14. Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond  Short Story Anthology by some fantastic authors re-imagining Oz and all the characters therein.