NOVEMBER 2017 - READING LIST AND PICK OF THE MONTH

Another decent month's reading with 12 books of varying quality and lengths enjoyed in the month - two FIVE STAR reads vying for the accolade of my Pick of the Month.

November's top read!

Chris Whitaker - All the Wicked Girls and Matt Coyle with Blood Truth.

By the narrowest of whiskers I'd plump for Whitaker's Wicked Girls only because of the haunting nature of some of the characters. They still haven't left me.

A close run second!

The full catalogue of reads enjoyed is below....

John Florio - Blind Moon Alley (2014) (3)

James Harper - No Rest For the Wicked (2017) (4)

Anthony Neil Smith + Victor Gischler - To the Devil, My Regards (2011) (3.5)

Chris Whitaker - All the Wicked Girls (2017) (5)

Christopher Farnsworth - Hunt You Down (2017) (4.5)

Chris Sarantopoulos - The Man Behind the Bar (2017) (3)

Vicente Morales - Rest in Peace, Baby (2017) (2.5)

Matt Coyle - Dark Fissures (2016) (4)

Richard Wormser - Drive East on 66 (1961) (4)

Rusty Barnes - Knuckledragger (2017) (4.5)

Leonard Love Matlick - Cops Lie! (2017) (3.5)

Matt Coyle - Blood Truth (2017) (5)


2 very good books at  4.5 STARS - Rusty Barnes and Knuckledragger and Farnsworth's Hunt You Down, something I enjoyed rather more than I expected to.

4 STAR READS - Richard Wormser's Drive East on 66, James Harper and his No Rest For the Wicked and Dark Fissures from Matt Coyle.

3.5 STARS - Smith and Gischler's collaboration To the Devil My Regards and the far from prefect but nonetheless enjoyable Cops Lie! by Leonard Love Matlick 

3 STARS - John Florio and a short one from Chris Sarantopoulos

2.5 STARS - the only book I didn't really like - Rest in Peace, Baby - Vicente Morales. Please do.


More useless trivia......

12 reads from 12 different authors, I read two in the month from Matt Coyle, but I had a co-authored book by Victor Gischler and Anthony Neil Smith.

7 of the 12 were new-to-me authors....... Chris Whitaker, James Harper, Christopher Farnsworth, Chris Sarantopoulos, Vicente Morales, Richard Wormser and Leonard Love Matlick

5 authors have been read and enjoyed before - John Florio, Rusty Barnes, Victor Gischler, Anthony Neil Smith and Matt Coyle.

I have more to read on the pile from Gischler, Smith, Wormser, Barnes and Harper.

Gender analysis -  all 12 were male authors, ZERO female....... a tad unbalanced, even by my standards.

I believe of the 12 authors I read, 1 is Greek, 1 is English, and 10 hail from the US.

All 12 of the reads were fiction - 8 novels and 4 reads less than 100 pages long.

1 old book was enjoyed - Richard Wormser's 1961 novel - Drive East on 66. This has just been republished this year by Endeavour Press.

The other 11 were published this decade -  8 from this year, 1 from 2016 and 1 from 2014 and 1 from 2011.

1 of the 12 books were pre-owned/purchased

4 of the 12 came via the publisher, 2 from Bonnier Zaffre, 1 from Seventh Street Books, 1 from Endeavour Press.

3 of them came from the authors, all courtesy of signing up to author’s newsletters on their websites, via Insta-Freebie in a couple of cases.

4 came direct from the authors, 1 courtesy of Kelsey @ Book Publicity Services

Favourite cover? Richard Wormser's Drive East on 66

Second favourite – Knuckledragger from Rusty Barnes

My reads were this long 226 – 81 – 66  – 448 – 368 – 22 - 91 - 358 - 176 - 200 - 304 - 390

Total page count = 2728  (2372 in October).......plus 350 on last month

5 were Kindle reads, 6 were paperbacks, 1 was a PDF

1 < 50,
3 between 51 < 100,
2 between 101 < 200,
1 between 201 < 300,
4 between 301 < 400,
1 > 400 pages

All the Wicked Girls from Chris Whitaker was the longest read at 448 pages.

Chris Sarantopoulos with The Man Behind the Bar - the shortest at just 22 pages.