Considering I read bang on one-hundred books this year (the first, and no doubt only time this has and will ever happen) I thought it might be fun to highlight the best reads I’ve come across this year.
Please note that these are books I read this year. It is not necessarily books that were published this year. There is, however, a category for books published in 2020. Also, some books appear more than once … turns out some were just that good.
In each category I tried to list five books (one winner and four runners up) but, in the event of there not being books that I considered good enough to be in the conversation for my ‘Best of 2020’ there may be fewer in the category. Please note that runners up are listed in no particular order. Also the ‘Other’ category encompasses Non-Fiction and books that are a blend of multiple genres and thus cannot be clearly defined along with smaller sub-genres.
My poor notification section will hate me for this, but each book title will link you to the review of said book. Unless they appear more than once, in which case only the first instance will be linked.
PS
Last time I grouped pics together the post didn’t display correctly on some mobile devices. Apologies if you are viewing on a mobile device and this post is rendered unreadable … I’m just hoping WordPress has fixed that bug by now, though. They tend to fix what isn’t broke, though … so who knows?
Best Fantasy
Winner:
Call of the Bone Ships by R. J. Barker
Runners Up:
Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith
Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler
A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie
Best Science Fiction
Winner:
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
Runners Up:
Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence
Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey
Best Horror
Winner:
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
Runners Up:
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
Madman Across The Water by Caroline Angel
Best Historical Fiction
Winner:
Runners Up:
War At The Edge Of The World by Ian Ross
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
Master & Commander by Patrick O’Brian
Best Thriller
Winner:
Deity by Matt Wesolowski
Runners Up:
Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski
The Hard Goodbye by Chris Miller
Best Other
Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar
Runners Up:
24 Hours in Ancient Rome by Phillip Matyszak
The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey
The Trials of Koli by M. R. Carey
Best Book Published In 2020
Winner:
Call of the Bone Ships by R. J. Barker
Runners Up:
The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith
Echo Cycle by Patrick Edwards
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
The Trials of Koli by M. R. Carey
Best Book By An Indie Publisher
The Hard Goodbye by Chris Miller
Runners Up:
Madman Across The Water by Caroline Angel
Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent
Tomb of Gods by Brian Moreland
Belle Vue by C. S. Alleyne
Swords & Spectres 
This post reminded me of so many books I need to read! Like the Bone Ships and Library of the Unwritten!
Great post 🙂
(www.evelynreads.com)
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Both of those were so much fun to read! I hope you love them when you get around to picking them up.
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This is such a cool way of making a best of the year list, I am now definitely intrigued by Bone Ships.
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Thank you 🙂
Bone Ships was wonderful and the sequel even better. I hope you have as enjoyable a time with it as I did.
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Hello AAron, happy new year. I have Deity in my wishlist.
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Happy New year to you, too 🙂 I hope you enjoy Deity as much as I did
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I have enough of a problem just coming up with one book, much less one for so many categories, so GREAT JOB!
And Lightning was indeed fantastic. I put it only slightly behind Odd Thomas.
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I’ll not lie, it took far long than I expected 😂
Still not got around to reading Odd Thomas. If it’s anywhere near as good or, as you claim, a touch better, I’ll be a happy man indeed.
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So happy to see that Sleeping Giants and Dead Mountain won in their categories 😁 Dead Mountain was probably one of my favourite (maybe favourite’s the wrong word given the subject matter) reads of 2020, so thank you for recommending it to me! Library of the Unwritten was also one of my best reads of 2020 too. I really need to get round to reading the second book in the series.
Great post! Hope your 2021 is filled with lots of amazing books 😁
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I totally forgot the 2nd book had been released 😲 may have to make that my next purchase (once I’ve cleared through some of the 20 or so books I have to read).
Dead Mountain was certainly wonderful. I know what you mean about the word favourite, but at least those poor kids memory lives on.
I loved Sleeping Giants so much. Just have the third book to read and I’m finished.
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So… basically you’re saying I should get on the Bone Ships this year.
Okay, I will. I bought it last year and kinda forgot I did.
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Yesssssss 🙂 that’s the message I’m trying to send to everyone haha
Hope I haven’t built it up too much.
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Yes! I’ve read The Bone Ships… I’ve gotta move on to the next one… Quickly!!!
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I thought the sequel was better than the first. And considering I thought the first was a top notch read, that’s saying something
Hope you love it, Paul 🙂
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Not at all surprised you liked Neuvel’s first two that much, but I’m especially curious to see what you think of Only Human. Also, I really need to read more historical, but I’ve been struggling with Cornwell–any suggestions? The only one I’ve really read any of is Christian Cameron.
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One of my favourite historical fiction trilogies was ‘The Rise of Sigurd’ by Giles Kristian. If you enjoy viking fiction, I’d highly recommend that.
I’ve heard mixed things about Only Human so I’m not going into it expecting the greatness of books 1 and 2.
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Nice pics man. I just did my 2020 stats, which also went a bit nuts with notifications. Also mentioned you but dit not link to your site as i have a hard time doing so on the device i am currently using
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I’ll head over and check it out. I know what you mean, unless I’m on my laptop I don’t even try to do anything fancy like linking 😂
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Nice list, Aaron!
Call of the Bone Ships is waiting for me in the library, so I’m pretty stoked for this! 😀
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It’s so good 🙂 I enjoyed it way more than the first book … which is saying something as I enjoyed that a lot
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