After being an avid reader all my life, in 2008, I decided to start reviewing books, as well. That’s when I joined GoodReads and founded my review website, The Hope Chest Reviews. Since becoming a published author, I haven’t stopped writing reviews of the books I read for pleasure, in part, because I’m now more aware than ever just how important reviews can be to an author in helping readers discover them.

Ever since I started my review site, I’ve had an annual tradition of posting my Best of the Year list to highlight all the very best books I read the previous year. As in past years, I have an eclectic group of books on it from a wide variety of genres. Since I’m a romance writer and long-time romance reader, my focus is mostly on romance, but I also have a nice selection of other books, including fantasy, YA, historical fiction, memoirs, and non-fiction.

I'm a pretty slow reader, so I rarely have time to read books when they're released, although sometimes I do. That being the case, I compile the list from the books I read during the previous year. This makes for a well-rounded list of brand new books, mixed with older ones, and a little bit of everything in between. I read nearly seventy books in 2019, and about half of them made it to my keeper shelf, meaning that they earned 4.5 to 5 stars from me. These are the books that make my “Best of …” lists in the individual genres. I've also nominated books in a wide variety of other categories, including best characters, best quotes, and best covers. I hope you'll check out my full list and perhaps find your next great read.

In honor of posting my list, I’m doing a different sort of giveaway. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and it has, thus far, been pretty popular, so I’m making it a new annual tradition on my author blog.

In this giveaway, you, the reader, will get the opportunity to choose the book you want to win. It can be any book from my 2019 Best of the Year Reading List. Some of them, I previously nominated as my Book of the Month, so you could have a second chance to win another copy or pick a different book altogether.

The winner may choose one book from the following:

• Any book written by Stephenie Meyer, my Author of the Year winner.
• Any book written by Nalini Singh, my Author of the Year runner-up.
• Any specific book from my 2019 Best of the Year Reading List. (You can check out the complete list on my review website or for a quick reference click through to my 2019 Best of the Year Pinterest board.) There are 47 books in all to pick from.