Best of 2013: Adult Fiction (+ Giveaway)

Hi, and welcome to my second Best of 2013 post! Today I'm sharing with you my favorite adult reads of 2013, and let me tell you, there were so many amazing books this year! Although the number of adult books I've read is significantly smaller than the number of my YA reads, it was still extremely difficult to choose which 10 to point out.  

I hope you'll all find something new and interesting to add to your tbr.

1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season was actually marketed as YA, but I tend to disagree. As I pointed out in my review, The Bone Season is intricate and richly imaginative, one of the very few titles completely worthy of the hype. All the relationships in this book, and especially that of the protagonist and her keeper, Arcturus, are extraordinarily well done. The Bone Season is, hands down, my favorite adult release in 2013 and in my top 3 books overall. 

If you have yet to aquire a copy, I highly recommend the audio version. With her superb narration, Alana Kerr turned The Bone Season into what is surely one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to.

2. Written in Red by Anne Bishop

Written in Red is yet another audiobook that completely blew me away last year. Bishop is a master storyteller. It should be mentioned that Written in Red leans more towards the fantasy part of urban fantasy. In fact, if we take the strictest definition, it’s not urban fantasy at all. In Written in Red, we familiarize ourselves with Thasia and its inhabitants. In Thasia, Others live in compounds where they govern themselves and human laws don’t apply. Their contact with humans is extremely limited, which is for the best. Any human who breaks a law of the Others ends up eaten or worse. This is a fascinatingly dark world built by an experienced and talented author.

3. Bronze Gods by Ann and Andres Aguirre

Bronze Gods gave me everything I could ever want from steampunk: a well-defined world, age-appropriate language and more than a few creative gadgets. This, my friends, is steampunk noir at its best, with fantastic worldbuilding, characters I fell in love with almost instantly, crime scenes worthy of Patricia Cornwell, clockwork, LOTS of sexual tension and a heart-stopping conclusion. All in a single book!

Although I don't usually organize blog tours nor do I aspire to do so in the future, when Ann (and Andres) asked me to put together a tour for this beauty (well, actually, I offered), I was more than happy to do it. I would, once again, like to thank my friends for helping me turn the tour into a huge success.

4. Gameboard of the Gods by Richelle Mead

Gameboard of the Gods  is a definite step up for Richelle Mead. It is her most ambitious project in terms of worldbuilding and structure, though perhaps not the plot. Mead’s futuristic world is divided between two great forces: RUNA (Republic of the United North America) and EA (Eastern Alliance). Everything else are the provinces, barbaric in comparison, technologically and culturally inferior. Mead could never be accused of lack of imagination, but with Gameboard of the Gods, she outdid herself in more ways than one, and for the most part, she held a tight control over all the bits and pieces. It was only at moments that the worldbuilding became too big for her and confusing for the reader. There is nothing more important to me than character development, and Mead’s thorough approach to it left me in awe. While Gameboard of the Gods could prove to be a bit challenging for less patient readers, it was a great read according to my taste and a promising start to an exciting new series.

5. Parasite  by Mira Grant

After the Newsflesh trilogy, which just happens to be my favorite trilogy of all time, it's safe to say I expected a lot from Mira Grant's new project. While Parasite doesn't come close to being as brilliant and emotionally demanding as Feed, it is still the work of a great author. Grant takes so many risks with her prose, and far more often than not, those risks pay off. This is a book about tapewarms and as such, it can be hard to swallow at times, but if you can handle a tapeworm here and there, run out and get your copy right now. This science fiction medical thriller is not to be missed.

6. Wrong Ways Down by Stacia Kane

It’s safe to say that Wrong Ways Down is the best thing that happened to urban fantasy in a very long time. With this long-awaited, anxiously anticipated and rather longish novella told from Terrible’s POV, Stacia Kane gave her readers exactly what they desperately needed – a glimpse into the complicated psyche of a well-beloved character. If you know anything about Stacia’s books, you might have noticed that she doesn’t have almost-fans or lukewarm readers. People either hate or love her books, but for those who have loved the previous five novels, Wrong Ways Down will seem like a gift from heaven. Not only do we get to see the inner workings of Terrible’s mind, but we get to see Chess through his eyes: a beautiful, confident and well-put-together version of her.

Wrong Ways Down is actually the length of a short novel, and brilliant to boot so if $3.99 seems like a lot to pay for a novella, trust me, it's not.


7. Perdition  by Ann Aguirre 

Perdition is another brilliant adult release but one of my favorite authors, pitched as Prison Break in space. It's a spin-off of her Siranhta Jax series but it can be read entirely independently. This book is full of violence and mayhem, Ann Aguirre-style, and set in space to boot. What more could one possibly wish for?! Excellent, well-rounded characters? Romance? Well, there's all that, too, and more. Space station known as Perdition houses only the most hardened of criminals. The people imprisoned there are no small-time thieves, rapists or murderers. It takes a truly heinous crime (or hundreds of them) to get someone a one-way ticket to Perdition from the Conglomerate. ‘Innocent’ is not a word that gets thrown around often, not even for our heroine, Dresdemona “Dred” Devos.



8. Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs 

Frost Burned is the long-awaited 7th installment in her #1 New York Times bestselling Mercy Thompson series. In Frost Burned, Patty introduced Adam's perspective for the first time - a risky move that certainly paid off in the end. She proved, yet again, why she's one of the best urban fantasy writers out there and that she can handle just about anything her characters ask of her.
Patty was here in October to talk about body language, at my suggestion. She explained why body language matters so much with werewolves and where the idea and the knowledge came from.



9. Fifth Grave Past the Light by Darynda Jones

Fifth Grave needs very little in terms of publicity and/or explanations. She is a superstar, and so is our Charley - rightfully so. Fifth Grave brings significant changes to the series through Charley's boyfriend and everyone's favorite hunk of burning love, Reyes Farrow. I always thought Reyes was too otherworldly and untouchable to serve as a proper book boyfriend, but in Fifth Grave, Darynda really took him a step further. She took him well past his usual glowering and threatening and added humor and just a touch of vulnerability. The end result is a more human, approachable Reyes, finally Charley’s match not just in otherworldly matters (and, ummm, in bed), but in day to day things as well.

10. Banishing the Dark by Jenn Bennett

All my favorite urban fantasy series have a strong couple at the center: Kate and Curran, Mercy and Adam, Charley and Reyes, and of course, Cady and Lon. To make things even better, there's Jupe, Lon's pre-teen and absolutely hilarious son.
This is a series that surprises me with each new installment, one I never saw coming. Jenn Bennett is a fabulous author who knows her characters (and her readers) extremely well.
If you have yet to read this series, hurry up and do it. Maybe you'll win a copy here. :)


Aaaand that's all folks! I hope you see something you like.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

Enter to win one of these pretties from The Book Depository. If you're interested in starting a series from this list, you can always choose to win the first installment (or any installment, really). Just enter the Rafflecopter and keep your fingers crossed.

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