This year I read 76 books  – that’s two more than last year! To end the year, I’ve chosen my ten favourite books that were published in 2011 and have provided links to my reviews where possible. I found it really hard to narrow my choice down to just ten books this year and even more impossible to pick an absolute favourite as I enjoyed different novels at different times for very different reasons. This year I’ve expanded on the top ten with some ‘favourites’ categories and a ‘readers’ choice’ section for the most popular (most visited) reviews this year. So without further ado, my books of the year, in release date order are:

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (published in January by Headline)

Vampires, witches and daemons; a magical manuscript, rich historical detail and fascinating characters. This was a brilliant paranormal romance to start the year with and  I can’t wait for the follow up Shadow of the Night to be released in July 2012.

The Taker by Alma Katsu (published by Century in April)

A dark and gripping paranormal romance with no vampires! The Taker is a very original take on the immortal love story with the driving force behind most of the action being unrequited love. I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel The Reckoning in June.

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord-Brown (published by Corvus in April)

I love the title for this book which was the nickname given by fighter pilots to the women who volunteered to fly planes like Spitfires from factories to British airfields during World War Two. In The Beauty Chorus Kate Lord Brown skillfully combines the true historical facts (166 women joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) risking their lives to ferry planes across the country) with the fictional story of three very different women to create a thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking novel.

From London With Love by Jemma Forte (published by Penguin in July)

A fun summer chick lit read that had me gripped and one of my favourite covers of the year too. The Bond theme adds a touch of A-list glamour to the story and as Jessica ties herself in knots trying to keep her identity a secret, From London with Love has a great message about not judging a book by its over and being who you really are.

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield (published by Harper in July)

Jenny Wingfield’s debut is one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve read it and 11 year old Swan Lake is one of my favourite characters of the year. Set in 1950′s Arkansas, the story is heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measures and beautifully written following the trials and tribulations of the wonderful Moses clan. My full review will be coming in January.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline ( published in August by Century)

A suprise hit for me! Ernest Cline has created a brilliantly thought out and detailed future dystopian world; combined it with a fantastic virtual reality treasure hunt based on music, film and gaming nostalgia from the 1980′s and underlined it all with (the biggest surprise for me as I read) a really sweet coming of age love story.

Netherwood by Jane Sanderson (published in September by Sphere)

Netherwood is a thoroughly enjoyable historical saga and a fantastic debut from Jane Sanderson. I was completely drawn in to the world that Jane has created, loving both the historical detail and the variety and depth of characters that populate this book.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (published by Harvill Secker in September)

A gorgeous book and an amazing debut from Erin Morgenstern. I loved the story of the mysterious black and white Circus which only opens at night. The book is packed with magic and intrigue. I’ve only just finished reading this one but it shot straight into my top ten!

Miracle on Regent Street by Ali Harris (published in October by Simon and Schuster)

Another of my favourite covers of the year. A classy story filled with vintage glamour. Miracle on Regent Street is Ali Harris’s debut novel and what a debut. Heartfelt, warm, romantic and a lovely Christmassy story too.

It Started with a Kiss by Miranda Dickinson (published by Avon in November)

Last but by no means least, Miranda Dickinson’s third novel is Chick lit perfection from the sparkly pink cover to the brilliantly romantic ending and I thoroughly enjoyed every page in between as Romily Parker goes on a year long search for the handsome hero who kissed her and vanished!

2011 Favourites …

The whole package: The Night Circus

Although I love my Kindle, it will never replace physical books for me and books like this are the reason why. I splashed out on the gorgeous hard back when it was published and I love the book design as much as the story!

Cover love: Miracle on Regent Street by Ali Harris

The cover for this book is really striking and picks up the tone of the book perfectly.

Heroine: Gracie Flowers from (Un)like a Virgin by Lucy-Anne Holmes

Gracie had me smiling from the first page with her wry observations on her job, her boyfriend, friends and family and she’s one of my favourite leading chick it ladies of all time!

Hero: Prince Richard from To Marry a Prince by Sophie Page

I thought this book was a real gem of a romantic comedy and I loved Prince Richard who comes across as a fab leading man – by no means perfect, he has some brilliantly funny and romantic scenes but never seems over the top.

Support: Uncle Dudley and Auntie Mags from It Started With a Kiss by Miranda Dickinson

Dispensers of love, wisdom and support from their narrow-boat home to Romily as she undertakes her quest. They are instrumental in keeping Romily going but are also responsible for much of the book’s warm humour and I loved Aunty Mags’ ‘Cake Therapy’!

The perfect ending: Breakfast At Darcy’s by Ali McNamara

Ali McNamara retains her crown for queen of the romantic ending with a beautiful finale to her latest novel that left me with a big smile on my face.

Readers’ choice: Top five most read reviews of 2011

1. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

2. To the Moon and Back by Jill Mansell

3. The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

4. The Taker by Alma Katsu

5. Beautiful Creatures by Lulu Taylor

So that’s my year in books; are your favourites on the list? I’m looking forward to sharing many more reviews with you during 2012 and wish you all a very happy and bookish New Year! x

September has to be the quickest month to pass of the year so far. It was all a bit of a blur of sleepless nights and nappy changes for me but I did find time to read six books and post the odd review I also took part in Talli Roland’s If I Could Be Anyone, I’d Be…’ online launch party! and ran three giveaways!

The books I read were:

Book of the Month September

Star Struck by Jane Lovering

Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes by Sue Watson

Watching Willow Watts by Talli Roland

(Un)like A Virgin by Lucy-Anne Holmes

Persuade Me by Juliet Archer

Netherwood by Jane Sanderson

My book of the month for September is (Un)like a Virgin by Lucy-Anne Holmes because I absolutely loved lead character Gracie Flowers and her story left me with a big smile on my face!

The three most popular reviews in September were:

(Un)like A Virgin by Lucy-Anne Holmes, Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes by Sue Watson, Watching Willow Watts by Talli Roland

Searches bringing most people to One More Page were for Bad Sisters by Rebecca Chance, From Notting Hill With Love …Actually by Ali McNamara and A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness which came out in paperback this month.

October is already flying by and I have a brilliant pile of books lined up to be read and reviewed including the latest and penultimate installment in the Blue Bloods series, Lost in Time by Melissa de la Cruz; the highly anticipated new novel from Jeffrey Eugenides The Marriage Plot and two gorgeous Christmas stories; The Night Before Christmas by debut author Scarlett Bailey and Wrapped up in You by Carole Matthews. I’m really excited to be taking part in the blog tour for Wrapped Up In You at the end of the month so look out for that!

Though it’s only October, I’m also starting to plan posts for my Countdown to Christmas which is my book blogger version of an advent calendar with a Christmas-themed post every day from December 1st to 24th. I did the countdown last year and it was great fun but I’m hoping to make it bigger and better this year. As well as reviews of Christmassy books I’ll have book-inspired gift suggestions, Christmas-themed interviews, giveaways and guest posts. I’m looking for contributors so if you are an author, publisher or fellow blogger and you’d like to take part, drop me an email at: onemorepageamanda@gmail.com

Happy autumn reading!

The winners are …

Rachel, Kirstie, Laura, Amy and Rea

Congratulations! I have sent you all an email. Thanks to everyone who entered and for sharing your favourite songs. Look out for more giveaways coming soon!

Thanks to lovely publisher Sphere I have five copies of this brilliant book to give away to lucky readers. I really loved this one as you can see from my review but don’t take my word for it – enter this giveaway and find out for yourselves!

To enter just leave a comment in the box below saying what your favourite song is and I’ll draw five winners using random.org after the closing date.

UK entries only please. Entries will close at midnight on Thursday 22nd September. Good luck!

Is Gracie in love for the very first time? You know that bit in The X Factor, when the singer tells everyone about the rocky road they travelled to pursue their dream? Well, that’s Gracie Flowers’ story.

Gracie is very focused for a woman of almost twenty-six. Her favourite book is ‘The 5-Year Plan: Making the Most of Your Life’. And her five-year plan is going very well. That is, until she is usurped from her big promotion by a handsome, posh idiot; she is dumped by her boyfriend; and discovers her loopy mother is facing bankruptcy.

Hormones awry and ice cream over-ordered, a dream Gracie thought she’d buried ten years ago starts to resurface. A dream that reminds her of the girl she used to be and everything she wanted to become.

Is Gracie in love for the very first time? You know that bit in The X Factor, when the singer tells everyone about the rocky road they travelled to pursue their dream? Well, that’s Gracie Flowers’ story.

Gracie is very focused for a woman of almost twenty-six. Her favourite book is ‘The 5-Year Plan: Making the Most of Your Life’. And her five-year plan is going very well. That is, until she is usurped from her big promotion by a handsome, posh idiot; she is dumped by her boyfriend; and discovers her loopy mother is facing bankruptcy.

Hormones awry and ice cream over-ordered, a dream Gracie thought she’d buried ten years ago starts to resurface. A dream that reminds her of the girl she used to be and everything she wanted to become.

I absolutely loved this book! It made me laugh and it made me cry and lead character Gracie Flowers rocks The story is told from Gracie’s point of view and she had me smiling from the first page with her wry observations on her job, her boyfriend, friends and family.

As a child, Gracie was a talented singer but since her Dad passed away when she was sixteen she hasn’t sung in public. We meet Gracie ten years later working as a successful Estate Agent. Her life is going according to her carefully plotted Five Year Plan but things soon begin to go wrong. As her plans for the future fall flat one by one she finds herself drawing on the strength her Dad provided and the songs they used to sing together.

Unlike a Virgin is one hundred percent Gracie’s story and Lucy Ann Holmes has perfectly captured her thoughts and feelings in a chatty and easy to read style. The story isn’t all laughs though and touches on some heartbreaking issues, particularly bereavement and loss. I don’t want to give out any spoilers but I thought Lucy-Anne Holmes dealt with the difficult situations that Gracie finds herself in in a refreshingly honest and open way and there is a lot that readers will be able to relate to in this book.

Gracie is supported by a fun and varied cast of characters all of whom are just as well written as our leading lady.  My personal favourites were Gracie’s builder friend and ‘ Bob’ and pub owner Anton but the banter between Gracie and her new boss and her best friend Paula was also fantastic and really had me chuckling. I was really impressed with the mix of characters included in this novel.

Despite everything in Gracie’s plans going awry, this is a really feelgood novel and one of my favourites of the year so far. As Gracie faces her fears and decides what she really wants from the future Unlike a Virgin has a lovely message about following your dreams and being true to your heart. The romantic in me absolutely loved the ending and with three possible love interests for Gracie, I was gripped for the whole book!

Gracie is definitely up there with my favourite leading ladies and I really hope that Lucy-Anne decides to bring her and her friends back for back for future novels.

5/5

Unlike a Virgin is released today and I’d like to thank publishers Sphere for sending me a copy to review.

To celebrate publication the publishers are running a fab competition to win a PlayStation 3 and Singstar package. Check out: http://www.littlebrownbooks.net/britainsings/ for the full details!

You can find out more about Lucy and her books at: http://www.lucyanneholmes.co.uk/

There are so many fab new releases coming this month that I’ve had a terrible time narrowing down my ‘hot picks’ choices but here are the seven books that I’m planning to add to my shelves in September.

Watching Willow Watts by Talli Roland
E-book Released September, Paperback November
Published by Prospera Publishing
Website: http://www.talliroland.com

I loved Talli’s debut novel The Hating Game and have been looking forward to her next release for a long time! Look out for the official online launch ‘If I Could Be Anyone, I’d Be…’ party! on September 14th:

For Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine: days behind the counter at her father’s antique shop and nights watching TV, as the pension-aged residents of Britain’s Ugliest Village bed down for yet another early night. But everything changes when a YouTube video of Willow’s epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation gets millions of hits after a viewer spots Marilyn’s ghostly image in a frame.

Instantly, Willow’s town is overrun with fans flocking to see the ‘new Marilyn’. Egged on by the villagers — whose shops and businesses are cashing in — Willow embraces her new identity, dying her hair platinum and ramming herself full of cakes to achieve Marilyn’s legendary curves.

But when a former flame returns seeking the old Willow, Willow must decide: can she risk her stardom and her village’s newfound fortune on love, or is being Marilyn her ticket to happiness?

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Released 5th September
Published by Bloomsbury
Website: http://bloomsbury.com

I’ll be indulging my interest in Greek mythology with this one – it sounds brilliant!

Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles.

Achilles, ‘best of all the Greeks’, is everything Patroclus is not – strong, beautiful, the child of a goddess – and by all rights their paths should never cross. Yet one day, Achilles takes the shamed prince under his wing and soon their tentative companionship gives way to a steadfast friendship. As they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper – despite the displeasure of Achilles’s mother Thetis, a cruel and deathly pale sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

Fate is never far from the heels of Achilles. When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate.

Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Unlike a Virgin by Lucy Ann Holmes
Released 15th September
Published by Sphere
Website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Britain-Sings/162133383864884?sk=wall

I’m reading and thoroughly enjoying this one at the moment  – laugh out loud funny; Gracie Flowers is fab!

Is Gracie in love for the very first time? You know that bit in The X Factor, when the singer tells everyone about the rocky road they travelled to pursue their dream? Well, that’s Gracie Flowers’ story. Gracie is very focused for a woman of almost twenty-six. Her favourite book is ‘The 5-Year Plan: Making the Most of Your Life’. And her five-year plan is going very well. That is, until she is usurped from her big promotion by a handsome, posh idiot; she is dumped by her boyfriend; and discovers her loopy mother is facing bankruptcy. Hormones awry and ice cream over-ordered, a dream Gracie thought she’d buried ten years ago starts to resurface. A dream that reminds her of the girl she used to be and everything she wanted to become.

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
Released 15th September
Published by Simon and Schuster
Website: http://www.philippagregory.com/work/plantaganet/the-lady-of-the-rivers/

Philippa Gregory is one of my favourite historical fiction authors and this is another book that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time; the story of Jacquetta, mother of Elizabeth Woodville, The White Queen and the third book in The Cousin’s War Series.

Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Luxembourg and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, was married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of nineteen she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her house-hold for love, and then carved out a life for herself as Queen Margaret of Anjou’s close friend and a Lancaster supporter – until the day that her daughter Elizabeth Woodville fell in love and married the rival king Edward IV. Of all the little-known but important women of the period, her dramatic story is the most neglected. With her links to Melusina, and to the founder of the house of Luxembourg, together with her reputation for making magic, she is the most haunting of heroines.

The Very Picture of You by Isabel Wolff
Released 15th September
Published by Harper Collins
Website: http://www.isabelwolff.com/

I’ve been a fan of Isabel Wolff since I read The Trials of Tiffany Trott many years ago so I’m really looking forward to her latest release.

Ella Graham is a portrait painter, whose luminous and insightful likenesses are beginning to gain her widespread recognition. But when her younger sister, Chloe, asks her to paint her American fiance, Nate, as a wedding present, Ella is dismayed. She loathes Nate, and she distrusts him – painting him is the last thing she’d like to do. But Ella wants to make her fragile sister happy, and so she puts aside her misgivings and reluctantly accepts. As they start to spend time together in the intimacy of the studio, Ella realises that there is more to Nate than meets the eye.

At the same time Ella is learning about her other sitters’ lives: there’s an elderly widow with a wartime secret, a beautiful French woman who’s dreading turning forty, and a handsome politician who has a confession to make. Then, out of the blue, comes a message from Ella’s father John, who abandoned her and her mother when Ella was five.

In the meantime Chloe is planning her dream wedding: and as the day draws ever nearer Ella realises, to her horror, that she is falling in love with the one man she shouldn’t. She now faces a choice: to tear her family apart by revealing her secret, or to let the wedding tear her apart instead…

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Released 15th September
Published by Harvill Secker
Website: www.nightcircus.co.uk

Magic, mystery and romance – what more could you want?

In 1886, a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black and white, Le Cirque des Rêves delights all who wander its circular paths and warm themselves at its bonfire.

Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists, the Circus of Dreams is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice. The circus seems almost to cast a spell over its aficionados, who call themselves the rêveurs – the dreamers. At the heart of the story is the tangled relationship between two young magicians, Celia, the enchanter’s daughter, and Marco, the sorcerer’s apprentice. At the behest of their shadowy masters, they find themselves locked in a deadly contest, forced to test the very limits of the imagination, and of their love…

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
Released 29th September
Published by HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
Website: http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com

I’m very excited about Maureen Johnson’s new series set in London.

Sixteen-year-old American girl Rory has just arrived at boarding school in London when a Jack the Ripper copycat-killer begins terrorising the city. All the hallmarks of his infamous murders are frighteningly present, but there are few clues to the killer’s identity.

“Rippermania” grabs hold of modern-day London, and the police are stumped with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. In an unknown city with few friends to turn to, Rory makes a chilling discovery…

Could the copycat murderer really be Jack the Ripper back from the grave?

Which new releases are you most looking forward to this month?