Booker Award!

The Amazing and Lovely Julie A. Reece has nominated me for the Booker Award!!!!  And like her, this fits me completely even though my husband would complain about it. lol.

I'm excited, can you tell.  First of all, one of my FAVORITE authors nominated ME.  Te-he, I'm a bit giddy, so you'll have to bear with me :)

So here's the deal:  The award targets literary and book-centered blogs. The rules are simple: post my top five books of all time, post the booker award icon, and nominate other bloggers to do the same.

This is actually harder for me than it should be, both for nominating others and pinning down my favorite books.  I feel like I should be listing all the classics, but (shame on me) I don't remember reading most of them.  You see, I grew up with Dyslexia and it wasn't until my adult years that I really discovered my love for reading.

However, I did have a few amazing reads growing up and I'm going to list a few of those here.  I'm counting down becaus I can't seem to get this post to post right :)

My Number 5.  Okay so I guess I'm going to have two classics on here, but I can't help myself.  Jane Austen was a genius!  I could pick any of her books, but I'll stick to the one that made me love her.

There's no real blurb to share, but I'm sure you all know the dets.

Mr. Darcy was my first intorduction to Bad Boy and I think his is the epitome of the misunderstood rebel.  Austen was just genius, like I said before, when she created the banter between Elizabeth and Darcy.  As an author, all I can do is hope my characters have such chemestry! lol.

My Number 4 is special to me for many reasons.  Not only is Julie Reece one of my favorite authors, she is a great friend who I've been grateful to get to know better.

My number 4.  This becomes harder and harder as I count down beacuse there are just so many great books out there.  Since I'm giving you the books that have influenced me the most, I'll keep at it.

She should have run. Now, she’ll have to fight.

Eighteen year old Birdie may be homeless, but she’s surviving, that is until a mysterious guy throws money in the air like a crazy game show host, and she grabs some with the idea she’ll be able to buy dinner that night. 

In that singular moment, unassuming Birdie becomes the girl in everyone’s viewfinder. Thugs want to kill her. Money-guy wants to recruit her. The very hot, very rich, and very out of her league Grey Mathews wants to save her.

Birdie, though, wants nothing to do with any of them, until she realizes fate didn’t bring them all together. 

Her heritage did.

Now, with only twenty-one days left, she’s got to decide whether to follow in the footsteps of those before her or risk her life for people she’s only just met.

This book is pretty new, yet it has left an indellible mark on me.  I love Julie Reece's voice.  Birdie was an amazing character and the reason the story was so interesting.  She was plenty feisty, but she had a realism that made her reactions and journey so easy to follow.  I learned a lot about character by reading this and I hope it translates into my own writing.

My number 3 might bring some raise eyebrows, but this book, no series, made me think more than any I have read.
She should have run. Now, she'll have to fight. Eighteen year old Birdie may be homeless, but she's surviving, that is until a mysterious guy throws money in the air like a crazy game show host and she grabs some with the idea she'll be able to buy dinner that night. In that singular moment, unassuming Birdie becomes the girl in everyone's viewfinder. Thugs want to kill her. Money-guy wants to recruit her. The very hot, very rich and very out of her league Grey Mathews wants to save her. Birdie, though, wants nothing to do with any of them until she realizes fate didn't bring them all together. Her heritage did. Now, with only twenty-one days left, she's got to decide whether to follow in the footsteps of those before her or risk her life for people she's only just met.

This is a fairly new release but it has had a profound impact on me, both the book and the author.  I LOVED this book for its uniqueness and for the life questions it asks and answers.  Birdie is amazing, and I loved her from the start.  It was so easy for me to relate to her, and I love that in a book.  The story was intriguing and I thought about it for days afterwards wondering what it had that made it so special.

Julie Reece has a way of writing that sucked me in without any effort on my part, and from my experience, that is special.

My Number Three.  Because it made me question story and I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I actually became a bit obsessed.

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae….

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands….

So truth here.  I was a bit uncomfortable reading this series.  It gets kind of steamy, okay, over the top steamy, but the story was just AMAZING.  The world, the characters.  Even though I sort of hated Mac in the beginning, I got to know and love her.  She was so real that I understood her motivations even if I didn't like them.  And V'lane made me think about the Fae which led to me writing my own books about them.  Actually my Elemental Enmity series has been said to be the YA equivalent of the Fever series, and I'm so okay with that ;)  They started from one question:  What if the fae were misunderstood?

My Number 2.   Because it ignited a burn for books I will not be able to quench no matter how hard I try.

Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear.

Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

I know there are a lot of Twilight haters out there, but I am firmly not among that group.  I loved Twilight.  It sparked my love for reading and I will be forever grateful to Stephenie Meyer for that.  I think it's easy to look back at this book and find faults, but the mystery surrounding Edward and the down to earth nature of Bella captured the hearts of a generation.  I don't think any author could aspire for more.

So my all-time favorite book has to be The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Doesn't that just say it all?  I know people hate on Twilight now, but I will always love it.  It's easy to look at it now and judge based on what is available today.  However, when Stephenie Meyer wrote this best seller, things were a bit different.  I don't know about you, but I devoured it and wanted more, unfortunately, at the time there wasn't much that I found that gave me the same sense of connection.  Through this book I discovered my love for story, so there! lol.

My Number 1.  Because it ignited my curiosity for books.  

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, is one of the very few sets of books that should be read three times: in childhood, early adulthood, and late in life. In brief, four children travel repeatedly to a world in which they are far more than mere children and everything is far more than it seems. Richly told, populated with fascinating characters, perfectly realized in detail of world and pacing of plot, the story is infused throughout with the timeless issues of good and evil, faith and hope. This edition includes all seven volumes.

Despite my dyslexia, I devoured these books.  I remember feeling the magic and wonder still to this day, and I will always have a special place in my heart for C.S. Lewis.

I'm going to cheat a bit here because I believe J.K. Rowling is a modern day Lewis and I'll leave it at that.
They open a door and enter a world
Narnia ... a land frozen in eternal winter ... a country waiting to be set free.
Four adventurers step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia -- a land enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change ... and a great sacrifice.
I'm sure it will come as no surprise, but I loved falling into the world of Narnia.  Even with how difficult reading was for me, this book transported me into a fantastical place full of strange and amazing creatures.

So there you go.  Did I suprise you with my choices?  What books have influenced you the most?

Drum roll please...My nominees are (in no particular order).  I'm listing a few authors I love, but also bloggers, too.  I hope you guys will give me a link to your posts.

Nancy Straight

S.M. Boyce

Rebecca Hamilton

Alice (Rotten Apple Reads)

Tt (Never Ending Stories)

Happy Reading Everyone!

~Christie