Top 10 Books of 2019!!

YES!! This is my favorite post of the entire year. The most fun AND the most difficult to do. I'm so excited. AND I am doing it in February. There was definitely a lull there, but I'm back. Here we go!! And let me know your top reads below!! Also, a Belated Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and Happy Valentine's Day!!! This one was also REALLY hard. I also read three of the Harry Potter books (again), and the entire Narnia series, as well as my first Stephen King book, and Matthew Gray Gubler's children's book, Rumple Buttercup. But when I looked through the books I'd read, these were the ones that stood out as my favorites. Just click on the pictures to be taken to the book's GoodReads page. :)

Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson

Memoir, Verse

To Make Monsters Out of Girls by Amanda Lovelace

Poetry

Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill

Modern Fairytale Retellings, Poetry

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Chris Riddell

Fairytale Retelling

The Dark Between Stars by Atticus

Poetry

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

High Fantasy, Fae

 

Speak: The Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, Illustrated by Emily Carroll

Graphic Novel, Realistic Fiction

Lotus Effect by Trisha Wolfe

Thriller, Romance

Hale: A Love Story by K. Webster

Taboo Romance

Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis

Non-Fiction, Personal Development

Okay, so, those are my picks for my Top 10 of 2019, and it was a tough call because I read some really great books last year!! To check out what else I read, check out my GoodReads account. Plus, you can see my books, too. Let me know below the best books YOU read last year!! :)

Release Blitz | Stolen Lies by K. Webster and Nikki Ash

 

Title: Stolen Lies

Truth and Lies Duet #2

Authors: K Webster and Nikki Ash

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Release: December 12, 2019 

 

My life was easy, simple, fun.

My life was brutal, horrific, ruthless.

Light.

Dark.

Until I got wrapped up with the wrong people.

Until a beautiful bride was dragged into my life.

Nothing but a piece of property to pay for the sins of my father.

I took her as my prize and made her mine.

I’m to be married off to a handsome monster.

Vengeance never tasted so sweet.

I see his truths every day, and it’s hard not to fall for the enemy.

I see her truths every day, and it’s hard not to fall for a woman who makes me weak.

He won’t let me escape, but I’m not sure I want to.

She can try to run, but I have no intention of ever letting her go.

I wanted to marry for love, but it looks like love is a lie.

I wanted to marry for hate, but it looks like hate is a lie.

 

MissPetiteBrunetteBookBlog - “Get ready for a jaw dropping conclusion to this magnificent duet.”

BookHaven Book Blog - “I dove in and couldn't stop reading!! I inhaled this in a few hours and my jaw was dropping all over the place!!”

Melanie Helms - “Holy shiitake mushrooms. What a great conclusion! Wow.”

Leave Me Alone I’m Reading - “Omg... the feels, the action, the sex, the fucking blood and gore... perfecccttttt.”

Jillian (Goodreads) - “SIX STARS! This duet is at the top of my list for favorite reads in 2019. I was blown away.”

THE ROCK STARS OF ROMANCE

BOOK HAVEN BOOK BLOG 

 

 

 

 

Nikki Ash

 

K Webster

 

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Throwback Post: How Badly Do You Want It?

A while ago, I did a guest post on a blog called "At The Cool Table". That blog isn't around anymore, but I was going through old files and I found that guest post. A lot has happened since then but I think my sentiments on the matter are still the same. So, I wanted to share that with you all today.

How Badly Do You Want It?

The way that my first book came about was really sort of an “accident”. A happy accident.  See, I’ve wanted to be an author since I was eight. I write in a few different genres. At age fourteen I said that I would have some type of book published by age twenty. When this opportunity came along I was still twenty. My mom had sent a friend of hers, T. L. Bethel (author of Ramblings and Reflections of a Bahamian-American Poet). She asked him for advice on how to go about publishing something. He replied saying that he would help through the process. That was completely unexpected. The next day my mom was asking me “Do you want to publish a book of poetry?” I think that I was so taken aback that my answer was “Um, sure.” So T. L. Bethel and Lois Josephs (author of Prefaces and Deflections - as well as the now Mrs. T. L. Bethel) said that they would come over to help.

Then I realized that I would be publishing a book! I’d be doing what I had wanted to do since I was eight years old! Self-publishing. Hmm. I knew nothing about self-publishing. I decided to worry about that part later – the loading it and formatting it et cetera – when Tommy and Lois came over to guide us through the process. Now what I had in front of me was going through over two hundred poems to pick which ones would be in my debut poetry collection. A pretty daunting task. Daunting, but manageable.

However, there were times when I didn’t feel like working on it at all. I think that all writers get like this at least once in a while. And it can be extremely difficult to remind yourself what the end goal that you’re working toward is sometimes.  For me, the most difficult part was working through the chronic fatigue and all of the symptoms that come with my condition (the way it manifests in me), Nephropathic Cystinosis. And sometimes I would not work on it. I think that it’s okay to do that sometimes. Sometimes you just need to. Other times though, I would remind myself about the end goal and get back to work. I also showed prospective poems to my mom and asked for her opinion on which poems should go in the collection.

I picked out a photograph to go with each poem in the book (save for one) and then it was to the stages of uploading. Formatting and reformatting and uploading again until it looked right. That was frustrating and I am not too technologically savvy; so that I had a lot of help with from Tommy, Lois and my mom. I feel like this part took the longest.  (Also, if all of this is difficult now with all of our modern technology, can you imagine what it was like to self-publish before all of this?)

When I got the proof of my book in the mail though, all of that hard work was really worth it! I was holding a physical book by ME! Sure, it was only the proof and there were still changes to be made, but still. After all of that was done and I could share the link with everyone it was absolutely all worth it! Then comes marketing and building platforms et cetera. It is a lot of work, but if you really want it – and especially if you plan to keep doing this – it is all worth it at the end of each process! (Because there will be many). You just ask yourself: How badly do you want it?

What is My Morning Routine?

I've talked about morning routines on here, and on my social media, before. However, I'm not sure I've actually laid out what that is. Also, I'm trying to get used to calling it my morning ritual because I like the sound of that better. Before I run through it, though, I want to make two disclaimers.

1. I don't actually do this ever day. I try to but I don't always. And sometimes it's a shorter version of this or only a few of these things.
2. It's not for the same amount of time or in the same order every time I do this. Sometimes I leave a couple things out. It depends on that day. What's going on and how I'm feeling. 

So, here we go:

My Morning Ritual:

• After being up and doing regular morning things, the first thing I try to do is put away any medicine stuff from the night before. Then, I make my bed. Sometimes I make my bed around Sawyer (my cat.)
• If I haven't set things up last night, I set up my coffee. Or sometimes it's tea. Or once in a while it's hot chocolate. I fill my water cup for the day. Take a sip of some sort of juice. 
• I queue up a meditation for the day. Again, this depends on how I feel. I do this in my little corner on my purple bench. On the shelf next to me I have some crystals, a Himalayan pink salt lamp, bamboo, a candle. I have a book or magazine with me, and my journal. 
• The first thing I do is meditate. After that, I read a little. Sometimes I decide to read five pages or read for five minutes. It varies. After that, I write in my journal. This can very from half a page to three pages. Again, it depends on the day. 
• Something I started to a while ago was pick three words for the day. For example: Calm. Gratitude. Creative. Depending on how I want to feel. I try but I don't do this every day. I got this idea from Samantha Hearne on Instagram.
• The last thing I do in my journal is write a few affirmations. Or maybe only one.
• I've been trying to do a lesson with DuoLingo every day. I'm learning Italian. I am Italian so I thought it was time. 
• Then, I put on my workout clothes and do some exercise Usually some cardio.
• I end this all with some yoga. I don't do the exercise and yoga every single day, but I am most likely to do yoga even when I don't do other exercise.  

That is my morning ritual!! Like I said, I don't do all of this every day.  I try to do 2-3 of these things most days, though. And most likely those will be journal, read, and yoga. I think I've found that those are my top three things. Which took a while to figure out. (Well, I've been journaling for years, but that's a different story.)

Tell me below if you have a morning ritual. Do you feel comfortable sharing yours? Do you want to have one? What are your top three things? Or what would you want them to be? Let me know in the comments!!