I’m going to change up the format of my reviews in 2019 and I thought I’d start by rounding up the final books I read in 2018.

An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose, #1) by Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris is one of my most favorite authors and when she announced her newest series since the Midnight, Texas trilogy (which started in 2014) I knew I would be reading it. Set in an alternate-history North America sometime in the first half of the twentieth century, we follow Lizbeth Rose who is a gunnie that gets cargo (usually humans) across borders. I love her passion for guns and shooting and her insane will to live, which is good because she sure does find herself in some tight situations. Lizbeth, or Gunnie Rose, accepts a job taking Russian wizards to Mexico so they can search for someone from a bloodline that may be able to save their tsar.
Harris takes readers on a wild-west ride through a re-imagined United States and makes you fall for her protagonist as she does across all of her books. If you’re a fan of any of her previous series or love a good and gritty modern western, I recommend this book.
5/5 Stars

One Day in December by Josie Silver
I am so glad that I ended up reading this book this month because it immediately shot to my favorite book of the year and makes the list for all-time favorites. One day in December, Laurie meets the eyes of someone at a bus stop while she is on the bus. She immediately gets that “he’s the one” feeling and she can tell by his face that he does too. She looks but never finds him until her best friend introduces her to her new boyfriend. YEP! That happened. This book follows nine years of Laurie’s, Jack’s and Sarah’s lives and the part they play in each others. It is mostly from Laurie’s POV but we get a bit from Jack as well. There isn’t a scene, paragraph, or sentence in the entire book that doesn’t contribute so completely to their story. By page 44 I wanted to ugly cry and spent the next less-than-twenty-four-hours that it took me to finish the book holding back tears. It is such a beautiful look into real-life emotions; please, everyone go read this book!
100/5 Stars

As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner
This book has undertaking, the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, and lots of true love. What more could a girl ask for? But really, we get the points-of-view of mom Pauline and her daughters Evie, Maggie, and Willa. Their family move from the Pennsylvania countryside to Philadelphia for a better life. They get a better life in many ways, but they also experience loss, gain, growth, and happiness. This was a gripping insight into an epidemic (I might have to start getting my flu shot) and what it might be like to grow up in a funeral home in the early twentieth century. It was slightly slow in the beginning but as I grew to care about these characters I grew to love their stories. A great historical fiction book with bits of science and fate. I’m so glad I finished this in the final hours of 2018.
5/5 Stars