Top Ten List Part One

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

It’s almost impossible to pick a “Top Ten” list. Given that I’ve read over 500 GLBT fiction books and short stories in the past year, I ran into a wall trying to choose just ten. There are the comfort reads that I’ve already read numerous times, regardless of numerical star. Then there are the fabulous, gut wrenching books that are truly wonderful but I’m not likely to read again. There are the thought provoking literature reads, the mind bending spec fiction, fun romps, and the pure porn books.

In the sea of books, I did the best I could to come up with 10 books you should read if you haven’t. Then I threw in 5 series, and 5 favorites. Yea, I couldn’t stay with just 10. Sorry!

So today will be the 5 series you should read if you haven’t.

5. PsyCops by Jordan Castillo Price

This is an easy tie with the Channeling Morpheus/Sweet Oblivian series by the same author. My recommendation is to read both series and enjoy. The great dialogue, gritty world building, and hot men will draw you in immediately. This is one of my favorite urban fantasy authors and the (mostly) novella length books are perfect indulgences. Buy them all .. it’s well worth it. My reviews are HERE!


4. Men of Cambridge by Charlie Cochraine

This historical series is delightful. The slow pace and warm affection between the men give a languid story that thoroughly entertains despite the meandering feel. The description of the place and time are wonderful and the men are clever and interesting. It’s hard to choose a favorite of the two men so just get the series. Save it for a lazy afternoon. My reviews of the series are HERE!

3. Masks by Hayden Thorne

I loved this young adult series quite a bit. It has a coming of age mixed with superheroes and an evil plot that has a lot of contemporary parallels. The dialogue and characters will charm you immediately and the trilogy is the perfect size. I’ve already re-read this series and can easily and highly recommend you do as well. My reviews of the books are HERE!

2. StarCrossed Series by Jaye Valentine and Reno MacLeod

Not too surprising a second urban fantasy series makes this list and this is one of my all time favorites. Angels, Demons, Vampires, Shapeshifters, Witches, and a bit of demon twincest to spice everything up. This makes for a fabulous and eye catching series. Although the plot is at the heart a conventional good versus evil fight, classic concepts are turned upside down and challenged. Here you almost end up liking the bad guy and all the tail action is pretty hot. Definitely get this series now. My reviews can be found HERE!

1. Heaven Sent Series by Jet Mykles

Ahh the classic rocker gay for you. As a yaoi fan this series just wins. Period. Well #1-5 are great, #6 was horrible and that’s not because it was a menage. Apparently Gretchen likes alpha dicks and weak betas. However, seeing as almost everyone has read the series, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t bought this series.. you’re definitely missing out. If you have, go re-read it. All of my reviews for this series are from Rainbow Reviews but can be found HERE!

Tomorrow will be the top 5 favorite books of the year and on the New Year will be Top Ten Books I read in 2009. 

11 thoughts on “Top Ten List Part One

  1. I’ve not heard of the Star Crossed series before, but I shall definitely check it out. I’m looking for a new UF series to get my teeth into.
    The Psycop and HS series are my favourite too. I can’t recommend them highly enough.
    I’ve been meaning to read the CC Lessons series for ages but my TBR pile is so huge already :).
    Great list, Kassa. Thanks for sharing.

    • I love the StarCrossed series, although it’s not always easy to read. Which is of course one reason I love it all the more.
      Definitely check out CC! I think you’ll really love that series and the very british men in it. There’s no explicit sex but the author is -very- creative with her euphemisms. And the gentle insults between the men are quite funny.
      I can’t wait to see your list *heads over there now*..

  2. Great list, Kassa. I love the Heaven Sent, PsyCop, and Men of Cambridge series too. I’ll have to check out the Masks series. I also haven’t read the StarCrossed series, but then, I’m not a big fan of Urban Fantasy, so I’m not sure I’d like it. I did really like Soft Focus by that writing team, though, so maybe I’ll give it a try.
    Your post reminded me of how many good m/m series I’ve read over the last couple of years. In addition to the ones above, I’ve loved The Adrien English Mysteries, The Channeling Morpheus/ Sweet Oblivion series, the Deadly Dreams series, the Deviations series, the Conflict in Blood Series, the Soul Mates series, the Common Sons series, JL’s Werewolf and Sci-Regency series– lol, I’m sure there’s more, but I’ll stop now.

    • Well PsyCop is Urban fantasy, although StarCrossed has a harder edge to it. More demons/angels/mythical beings versus psychics.
      Ooooo soo many good series! I just re-read the entire Adrien English series, plus the last one. And I’ve already re-read Channeling Morpheus/SO twice. Conflict in Blood is in my TBR and I don’t think I’m familiar with The Common Sons? I’ll have to check them out.
      I’m a fan of series if done well and not taken too far *cough LKH cough*. I love end of the year lists as it reminds of books I want to re-read. Best time for it!

  3. I’m with you totally on PsyCops, Masks and, of course, HS – how I love it so – and you’ve reminded me that I really need to finish reading the StarCrossed series.
    God, and 500 books this year?? That’s pretty friggin’ impressive, Kassa.

    • ooo you’ve read some of the SC series? I love it… it’s gritty and hardhitting and well done. I’m such a sucker for almost anything Urban Fantasy.
      And yea, I read a lot this year. I actually only know it’s at least 500 by counting the reviews I’ve done. I did almost 300 reviews for RR and then counted LJ reviews and so on. It’s.. um a lot. I need more hobbies.

  4. Kassa
    Three of your series are some of my favourites (PsyCop, Heaven Sent, and Charlie’s Cambridge series) and as a matter of fact two of them are on my list of favourite books for 2009. Since Kris reviewed Masks I’ve been meaning to set some time aside to read the books and definitely will do so in 2010. I have heard of Star Crossed but haven’t read any of the books. Guess I should check them out.

    • The Masks series is truly amazing. The great thing about all 5 series I listed is that I devoured each of the series, so really I couldn’t have chosen a favorite. I read the Masks trio on a trip and couldn’t put my reader down. Same with most of the series. I think I read HS in about 2 days lol.
      I know you’re super busy but try the first Masks or SC, they’re easy to read and relatively short. Very absorbing.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s