Monday, February 9, 2015

Delicious Read Golden Book Award Winners

It's here! The moment every reader has been waiting for. Delicious Reads is pleased to announce the books our followers have picked as their favorite reads in the last year. The nominees were:




The envelope please . . .

The 2015 Delicious Reads 
Golden Book Award 
WINNERS ARE:



1Delicious reads golden book award
Unbroken:A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Book Summary: Unbroken is a 2010 non-fiction book and biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war in three brutal Japanese prisoner-of-war camps


Click below to see what we thought of Unbroken & get ideas for your next book club:

2. Delicious Reads Golden book
Shadow on the Crown
by Patricia Bracewell
Book SummaryIn 1002, fifteen­-year-old Emma of Normandy crosses the Narrow Sea to wed the much older King Athelred of England, whom she meets for the first time at the church door. Thrust into an unfamiliar and treacherous court, with a husband who mistrusts her, stepsons who resent her and a bewitching rival who covets her crown, Emma must defend herself against her enemies and secure her status as queen by bearing a son.

Determined to outmaneuver her adversaries, Emma forges alliances with influential men at court and wins the affection of the English people. But her growing love for a man who is not her husband and the imminent threat of a Viking invasion jeopardize both her crown and her life.

Based on real events recorded in the Anglo-Saxon ChronicleShadow on the Crown introduces readers to a fascinating, overlooked period of history and an unforgettable heroine whose quest to find her place in the world will resonate with modern readers.


Click below to see what we thought of Shadow on the Crown & get ideas for your next book club:


3.Delicious Reads Golden Book Award
Me Before You
by Jojo Moyes

Book Summary: Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

**We haven't yet done a book club on this book. Send some of your ideas our way!**



4. The Delicious Read Golden Book Award
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak
Book Summary: It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.

So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

Click below to see what we thought of The Book Thief & get ideas for your next book club:



5Delicious Reads Golden Book Award
Ruin and Rising
by Leigh Bardugo

Book SummaryThe Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne. Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army. 

Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova's amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling's secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.

Click below to see what we thought of Ruin and Rising & get ideas for your next book club:



6. Delicious Reads Golden Book Award
Remembrandt
by Robin King
Book SummaryAlexandra Stewart doesn't just walk down memory lane, she lives on it.  Her eidetic memory records and plays back her memories, DVD style.  It's great when she aces a test, but not so great when she topples over a cute boy and the experience plays back on an endless loop of humiliation.

When her Russian professor gives her an impossible puzzle, Alex discovers he has a secret—one that will catapult her into a life of cryptic codes and covert missions. Of course, running secret ops would be easier if she weren’t trying to impress her handsome new running partner. As if love weren’t hard enough already, now she’s trying to find it while dodging bullets and going undercover.

Two worlds vie for her attention and Alex is caught in a battle of the heart and mind. If you think keeping secrets is easy - forget it.

**We just did this teen spy novel last week for book club . . . stay tuned for fun ideas and our official review!**


7. Delicious Reads Golden Book Award
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

Book SummaryMarie-Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

 **We haven't yet done a book club on this book. Send some of your ideas our way!**



8Delicious Reads Golden Book Awards
The Night Circus
by Erin Morgenstern
Book SummaryThe circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called "Le Cirque des Reves," and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway--a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Click below to see what we thought of The Night Circus & get ideas for your next book club:

9. Delicious Reads Golden Book Awards
Tiger's Curse
by Colleen Houck

Book Summary: Passion. Fate. Loyalty. Would you risk it all to change your destiny?

The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she’d be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world. But that’s exactly what happened. Face-to-face with dark forces, spellbinding magic, and mystical worlds where nothing is what it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.


 **We haven't yet done a book club on this book. Send some of your ideas our way!**


Thank you for taking part in the Delicious Reads Golden Book Awards. Keep track of your favorite books over the next year because we will be asking for your nominations in a year!