Happy New year to all the readers of the Auntie M Writes Crime blog! This year Auntie M is stepping out from behind the personality of Auntie M to myself, Marni Graff, writer and mystery author of two series. I wish you all a healthy and happy 2020!

Over the past year, it has been my distinct honor to review 148 books on the blog. This doesn’t include the occasional guest I give a slot to, because the writing community is one of the most generous and giving I’ve been a part of, and it is my pleasure to share in that.

It’s also the time of year when I want to thank my followers of the blog, and hope you will continue reading into 2020.

I read about 3 books a week in all kinds of places and always carry a book with me wherever I go. This year there were only 3 books I didn’t review as they were not for me–hey, it happens.

But of those 148 I’ve shared, 37 of them received my “Highly Recommended” rating. That’s about a quarter of the many books to receive HR, so you can see that a book knocks my socks off to receive that rating.

So here they are, in the order they were reviewed. Clumps of HRs reflect publishing cycles and my time to read, nothing more. If an author or title strikes your fancy and you missed the original review, all reviews are archived by month:

Jan: Louisa Luna/Two Girls Down
Fiona Barton/The Suspect
Christian White/The Nowhere Child

Feb: CJ Tudor/The Hiding Place
Ausma Zehanat Khan/Deadly Divide
Peter Robinson/Careless Love

Mar: James Oswald/No Time To Cry

Apr: Lexie Elliot/The Missing Years

May: Nicola Upson/Stanley and Elsie
Elly Griffiths/The Stone Circle
Mandy Morton/Beyond the Gravy
Roz Watkins/The Devil’s Dice & Dead Man’s Daughter
Susan Hill/The Comforts of Home
Aline Templeton/Carrion Comfort
Sophie Hannah/The Mystery of 3 Quarters

June: Ashley Dyer/The Cutting Room

July: Natalie Daniels/Too Close

Aug: Anthony Horowitz/The Sentence is Death
Jane Casey/Cruel Acts
Alex Michaelides/The Silent Patient
Louise Penny/A Better Man
Kate Rhodes/Fatal Harmony & Ruin Beach

Sept: Ann Cleeves/The Long Call
James Oswald/Nothing to Hide

Oct: Nicola Upson/Sorry for the Dead
Laura McHugh/The Wolf Wants In
Kate Atkinson/Big Sky

Nov: GR Halliday/From the Shadows
Paula Munier/Blind Search
Alex North/The Whisper Man

Dec: Stuart MacBride/All That’s Dead
Stuart Neville/So Say the Fallen & Those We Left Behind
Vanda Simon/The Ringmaster

Now get reading!