Lisa’s back!! It’s time for her top 2015 favorites, and she’s given us some excellent book preference insight!! I love know the “why” of stuff, and she tells us exactly why she loves these books.
By the way, I’ve LOVED every single one and I think I 5-starred each one, too! You have some GREAT book taste, Lisa. My kind of book-buddy. 
P.S. If you wanna see her absolute favorite books of all-time list, here it is!
P.P.S. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the post, I also added her honorable mentions of the year (also all 5-stars from her)!
For THIS list, she says:
List time:
My biggest book fears:
- getting to 85% in a book and realizing ‘this is a damn cliff hanger’ or worse, it’s going to be unsatisfying wrapped up in one chapter with no bloody epilogue.
- getting half way into the story before realizing the heroine isn’t going to grow a back bone like you hoped and I’m stuck with a pathetic door mat!
- likewise, getting into a story to realize the hero is not a rude, stubborn but sexy alpha with a marshmallow heart….he’s just a rude, stubborn a@#hole with misogynistic tendencies!
- Cliff hangers…..
- That I will probably pass away from old age, surrounded by cats before I actually get to the bottom of my tbr list which grows every week.
My book cheers:
- this little community of completely addicted readers and like minded souls I’ve stumbled upon…Thanks Maryse & Co for making me smile every day.
- Readers favorites lists every Saturday…love it. It’s like snooping around in other peoples book shelves, which I totally do.
“Here are my top six books that I read in 2015 (OK, OK I couldn’t get it down to five!! Seriously it’s a miracle I could trim it down to this….it’s like choosing a favorite child…it just shouldn’t be done) . Here goes:”
1) My top tear-your-heart-out-and-stomp-
2) Before We Were Strangers - because it has resonated and stayed with me even though I was frustrated by the ‘communication issues’ and choosing career over love storyline ….it broke my heart just a little bit. I really love Renee Carlino’s characters and Matt and Grace are up there as two of her best.
3) Hollywood Dirt (closely seconded by Cocky Bastard). Perfect book for me, chemistry, smidgen of heart ache and a few good laughs. Loved Summer’s internal dialogue…she made Cole’s insufferable ‘Hollywood brat’ routine bearable. Best animal characters go to Cocky the rooster and Esmeralda the goat for stealing the show in both these books!
4) Louder Than Love by Jessica Topper. I always bang on about this book, but I just loved it so much and want everyone to read it. The heartache over the late husband had me sobbing in the first two chapters. And I just adored Adrian because he isn’t the perfect alpha hottie, he’s broken and washed up and so wrong it just has to work. A gentle heart break with this one and not like any other rock star romance I’ve ever read.
5) The Deal…every thing I love about this genre. I put this one in here to represent about six or so books that I couldn’t chose between….The Deal, The Mistake, Pucked, Pucked Up, The Friend Zone, The Hook Up and The Game Plan.
6) My PNR/UF book of the year has to go to Written In Red which I read in almost one sitting with a few hours sleep in between. Once I got into the Courtyard with the Crows I just couldn’t bring myself to leave. A great way to finish up the year I think.
“I have honestly read so many great books this year and so many have been recommended on this blog.”
Lisa
And while I’m here… she also made us a list of a few more of her 5-stars this year, in the comments section for another post, so for the extras in this list that aren’t above, we’ll call these her honorable mentions… 
“My 5 stars read this year….”
- RUSH, just beautiful.
- Fisher’s Light, just beautiful
- Spark. Made me cry.
- Blurred Lines, friends to lovers perfection
- The Mistake and The Deal
- The Hook Up, The Friend Zone & The Game Plan…loved them all.
- The Five Stages of Falling in Love in Love, sob fest.
- The Manwhore Series.
I am happily addicted to reading but I need to expend my book energy (especially when one puts me in an emotional frenzy - SO fun!). So, I release my feelings about the stories, by writing them down here. It's my book therapy. 
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Two books on this list I keep coming across time after time and for whatever reasons keep passing them by….Written in Red and Badger. Looks like I just need to one click and go for it.
And there is Hollywood Dirt again. Also, have had Louder than Love forever in my tbr.
Loved Louder Than Love, and honestly agree with every one of your choices Lisa! The only ones I haven’t read are 5 Stages, Manwhore series, and Before We Were Strangers. And since it looks like we have the same taste I have to move them up on my TBR! Great list!
Cliffhangers Grrrr
I love Written in Red and The Others series as a whole. The crows are my favorite part. They are so fun.
Cliffhangers, double grrr
*hides from Badger* I have enough ugly cries lined up to last a year or two. I love the list. Loved The deal and Written in Red. Louder than Words… another ugly cry? *whimpers* I adore my rock men, but ugly cries scare me.
Thank you for posting my list Maryse. I cant believe I didn’t add Illuminae.
Lisa, so many of your favorites are mine as well. Although, I can’t do the heartbreaking ones because…well, they break my heart. :-/
Badger – Hollywood Dirt – The Deal – WiR – YUP YUP YUP – totally agree. All were fabulous reads. If anyone is looking at these lists, you may notice many of us picked several of the same reads. I think Kulti made just about everyone’s list. And maybe Badger?
Hollywood Dirt and The Deal made my list and the newest The Others book. So happy to see the WiR love! 1 and 2 are very high on my tbr too.
Hollywood Dirt keeps popping up and I already have it, so why haven’t I read it? Oh yeah, ’cause I’m not as cool as the rest of y’all.
Badger…Badger…BADGER!!!! I just got the chills looking at that cover again. Aaaaaand there goes my poor heart clenching again.
“That I will probably pass away from old age, surrounded by cats before I actually get to the bottom of my tbr list…” <——- Woman, I'll move in next door to you and bring all of the crows that I feed daily with me, and we can be the cat lady and the crow lady who lament over all of the books we have downloaded but will never be able to read. *giggle*
Guess I’m doing better than the cat and crow ladies. I calculated that at my current reading pace, if I do not buy a single additional book, I will finish my tbr in 9 years.
*snort* That’s not helping the cat and crow lady cause, Fabi.
Ha! I posted that hours ago. Now I’m up to 9 years and 2 weeks. Y’all better start making room for lil’ ‘ol me on one of those rocking chairs.
Let’s see…my crows will be dive-bombing Lisa’s cats while we’re sitting in our rocking chairs, so what pets will YOU be bringing to our little sideshow?
Cat lady makes me think of this.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CZp1kYLE7Bw
Lisa do you have favorite Australian authors?
lol, up until a couple of years ago I had 4 cats, 5 dogs, 2 parakeets and 2 horses … And they all got along! Well, except the two kids who fought now and then.
Grab a rocker Fabi. The more the merrier! I think my many cats will be kicking crow butt Amy.
Actually I only have one cat, Ollie and he’s afraid of his own shadow.
Bev my most favorite Australian authors are Markus Zusak (The Book Theif, The Messenger) Geraldine Brooks ( People of the Book and Year of Wonders) Hannah Kent (Burial Rites) Tim Winton (Cloud Street, Dirt Music, Breathe) and Craig Silvey (Jasper Jones).
In CR Im enjoying Kylie Scott’s books and in PNR SciFi I’ll be watching the Illuminae wunderkind pair of Kaufman and Kristoff.
Oh and Kate Morton writes lovely historical romance (The Shifting Fog, The Secret Keeper. My mum loves her books).