Best Suggested Books I Loved (Previous Top 5 Wednesday topic)

Me and book suggestions have a strange relationship and one day I will write an entire blog post (or more??) on the topic.  When I’m not doing massive overtime at work and having only one day off a week where I sleep most of the day and manage to squeeze out a few blog posts to queue up to post throughout the week.  

Today, however, I want to spotlight a few books that were suggested to me that I absolutely love, have read too many times to count, and recommend to anyone who will listen.    

First Test, book 1 in the Protector of the Small quartet by Tamora Pierce

I still remember this one.  This also happens to be the book that really got me into reading.  I was already a reader before this book ended up in my hands but this is the book got me hooked.  While at the library, already with a stack of books to sign out, a librarian handed me this book and told me it was very popular and that she thought I would love it.  I remember signing it out mostly to appease her and my mom then to actually read it.  I read all the other books in my pile and was going to go back to the library without reading it but on a whim I actually started the book.  And never put it down.  And them made my mom the the librarian look up basically every book in the series and Tamora Pierce’s previous series to read.  

Crown Duel (previously Crown Duel and Court Duel) by Sherwood Smith

This time I asked for recommendations and this was one of them.  I looked it up and was interested by didn’t expect to be blown away.  But I went ahead and grabbed the book from the library (inter-library loan, actually, since my system didn’t have it) and was BLOWN AWAY with both this book and much of the rest of the books Sherwood Smith has written (though I admit I have only read about 1/4 of them, but I stand by my recommendation of her Inda Series).  This book is the first to break my long-held rule of not buying books.  Occasionally I would buy one or two but t was not really a planned thing.  This one I HAD TO HAVE.  About a year later I got my first credit card basically because I wanted to buy the prequel to this book and was hard to find it in stores in Canada so I bought it from the States online.

Looking at the two books in this list with the covers of the copies I read first, I see they both have girls with a black eye on the cover.  Funny how that works!  Though I will say about a decade separated them from each other when I first read them. 

Is there a book you are very grateful someone recommended to you?