Top 5 …. Books Under 300 Pages

Top 5 books under 300 pages

Devouring Books books hold a weekly Saturday meme based on your top 5 of a category. Pop over to their site and see what it’s all about! This week’s task is to feature 5 books under 300 pages, which should actually be fairly easy for me as I read a lot of indie published work, which tends to be shorter. As most of those are ebooks it does mean I’ll have to rely on the page count accuracy of Goodreads and Amazon – so wish me luck on that one!

Oh and thank goodness I have a “better than 5 stars” shelf on Goodreads too! 😂

1. Delirium (Atom and Evil #1) by Myra Danvers

“We’ll never be done, you and I.” He pushed off her desk. Closed the distance between them with prowling steps, clenched fists, and oh, so much determination. “Too much unfinished business to ever call it over.” He stopped a few steps away from uncomfortably close. Braced his palm on the wall behind her head, forearm brushing the side of her throat. “’Sides”—he licked his lips, glanced down her shirt—“we never got our hate fuck, baby girl.”

Iris knows he’ll come.
He’ll come lookin’ for what she stole, what she refused to give up when everything went to hell.
Won’t find it, of course.
There’s nothing left but a pipe full o’the good stuff and the dregs of the past that refuse to die.

I’m anxiously but patiently waiting for book 2 in this series. When it does come out I’ll need to do a re-read of this one, which won’t be a hard-ship because this gritty, adventure filled, sci-fi, sort-of-romance was easily one of my top reads of 2019.

2. Silenced by Leddy Harper

As a young child, Killian Foster survives the unimaginable. Silenced and scarred, he keeps to himself, spending his time with his notebook in the woods behind his aunt’s house.
Until Rylee Anderson…

When Rylee spots Killian hopping over a fence next door, she follows him, unprepared for the boy she’d find—or the relationship that would unfold over the next seven years.
Or the silence that would follow.

Fighting between the hate of his past and the promise of his future, Killian must make choices—ones that would affect more than himself. Choices that would test the lines of right and wrong. Decisions that could break the bond of the only love Killian knew.

Hate or love.
Revenge or forgiveness.
Silence or his voice.

I read this back in 2017, and whilst that might not sound all that long ago it was one heck of a lot of books ago. Somewhere in the very, very high hundreds ago. Yet I still remember the impact this book had on my. I would have included The Boy and His Ribbon by Pepper Winters for the same reason, sadly that book IS over 300 pages, so I had to leave it out this time.

3. Bass-Ackwards by Eris Adderly

Bill Marshall might as well have been the Devil.
Christina Lee Dodd needs Friday off work. Needs. She’s up to her eyeballs in problems.
One of those problems is her boss, Bill Marshall.
And Bill Marshall is an a**hole.
The offer he makes is textbook inappropriate. An HR nightmare.
But is it wrong for her to accept?
Is it wrong for her to like it?
Bass-Ackwards is a filthy wrong-way romance where two human beings make more mistakes than you can shake a stick at.

Bill Marshall really is an a**hole. But a somehow loveable a**hole that you end up backing for the win. So much so that I quite envied Christina.

4. Acquired Possession by Cari Silverwood

The night Emery is taken she is reading emails in bed.
Aerthe, another world, the world of the Swathe, the moving cities of the Mekkers.
Blind on arrival and naked. No one touches her until the Mekkers decide humans aren’t people, and therefore can be bought and traded. The journey through the portal alters humans, shines them all pretty. Humans glimmer.
Emery’s bright hair and nails will forever mark her as alien. Her freedom is gone. Though her sight returns, she becomes a possession of House Oren.
But someone else wants to own her. The House Master, Mako, a man who uses whips and canes like most people use a knife – daily, with efficiency and casualness.
She vows to never give in.
Banned from marrying. Banned from having playing too intimately with the house possessions, Mako holds himself back.
He mustn’t. Shouldn’t. His job is to punish, to control, to keep the House in order.
But when Emery runs and takes with her a most dangerous war machine, one not seen since the Last Days of the War… Mako is the man they turn to.
To chase her down. To bring her back, lamed, dead, or mostly alive.
Warning: This is a dark kinky story. If you don’t understand where dark stories can go, this might not be for you. 

I really, really love this author’s work, and this series holds a special place in my heart. It’s a mix of old-school sci-fi, Terry Pratchett humour and dirty, filthy kink. Don’t judge it til you’ve tried it!

5. Unconventional by Isabel Love

Happily ever after—what a joke! I tried that once and ended up divorced.
Now, I only want one thing from men.
Charlie Nelson is good at giving me that one thing. Really, really good.
So good, in fact, I discovered a new side of myself.
I never knew I liked to watch until I saw his talented hands touching someone else.
I never knew I liked to be watched until I felt his searing gaze on me.
Maybe happily ever after isn’t always a white picket fence, wedding bells, and 2.5 kids.
Maybe it’s something a bit more…unconventional.

This story really was Unconventional, it also pummelled my emotions into the ground. Then stomped on them for good measure. Thankfully it had a great HEA ending to put me back together again.