Welcome to the Best Of The Joys of Binge Reading podcast 2021 - The Top Ten most listened to episodes of the year! I hope you had a happy Christmas and that 2022 will be rather less turbulent than the one we are leaving behind us!

I know I said last year that New Zealand tended to "go to the beach" over this period, but this year it's a little different because of - dare I mention the word - the pandemic we've all been battling our way through. I'm taking a nice restful "Staycation" at home, delaying having any beach time until later in the summer. I'm looking forward to pottering in my garden and thinking and planning for the new season.

One big highlight of this year was posting our 200th episode in mid December with Patti Callahan. Thanks to all our marvellous guests, the show has gone from strength to strength, with top international authors included in our mix of popular fiction for binge reading.

Before we get to the Top Ten – we’ve got a Giveaway draw for January – three E book copies every week on my Three Holiday Novellas Book Bundle – A mix of mystery and Christmas romance set in historic New York,  Hawaii and California, Books #4 #6 and #8 in the Of Gold & Blood historic mystery series.  Enter the draw on our website, the joys of binge reading.com and be in to one of three copies going to lucky readers every week in January. Offer closes January 31.

Three Holiday Novellas - January Giveaway on The Joys of Binge Reading Podcast.

ENTER HOLIDAY NOVELLAS DRAW

Binge Reading on Patreon - We'll be featuring four new episodes of Getting To Know You -- Five Quickfire Questions - one very week in January from featured authors Karen White, Belinda Alexandra, William Kent Krueger and Sara Penner - plus the Behind The Scenes monthly news: exclusive bonus content for Binge Reading on Patreon supporters for the cost of less than a cup of coffee a month. Your support helps pay for the hosting, sound editing and production costs but the researching and organizing the show is all unpaid.

SUPPORT BINGE READING ON PATREON

How we made the selection - it's all about the ones you listened to....

The Top Ten for this year is actually a "Top Eleven" because three authors scored exactly the same number of downloads - would you believe it? And once again, we see a wonderful mix of genres and nationalities - from Australia to the US, from the UK to New Zealand.

From JA Jance's crime series, to Craig Johnson and William Kent Krueger's regional mysteries; from Sarah Penner's standout thriller about a murderous apothecary to Leeanna Morgan and Roselle Lim's heart-warming and magical romance, from engrossing historicals from Allison Pataki and Karen White's engrossing historicals to wide-ranging women's fiction from Di Morrissey, Jan Moran and Belinda Alexandra.

And as I've explained in previous years, I'm not picking my favourites because I value every author we have on the show, so as usual, our selection is based on the episodes you chose to listen to - and the number of downloads each one received - so you - our listeners - have picked the list, and the choice is from December 1, 2020 to December, 2021 - so we have time to put it all together for a January release...

Launching the Top Ten Most Popular Binge Reading Shows for 2021

So instead of having just one voice on the show, you’ll be hearing from ten or more. And as usual, if any of these snippets spark your interest and they are a show you missed out on, there will be links in the show notes to make it easy for you to find them and tune in – so there’ll be plenty of new people to keep you going over the break.  The show notes for this episode can be found on the Joys of Binge Reading .com, or you can find us on the Binge Reading Facebook page.

This episode will run for the first two weeks of January, and in the second half of the month we'll run the Best of All Time - the Pick of the First 200 episodes - with a different list/ Only...