Hello hello and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today I’m joining in with Top Ten Tuesday again, and this week’s challenge is “Books on My Winter 2021 To-Read List”. Last week, I shared five books from my TBR, but this is slightly different – this is ten books I plan to read during the Winter, rather than “oh bloody hell my TBR is ever growing, here’s five books from it”.
Top Ten Tuesday is run by That Artsy Girl, and you can find a complete list of upcoming and past prompts here.
#1 – For Better Or Cursed
I read The Babysitters Coven in October and absolutely loved it. I haven’t (at time of writing) got around to reading For Better Or Cursed, book two, as yet, and I absolutely cannot wait to dig into it when I’m not drowning in, well, life. I have it with me in my little stash of books in our tiny bedsit, and I’m hoping to start reading it as soon as I’ve finished my next ARC.
#2 – The Last of August
Another second in a series, this is book two in the Charlotte Holmes series, following on from A Study In Charlotte. I struggled a little bit with the font in this book, but I happen to know that the second book very well might be waiting under the Christmas tree for me in a few weeks (days, even!) time, so even if it takes me a little bit longer to work my way through, I’m looking forward to it already.
#3 – Elektra
I absolutely adored Jennifer Saint’s first book, Ariadne, and felt very lucky when a copy of her second book, Elektra, landed on my doormat. Saint is help with the movement that is retelling the stories of Ancient Greek women, and giving them the voices they have so long been denied. I’ll be reading this under a fluffy blanket, feeling very lucky that I’m getting to read it before it is released everywhere in April.
#4 – The Christmas Murder Game
Follow the clues. Find the fortune. Solve the Mystery. This Christmas is to die for. Let the game begin…
‘Endgame has kept our secrets for half a century, now it’s time for it, and its secrets, to have a new owner.’
When Lily returns home to her aunt’s manor house, she discovers that in order to inherit, she and her estranged cousins must stay together over the Christmas week and take part in a family tradition: the annual treasure hunt.
But as they are drawn deeper into the game, the clues seem to point not to the deeds to the manor house, but to the key to a twenty-year-old mystery: what really happened to Lily’s mother?
As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, it becomes apparent that the game has turned deadly and that Lily is fighting for more than just an inheritance: she is now fighting for her life. Does she have what it takes to survive?
12 clues, 12 keys and 12 days of Christmas for the heirs of Endgame House to find their inheritance, but how many will die before Twelfth Night?
#5 – These Hollow Vows
This book has been on my to be read list for SO long but I am determined that this will be the time I finally read it. I keep seeing so comments about it although thankfully I have avoided spoilers, and I’m hopefully I can avoid them just for a little while longer, while I kick myself up the bum and get reading.
#6 – A Shadow in the Ember
I KNOW, I KNOW. How can I even call myself a fan of From Blood and Ash when I haven’t read this book, starting off the prequel series?! Unfortunately life has just got in the way, and I haven’t had the time to sit down and dedicate myself to this many pages. I desperately want to read it however, at least so I can rejoin the spoiler groups and talk about it if nothing else!
#7 – Our Violent Ends
The conclusion to the These Violent Delights duology, I have the audiobook ready and waiting to go. I’ve held off as I’m debating rereading These Violent Delights before hand, as I read it before I was in the habit of writing reviews for everything I read, which is useful both to keep the blog posts rolling but also to help me remember details I might have forgotten since reading. So I might be reading both, but I’ll definitely (hopefully!) be reading this one.
#8 – Lies My Memory Told Me
I was sent an ARC of this intriguing sounding book last month and I’m hoping to fit in reading it this month, and if not this month, next month for sure! It’s a thriller with a sci-fi kind of twist, and that’s not something I’d have thought was for me before I read Every Line Of You earlier this year, which has really opened my eyes to being a bit more open minded. Sci-fi intimidates me slightly but I love thrillers, so I guess they balance out!
#9 – The Gilded Wolves
This is another book that I keep meaning to get around to reading, and I’m just hoping that now is the time I finally manage it. My physical copy is packed away with all my other books, however I do also have the audiobook, and I’m going to listen to it. I’M GOING TO LISTEN TO IT.
#10 – The Chosen One
“There are many watchers and they are always white. That’s the first thing Echo notices as she settles into Dartmouth College. Despite graduating high school in Cleveland as valedictorian, Echo immediately struggles to keep up in demanding classes. Dartmouth made many promises it couldn’t keep. The campus is not a rainbow-colored utopia where education lifts every voice. Nor is it a paradise of ideas, an incubator of inclusivity, or even an exciting dating scene. But it might be a portal to different dimensions of time and space—only accessible if Echo accepts her calling as a Chosen One and takes charge of her future by healing her past. This remarkable challenge demands vulnerability, humility, and the conviction to ask for help without sacrificing self-worth.“
So there we are. Ten books I’m hopefully going to read this Winter. Everything is conditional of course, and I know I won’t always manage everything I set out to do – but even just thinking about these books is making me feel more determined to read them.
Thanks for stopping by, and come back again soon!
And On She Reads 