Top Ten Tuesday was created by\u00a0The Broke and the Bookish\u00a0in June of 2010 and was moved to\u00a0That Artsy Reader Girl<\/a>\u00a0in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.<\/p>\n Good morning and Happy TTT to everyone! <\/p>\n This week asks us to cast our mind back to those books that we planned to read, were excited to read, had bought with every intention of reading\u2026 and, for whatever reason, we never got around to. Why might we not get around to them? I cannot speak for anyone else but, for me, it is often than they were eclipsed by other new books, by a NetGalley release, by a favourite author publishing a new book \u2013 or simply because time slipped away\u2026<\/p>\n A mother disappears from a busy festival on a warm spring night.<\/p>\n Her baby lies alone in the pram, her mother\u2019s possessions surrounding her, waiting for a return which never comes.<\/p>\n A year later, Kim Gillespie\u2019s absence still casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather to welcome a new addition to the family.<\/p>\n Joining the celebrations on a rare break from work is federal investigator Aaron Falk, who begins to suspect that all is not as it seems.<\/p>\n As he looks into Kim\u2019s case, long-held secrets and resentments begin to come to the fore, secrets that show that her community is not as close as it appears.<\/p>\n Falk will have to tread carefully if he is to expose the dark fractures at its heart, but sometimes it takes an outsider to get to the truth . . .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n Although I loved The Dry<\/a><\/em>, with its revelations about Falk, I found the second book less convincing and preferred The Survivors<\/a><\/em>. Perhaps you can only really do one great book in which a dark secret past is revealed \u2013 otherwise it becomes almost farcical melodrama.<\/p>\n Chances of Reading<\/strong> in 2024? 6\/10<\/p>\n In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga, \u2018victory city\u2019.<\/p>\n Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa Kampana\u2019s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga\u2019s as she attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n I do find Rushdie rather hit-and-miss as a writer, however iconic he is \u2013 an iconic stature elevated further by those horrific and brutal attacks.<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 5\/10<\/p>\n This is the story of a few strange hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy.<\/strong><\/p>\n You mustn\u2019t do that to yourself Shy. You mustn\u2019t hurt yourself like that.<\/em><\/p>\n He is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt and the people who are trying to love him.<\/p>\n Got your special meds, nutcase?<\/em><\/p>\n He is escaping Last Chance, a home for \u2018very disturbed young men\u2019, and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past and the heavy question of his future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n Porter is an exceptional writer and does wonderful things with voices and character. Lanny<\/a><\/em> was a masterpiece in my humble opinion. However, the contents of this one \u2013 for a father of an autistic child with her own set of special needs, the subject matter feels very close to home. And with the anxieties caused by finishing one school and starting another last year, this was a deliberate choice to wait\u2026 <\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 9\/10<\/p>\n Meet the wedding party: THE BRIDESMAID THE BEST MAN THE GUEST As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after \u2013 but does it lie at the end of an aisle?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n I loved Naoise Dolan\u2019s debut novel, Exciting Times<\/a><\/em>, and who doesn\u2019t love a wedding and all the social tensions and satire and comedy and pathos that can come with it. Somehoe, however, it did just languish on my TBR pile\u2026. I\u2019m not even sure why\u2026<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 7\/10<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Montserrat has always been overlooked. She\u2019s a talented sound editor, but she\u2019s left out of the boys\u2019 club running the film industry in \u201990s Mexico City. And she\u2019s all but invisible to her best friend Trist\u00e1n, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though she\u2019s been in love with him since childhood.<\/p>\n Then Trist\u00e1n discovers his new neighbour is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary\u00a0auteur\u00a0<\/em>claims he has a way to change their lives \u2013 even if his tales of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.<\/p>\n Now the director wants Montserrat and Trist\u00e1n to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her.<\/p>\n As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Trist\u00e1n might just find out that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies . . .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n Another book that I was excited about \u2013 loved Moreno-Garcia since Mexican Gothic<\/a><\/em>, even if I haven\u2019t felt her other novels have quite reached the same mark \u2013 but just never got around to. I was planning on reading it around Halloween and work did get stupid busy around then\u2026<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 7\/10<\/p>\n Kilburn, 1873. The \u2018Tichborne Trial\u2019 has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be \u2013 or an imposter.<\/p>\n Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of fa\u00e7ades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.<\/p>\n Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n I think I will blame work for this one too! Historical literary fiction is perhaps one of my favourite genres, when I have the time to devote to it properly and immerse myself into the world. I just think I didn;t have that time this year.<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 7\/10<\/p>\n WHEN THE VOICES CALL, DON\u2019T ANSWER\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n In the wake of his parents\u2019 tragic deaths fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote town of Ballantyne, where all is not as it seems. No one, that is, except the enigmatic Karen, who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number to an abandoned house in the woods. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices start.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n This looks fun and I have always enjoyed Nesbo\u2019s writing\u2026 and this one does look fun, if perhaps a little YA \u2013 but then YA has never put me off anything before.<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 5\/10<\/p>\n Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey \u2013 to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres\u2019s childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting.<\/p>\n To the Land of Lost Things.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n I enjoyed The Book of Lost Things<\/em> so much\u2026 but I cannot recall much except that I enjoyed it! I decided to put this one back until I had had a chance to re-read the first book, despite the assurances on the blurb that this was a standalone!<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 8\/10<\/p>\n His father could find what was lost. His father knew when someone was going to die. His father had talked to him about the dead who rode in on the wind. The dead travel fast.<\/em><\/p>\n Gaspar is six years old when the Order first come for him.<\/p>\n For years, they have exploited his father\u2019s ability to commune with the dead and the demonic, presiding over macabre rituals where the unwanted and the disappeared are tortured and executed, sacrificed to the Darkness. Now they want a successor.<\/p>\n Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar break free?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n Again, a book I\u2019d picked up on the basis of fabulous reviews and an intriguing premise as an autumnal Halloween read\u2026 and never got to it. In addition to work, I did start a couple of books and slogged through a sizeable portion before DNFing them\u2026 that also explains why several of these books didn;t get started. <\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 6\/10<\/p>\n In a small home, built into the branches of a tree, live a human named Victor and three robots. These are a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, a small vacuum desperate for love and attention, and a fatherly inventor-android named Giovanni Lawson. Together they\u2019re a family, hidden and safe.<\/p>\n Then Vic salvages an unfamiliar android labelled \u2018HAP\u2019. He learns that Hap and Gio share a dark past, where they hunted humans. And Hap unwittingly gives away Gio\u2019s location. Before they know it, robots from Gio\u2019s former life arrive \u2013 to capture and return the android to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams.<\/p>\n The rest of the unconventional family must travel across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommissioning. Or worse, reprogramming. Along the way, Vic must decide if he can handle his feelings for Hap \u2013 even if they come with strings attached.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n I love T. J. Klune and his tender funny cosy fantasies ever since reading The House on the Cerulean Sea<\/a><\/em> and I will definitely get to this one before the end of this year \u2013 hopefully before his new book is published.<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 9.5\/10<\/p>\n After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home. They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe. Becky Chambers\u2019s new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Why did I not get around to this? <\/strong><\/p>\n Again, this was just about time \u2013 which is not much of an excise as the Monk and Robot books are pretty slim! Loved Psalm for the Wild Built <\/em>so will definitely try to find time for this one.<\/p>\n Chances of Reading in 2024?<\/strong> 9.5\/10<\/p>\n Please do let me know which gems I have missed out on and which of these you would advise me to read first\u2026 I really do appreciate every comment and view!<\/p>\n J<\/strong>anuary 30:<\/strong>\u00a0New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2023Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics<\/h2>\n
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Victory City<\/em>, Salman Rushdie<\/h2>\n
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Shy<\/em>, Max Porter<\/h2>\n
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The Happy Couple<\/em>, Naoise Dolan<\/h2>\n
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THE BRIDE AND GROOM
Celine and Luke are meant to get married and live happily ever after. But Celine\u2019s more interested in playing the piano, and Luke\u2019s a serial cheater.<\/p>\n
Phoebe, Celine\u2019s sister, is meant to finish college and get a real job. Instead she pulls pints, lives with six flatmates, and has no long-term aspirations beyond smoking her millionth cigarette.<\/p>\n
Archie, Luke\u2019s best friend and ex-boyfriend, is meant to move up the corporate ladder and on from Luke. Yet he stands where he is, admiring the view.<\/p>\n
Vivian, Luke\u2019s other best friend and other ex, was meant to put up with Luke\u2019s bullshit when they dated. But she didn\u2019t. And now she is contented, methodically observing her friends like ants.<\/p>\nSilver Nitrate<\/em>, Silvia Moreno-Garcia<\/h2>\n
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The Fraud<\/em>, Zadie Smith<\/h2>\n
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The Night House<\/em>, Jo Nesbo<\/h2>\n
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Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, no one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie.<\/p>\nThe Land of Lost Things<\/em>, John Connelly<\/h2>\n
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But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard.<\/p>\nOur Share of Night<\/em>, Mariana Enriquez<\/h2>\n
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In The Lives of Puppets<\/em>, T. J. Klune<\/h2>\n
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A Prayer for the Crown Shy<\/em>, Becky Chambers<\/h2>\n
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\nUpcoming Top Ten Tuesday Themes<\/h2>\n
February 6:<\/strong>\u00a0Top Ten Quick Reads\/Books to Read When Time is Short (Books under 150 pages, or if you\u2019re not a novella reader maybe spin this to be books you could read in a day or a single sitting.<\/em>) (Submitted by Jennifer @ FunkNFiction.com and Angela @ Reading Frenzy<\/em>)
February 13:<\/strong>\u00a0Love Freebie (in honor of Valentine\u2019s Day tomorrow<\/em>)
February 20:<\/strong>\u00a0Bookish Superpowers I Wish I Had (e.g. never accidentally buying the same book twice, every book I buy would be automatically signed\/personally dedicated by the author, the ability to read faster, etc.<\/em>) (Submitted by Cathy @WhatCathyReadNext<\/em>)
February 27:<\/strong>\u00a0Covers\/Titles with Things Found in Nature (covers\/titles with things like trees, flowers, animals, forests, bodies of water, etc. on\/in them<\/em>) (Submitted by Jessica @\u00a0a GREAT read<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n