Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
How it works:
She assigns each Tuesday a topic and then posts her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.
Happy New Year!!
This is my first Top Ten Tuesday of the year and I am excited to do it. I have added a bunch of books since the beginning of the year (and it is a lot). The first two books are recent NetGalley additions. The other 8 are books that I either entered contests for or saw on a blog and liked.
Here are my books and as always, let me know if you have read the book and what you thought of it!!
1. The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been.
When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.
2. My Wife is Missing by D.J. Palmer
3. Daniel’s Final Week by Donna VanLiere
A planet filled with fallen angels.
An execution order against millions.
Yet amidst these evils, God’s hope prevails.
After his apparent resurrection, beloved leader Victor Quade is hailed internationally as God. Yet when Victor mandates that everything from purchasing groceries to seeing a doctor will require a mark of allegiance to him, Emma Grady and her friends in New York know they must flee.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the Jewish people worship Victor as a messiah, not realizing he intends to seal their doom. As Jews and Jesus-followers around the globe lose their lives, Zerah Adler strives to protect as many as possible in this violent, volatile time.
In this spellbinding conclusion to the end-times trilogy that began with The Time of Jacob’s Trouble, bestselling author Donna VanLiere brings the stories of Emma and Zerah to a riveting close. In the final chapters, you’ll discover what God’s Word reveals about the glorious future that awaits you and see that things aren’t spiraling downward but are actually looking up!
4. Goodbye Again by Mariah Stewart
In the wake of her daughter’s unexplained suicide and her husband Jim’s sudden abandonment, Liddy Bryant is determined to move on and make some positive changes in her life. In her hometown of Wyndham Beach, the neglected and shuttered bookstore is also in need of renewal, and Liddy recognizes an opportunity to get herself and the bookshop back on track. With a little help from her friends, she’s well on her way.
Local contractor Tuck Shelby has been a friend of Liddy’s forever. He’s made himself indispensable in the rehab of her shop—and in her life—but now he wants out of the friend zone. Then Jim returns with a long-overdue apology, hoping for forgiveness and a chance to start over, and Liddy has a life-changing choice to make.
Into a year when Liddy’s faced changes and the shocking truth of a well-kept secret comes not only a second chance at love, but a second chance at life.
5. Listening Well: Bringing Stories of Hope to Life by Heather Morris
Now Heather shares the story behind her inspirational writing journey and the defining experiences of her life, including her profound friendship with Lale, and explores how she learned to really listen to the stories people told her—skills she believes we can all learn.
“Stories are what connect us and remind us that hope is always possible.”—Heather Morris
6. Misadventures with a Duke by Angel Payne
Even optimists have bad days, but Raegan Tavish’s streak has lasted for weeks. The rising star of fashion stylists is dealing with both a bad break-up and a creative slump, so apartment sitting for her lovebird friends feels like a way to realign karma—until fate has its say.
As soon as Bastien De Leon steps out of the giant wardrobe in his brother’s master bedroom, Raegan knows what kind of complication has just struck her life. The cabinet is no normal piece of imposing furniture. It’s a time travel device, and it’s just brought this stunning warrior forward by over two hundred years. But why?
On a quest to return Bastien back to the time in which he belongs, Raegan already knows she will be forever changed by this arrogant duke and his irresistible passions. But what if Bastien’s intrusion isn’t just a visit? What if this man is here to awaken something new inside her…and change the course of her existence forever?
7. A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong
May 20, 1869: Housemaid Catriona Thomson had been enjoying a half-day off, only to be discovered that night in a lane, where she’d been strangled and left for dead . . . exactly one-hundred-and-fifty years before Mallory was strangled in the same spot.
When Mallory wakes up in Catriona’s body in 1869, she must put aside her shock and adjust quickly to the reality: life as a housemaid to an undertaker in Victorian Scotland. She soon discovers that her boss, Dr. Gray, also moonlights as a medical examiner and has just taken on an intriguing case, the strangulation of a young man, similar to the attack on herself. Her only hope is that catching the murderer can lead her back to her modern life . . . before it’s too late.
8. Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
Daisy Darker is arriving at her grandmother’s house for her eightieth birthday. It is Halloween, and Seaglass – the crumbling Cornish house perched upon its own tiny private island – is at one with the granite rocks it sits on. The Darker family haven’t all been in the same place for over a decade, and when the tide comes in they’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, nothing will ever be the same again, because one of them is a killer . . .
9. Aurora by David Koepp
Then the lights go out–not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.
Across the country lives Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.
But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings–which not everyone will survive . . .
Aurora is suspenseful storytelling–both large scale and small–at its finest.
10. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.
Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.
