Books That Live in My Head Rent-Free
Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review.
Okay this is such a fun topic! I feel like there are a lot of books that I don’t stop thinking about. I even wrote a post a few years ago looking for hyper specific book recommendations because I just neeeeded more books like them. A couple of those will be featured here but there will be some newer ones as well!
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was such a specific experience for me and so many other readers. I remember being so floored by how the narrative was shaped and how TJR went through her life. It’s that fun mix of historical fiction and contemporary that I enjoy.
The Black Dog Bay series is one I’ve talked about so much on here. The town of Black Dog Bay is built around being a place for heartbroken folks to travel and heal. It’s like a classic romance companion series on steroids. The businesses have names like Better Off Bed-and-Breakfast, the Eat Your Heart Out bakery, and the Whinery bar. It was just such a clever premise for a book and I’m always thinking about it.
Dissonance is one of my early parallel universe books that I became obsessed with. I always want more books like this one, and have written countless blog posts about this topic and how much I love it. I need to actually lock in and read some soon…or reread this series?
Worst Case Scenario (honestly all three books by TJ Newman) lives in my head rent-free. I think about how unique these are all the time; my mom and I recommend them to everyone. I’m dying for more plane-based thrillers or even just survival-oriented thrillers from Newman… please announce your next book!
Wrong Place Wrong Time is another very unique mystery/thriller – the main character has to solve a murder mystery but each day she wakes up one day earlier, traveling back in time and reviewing the evidence backwards. I still haven’t read more Gillian McAllister books, despite owning all of them, because I’m lowkey afraid they won’t live up to this.
The God of the Woods and All the Colors of the Dark are both excellent slow-burn literary mysteries. Don’t let anyone tell you either one of them is a fast-paced thriller or you’ll be disappointed. I’m really being pulled to this subgenre because of these books and they both have truly stuck with me so much. I hope the adaptations both do them justice!
The Night Swim (and pretty much all of Goldin’s books) are four-star mystery/thrillers for me but there’s something about every single one of them that stick in my brain. I neeeed more books from her and have yet to see another deal announced.
Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet was a slam dunk for me. I know I only read it a couple of months ago but I keep thinking about how unique the story is, along with the jokes that kept me chuckling the whole time. No one does it like Emma Mills; all of her books have a perfect blend of sweet and funny, even when there are murder mysteries involved.
Murder in the Family is a really fun mixed media mystery. I could put any of Janice Hallett’s books here because any kind of mixed media book is going to live in my head rent-free. I need more and more and more. This book is on here though because I was in a huge reading slump and the only book I wanted to read was this one… despite it not even being released yet.
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