TTT Rewind: Books I Liked More or Less Than I Thought I Would 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. This is so fun! There was a period of time where I was barely blogging and skipped a bunch of TTTs so I tried to go back and see if any of them looked good to rewind and do today. It ended up being too challenging to track down so I thought I would do a random number generator to pick which post to try. If it was something super specific I would just keep going until one struck my fancy, but this worked out really well on the first try! I got TTT #333: Top Ten Books I Liked More/Less Than I Thought I Would! I have Goodreads shelves up for the task so I went and looked at my “pleasant surprise” and “super disappointing” shelves to grab five of each. For kicks, here are the books I picked back when I first did this prompt in 2017. Liked More than Expected All of these books exceeded my expectations in one way or another! I wasn’t sure the hype would be worth it or they weren’t my usual topics to read about, and they […]

Spring TBR – April/May Releases 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. Always love a seasonal TBR around these parts! As usual, I’m going to highlight the new and upcoming releases this spring rather than the books I have for review. These are new releases that I plan to read ASAP this spring. I usually include the months of April, May, and June here for this season but I had way too many between April and May! April Releases   May Releases    

Bookish People I’d Like to Meet Authors I’ve Met & Some I’d Still Like to Meet 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. My authors I’d like to meet post from 2017 did not age well because of stupid JK Rowling being terrible – I went straight there to see who I selected. I think author/book events are really fun and I’m happy that they’re coming back around. I also made another post in 2018 with five authors I’ve met and five I’d like to meet. I thought I would update some of these things for this post! Authors I’ve Met Leigh Bardugo I met Leigh Bardugo back during my first Book Expo trip! I thought I had a picture with her but I can’t track it down anywhere? It was such a fun event and really one of my favorite experiences in this community. I miss the 2015-2016 era of book blogging. Maureen Johnson This is the latest book event I went to, so putting it up toward the top! I had the pleasure of going to RJ Julia (my fave semi-local indie) to see Maureen Johnson talk about NINE LIARS, the latest release in the Stevie and friends/TRULY DEVIOUS series. […]

Genre Freebie: Favorite Adult Mystery/Thriller Reads 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. I’ve found myself gravitating more and more toward mysteries and thrillers lately. Maybe I’m turning into my mom as I get older, because as she puts it – “if there’s not a murder in the first couple of chapters, I’m not interested in reading it.” I find myself being more in the mood for these books than contemporary romance lately and am constantly looking for upcoming new releases to get excited about. I thought today’s genre-related freebie would be a good place to share some of my favorite mystery/thriller reads since I’ve gotten more into the genre recently. These are all adult, not YA, and have ratings in the 4.5-5 star range. (Sidenote: according to Goodreads, I’ve read 58 adult mystery/thriller books total and 140 YA ones!) Gone Girl is a classic for a reason and nothing – absolutely nothing – compares to that plot twist. Unbelievable. The Finlay Donovan series is my all-time favorite within this genre and are just some of my favorite reads in general. I loved books one and two; book three was good but not great. The Night Swim was another quick favorite of mine – I loved […]

Favorite Heroines from Recent Reads 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. I have a Goodreads shelf of main characters that I would want to be friends with, so I thought that would be a great place to look for this prompt! Alex // Finlay // Stella Miriam // Florence // Freya // Alexis Franny // Rachel // Dani

Valentine’s Day Freebie: Upcoming Contemp. Romances I Can’t Wait to Read 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. I used my usual cover-related freebie the other day so it was harder to think of what to feature here! I thought it would be fun to keep things romance-y and highlight some of the upcoming contemporary romances that I’m excited to read in 2023. I couldn’t keep this to ten books so I did only choose to highlight March through September-ish. March April May June   August and September

2023 Debuts I’m Excited About 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. I definitely need to do a better job of tracking debut authors! I realized some of my most anticipated reads of the year are debuts, which is fun! Here are some I’m excited to read – broken down by genre and/or age target where appropriate. Contemporary (+ One Fantasy!) I already read and really enjoyed LUNAR LOVE (highly recommend you check it out!). The other books featured here are primarily contemporary novels (a couple YA and the rest adult). There’s also one highly anticipated fantasy read down there (EMILY WILDE) that didn’t fit anywhere else. Mystery / Thriller / Etc. I’ve been loving mystery/thrillers lately and all of these are on my highly anticipated list for the year! I didn’t realize a few of these were debuts. These are mostly adult books with just two YA picks (CLARISSA and HOW TO FIND). There’s at least one (RUTHY) that’s more of a mixed literary/mystery and BOARD TO DEATH is a cozy.

Freebie: Recent/Upcoming Covers I Love 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. Three things are certain: death, taxes, and Lauren using a freebie TTT to talk about book covers. This week, I’m just sharing a quick snapshot of some books that just came out (within the last 6 months or less) and upcoming releases with covers I love. I keep track of these here on Goodreads if you want to check any of these books out!

Favorite New-to-Me Authors of 2022 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. This was fun to reflect on! It also inspired me to write a post about books I’m excited to read in 2023 from some of these authors, since quite a few of them have new/upcoming releases too! Here are the authors I read for the first time that I really enjoyed this year – there are a few other new-to-me authors and books I cut to keep this to ten, but this is really the true list of top faves! Ashley Winstead / Kate Spencer / Katy Birchall Carley Fortune / Lucy Clarke / Helena Greer / Holly Miller Kirsten Miller / Catherine Steadman / Emily Stone