Top Ten Tuesday #475

Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, mine was fairly quiet but I did go to a few bookshops on Wednesday on my one of my days off as there’s nothing better to do with your days off than go and visit bookshops, so that was fun and you might get a post from me about that at some point.

Anyway, it’s Tuesday and time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is our annual Summer TBR list, so it’s time for me to share another 10 books that I likely won’t get around to reading this summer because I’ve just been reading so slowly-honestly my reading has kind of fallen off a cliff in the past few years which has been incredibly frustrating! I didn’t do massively well on my Spring TBR, I finished two books and started a third, I’m hoping that my summer reading goes a bit better because I am way behind on my Goodreads goal at the moment! I don’t think I will finish all of the books on this list over the summer, but as I always do, I’m approaching these more as possibilities of what I might read over the next three months than a required reading list:

1. The Secret History of Audrey James-Heather Marshall

This is my current audiobook read which I started last week. I’m not too far in yet, about five chapters but I’m enjoying it so far, the only thing that’s bugging me is that the narrator is using an English accent for all the German characters and it has kind of been taking me out of the story!

2. The Fragile Threads of Power-VE Schwab

I continue on with my work book which I have been getting through small chunks of at a time, I’m hoping the weather might improve soon so I can sit out in the garden on nice sunny days and get through a bit more of it. Lila and Kell have entered the picture again now so I’m very excited about that!

3. The Bandit Queens-Parini Shroff

I downloaded this one before I went to Italy, thinking I’d get through a fair amount of audiobooks on the trains between cities but I didn’t so it’s still waiting to be read. I think this is going to be my next one after Audrey James though, it sounds really fun and I’ve been dying to read it for a while.

4. The Booklover’s Library-Madeline Martin

Madeline Martin has become an auto-read author for me over the past few years, I wasn’t totally enamoured with The Keeper of Hidden Books last year but I’m really excited for her new one, it sounds kind of in the vein of The Last Bookshop In London which I loved, about a widow who takes over as manager of a small community bookshop during the Blitz and struggles with the separation from her daughter who has been sent to the country for her safety. Sounds like another lovely book about the power of community in difficult times.

5. The Briar Club-Kate Quinn

As you all know, anything by Kate Quinn immediately goes on my TBR at this point. I was a little disappointed with The Phoenix Crown, I did like it but I didn’t love it as much as I’ve loved other books by Quinn (ie The Rose Code and The Alice Network) so I’m hoping I will enjoy this one a bit more-I do love that she’s been exploring different eras in her work this year so I’ll be interested to see what she does with this 1950s set story about female friendships and secrets in a Washington DC boardinghouse.

6. By Any Other Name-Jodi Picoult

I will admit, I’ve somewhat fallen off the Jodi Picoult train in recent years, I wasn’t massively enamoured with The Book of Two Ways and I’ve still not read Mad Honey, though I do want to but her upcoming new book sounds very much more up my street, it’s about Emilia Bassano, a woman speculated to be the “Dark Lady” featured in Shakespeare’s sonnets or even in some cases to have authored some of Shakespeare’s plays. I love books about forgotten women in history so this is very much up my alley and I’m so excited to read it.

7. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven-Juno Dawson

This has been on quite a few of my TBR lists over the past few months and I’ve still not got around to reading it! Maybe this summer will be the time? Or maybe it will fester her again until autumn and I’m feeling the witchy vibes? Who’s to say? But I’m feeling optimistic so I’m gonna put it here as a possibility.

8. The Radium Girls-Kate Moore

I recently saw the musical Marie Curie, based on the life of Marie Curie and her discoveries of elements-primarily radium and one of the main plot points is the harm that radium caused to many factory workers who worked with the dangerous substance without proper protection and ended up dead or seriously damaged from it. I listened to a podcast episode about the Radium Girls a while back and seeing that show reminded me that I have been meaning to read this book for ages!

9. I Must Betray You-Ruta Sepetys

When I finally finish Threads of Power, I need to get back to this book which I put down when it arrived because I was so desperate to read it. I was nearing the end of this one, I think I have about 12 chapters or so left so I really would like to finish it by the end of this year and not take it into next year with me!

10. Children of Anguish and Anarchy-Tomi Adeyemi

The third book in this trilogy is FINALLY coming out. I have to admit, I was less than enamoured with the second book and my interest somewhat wore off in the intervening years as I was convinced this book would honestly never see the light of day but now that it’s almost here, I do have to admit, I am excited to see what the end of this series has in store for Zelie and the others. I will have to read a recap of the second book first though because I don’t remember what happened even the slightest bit!

So there we go, those are the books on my Summer TBR! I know for certain that I won’t finish all of these, but hopefully I can get through at least a few before autumn hits-that’s assuming my mood doesn’t completely change and I don’t decide I want to read something totally different, it’s been happening a lot over the past few years. What’s on your Summer TBR? Do we share any? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week with another annual favourite, Most Anticipated Books Releasing In The Second Half of 2024. Once again I think my anticipated releases for the second half of the year is a little lighter than my first half of the year list, but we’ll see how we go!