Top Ten Tuesday #393

Hi everyone, I hope you’ve all had a good week since last did one of these. I’ve got quite a busy upcoming week, I had a riding lesson today, I’ve got a job interview on Thursday, a book event on Friday and meeting up with a friend on Saturday, so it’s definitely a jam-packed week going on here!

Before I get into today’s post, I wanted to mention that I now have Ko-Fi. If you enjoy my content and are in a position where you feel able to support me financially, then I would be massively grateful to anyone who wanted to “buy me a coffee” as Ko-Fi says! I’m obviously still going to be blogging here no matter what, but any extra support would always be greatly appreciated! You can find my Ko-Fi here:

https://ko-fi.com/iloveheartlandx

Anyway, it’s Tuesday, and time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s topic is Series I Need To Catch Up On/Finish and BOY OH BOY DO I FEEL CALLED OUT BY TODAY’S TOPIC! I am so behind on pretty much all my series because I just haven’t really been reading physical books over the past couple of years and most of my series are in physical format, so I don’t want to waste audiobook credits on books I already own. Hopefully next year, I’ll start to get back into my physical books a bit more and see if I can clear some of these from this list, though I’m sure I’ll just replace them with new series I have to finish, as seen by the fact that this is the second time I’m doing this topic, I last did it two years ago and I don’t have any repeats on this list (of course, I’ve only finished two of the series I mentioned on that list in the past two years, but shhh…..). Anyway, here we go:

1. King of Scars Duology-Leigh Bardugo: Books To Finish: #2

Okay so here’s the story with this one. I read King of Scars back in July 2020, when Rule of Wolves hadn’t come out yet. I pre-ordered Rule of Wolves and got it the following year, but then I was in a huge reading slump in 2021, where all I really wanted to read was audiobooks, and I definitely wasn’t feeling in the mood for incredibly long and chunky books. Cue 2022 and I’m still not really in the mood for chunky books. Hopefully this changes soon as I have a lot of chunky books waiting on my shelf!

2. Noughts and Crosses Series-Malorie Blackman: Books To Finish: #6

I only have the final book in this series left to go, but I still haven’t picked it up. I think partly because I was a little disappointed by Crossfire, but also because I just haven’t really been reading physical books. I do want to finish it because the Noughts and Crosses series was a big part of my childhood and I’d like to see how everything wraps up, but it’s not necessarily a priority for me at this point?

3. The Gilded Wolves Trilogy-Roshani Chokshi: Books To Finish: #3

I only have the third book in this trilogy to go and I really want to make it a priority for next year because The Silvered Serpents left off on a massive cliffhanger that I’ve obviously not yet read the ending of and I just want to see how everything wraps up for Severin and his crew in this series.

4. Into The Crooked Place Duology-Alexandra Christo: Books To Finish: #2

Okay, in my defence on this one, I lent the second book to my friend and we haven’t seen each other in a while so I just haven’t got it back yet. Also it’s been three years since I read the first one, so I don’t really remember what happened. To be honest, that could be the bigger problem here…..

5. Shadow Players Trilogy-Heidi Heilig: Books To Finish: #2 and #3

I have the second book in this trilogy, but don’t have the third yet, I was waiting for the paperback to be released as I have the rest of the series in paperback. I think it is out in paperback now, so I just need to get it and then I’ll have both books I need to finish the series.

6. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder Series-Holly Jackson: Books To Finish: #0.5, #2 and #3

I fully intend to finish the second book by the end of this year, I have started it, but once again my interest in physical books kind of waned this year, but I have a very long flight to Australia at the end of the year, so I’m hoping to be able to knock the second book in this series out during that one. I may even squeeze in the novella before the end of the year as it’s very short. The chunky beast that is Book #3 will have to wait till I’m in more of a chunky beast mood (and have finished aforementioned Book #2).

7. Skulduggery Pleasant Series-Derek Landy: Books To Finish: #14 & #15

This is another case of just not in the mood for chunksters at the minute. I don’t recommend being a fantasy reader not feeling in the mood for chunky books, it doesn’t work well. It’s honestly probably part of the reason I’ve turned to other genres in the past couple of years! I also just don’t trust Derek Landy after Dying of The Light that this really will be the end….he doesn’t seem to like endings!

8. The Trials of Apollo Series-Rick Riordan: Books To Finish: #4 & #5

Honestly I did kind of lose interest in the Trials of Apollo series after The Burning Maze, it does feel like I’m a little too old to appreciate Rick Riordan’s books in the same way that I used to, but at the same time, I got so far through the series, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to just leave it hanging. We’ll see if I feel like I want to come back to it in the next couple of years or not.

9. Market of Monsters Trilogy-Rebecca Schaeffer: Books To Finish: #2 & #3

I really have no excuse for this one at all, I was so excited for the second book after I finished the first that I got it off Amazon the same day I finished, in a very rare move for me because I really do try not to buy books from Amazon (at least not physical books, I’m very attached to Audible). But A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder was our book club read for the book club I’m in on Goodreads and I really wanted to read that, so it was just a case of bad timing. I will admit that I have now forgotten what happened in the first book, but hopefully it will come back to me when I start the second!

10. The Bone Season Series-Samantha Shannon: Books To Finish: #4

This is an ongoing series, and I have read MOST of the fourth book. I got I think like 300 odd pages through and then my Netgalley copy expired and I was reading another book at the time so I didn’t want to pick up another physical book….and well things just spiralled from there. I really don’t want to have to start again, and I roughly remember where I was up to, so I think I may try and pick it back up and finish it before the end of the year, although the next book isn’t coming out till 2024, so I have time!

11. The Dreamer Trilogy-Maggie Stiefvater: Books To Finish: #2 & #3

I think part of the reason why I haven’t picked up the 2nd book in this series yet was that I was slightly disappointed with Call Down The Hawk. However I do want to finish Ronan’s trilogy and now that it’s complete, maybe I’ll find the motivation to do so? Or maybe not…..who knows at this point!

12. Liberte-Gita Trelease: Books To Finish: #2

This one is a victim of length of time between release dates to be completely honest. I loved Enchantee and was so excited for Liberte when I finished it. I think it was originally meant to come in 2020, but then got pushed back because the author needed more time (totally fair) but by the time it came out, it just wasn’t top of my radar anymore? It’s not the author’s fault, and I would much rather authors took the time they needed for their books than put out a rushed one, but it’s just a natural fact of your reading life that a lot of books come out every year and when one gets pushed back, others do tend to take their place. Then when it did come out, I just wasn’t feeling e-books and I had a Netgalley copy that I never got around to downloading, and it doesn’t seem to have an audiobook which right now is probably the most surefire way I’d actually finish it.

So yeah….long story short, I have no idea when I’ll finish this duology. To be honest, Enchantee did wrap up in a way that if I never finished Liberte, I probably wouldn’t feel like I was missing anything. Still I don’t like to leave things unfinished!

Next week’s topic is meant to be Favourite Aww Moments In Books, but honestly I don’t think I could think of many off the top of my head, since the books I read generally don’t lend themselves to well to “Aww” moments. So instead, I’m going to go completely off base (and off books) and share some of my Favourite Taylor Swift Lyrics, I saw Rissi from Finding Wonderland do this as a twist on the Favourite Words topic we did a few weeks back and it seemed like something I’d love to do, so I’m going to do that for my next week’s topic instead.