Top Ten Tuesday #406

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these. As I mentioned in my last TTT, I went to see Wicked last week and it was just as incredible as ever, and I loved getting to see some details that I’ve never been able to before from further back seats-Elphaba’s Wicked Witch of The West costume is so much more intricate that I realised. Lucie Jones and Helen Woolf were both absolutely fabulous as well, as was the whole cast, it was just a thoroughly enjoyable night and reminded me why this is my favourite West End show. I seem to have a tradition of going to see it once every four years (the time before this was 2019) so if that continues, the next time I’d see it would be 2027, but I have a feeling I will probably get the itch to see it again way before that!

I’ve actually got theatre plans again this week, another show that my family booked to see through the Official London Theatre Sale (I’m not even kidding when I say that I’m excitedly wondering what discounted theatre I might get to go and see next January/February with this), we’re going to see Dirty Dancing. The last time I saw Dirty Dancing, it was in German as our school took us to see it as part of our German Exchange, so whilst I did understand the story last time as I’m familiar with the film, it will be nice to actually understand everything the actors are saying this time!

Anyway, as ever, today’s Top Ten Tuesday is courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic was meant to be 2023 Debuts I’m Excited About, but sadly, I don’t have a huge number of debuts on my 2023 releases list. I’m excited to discover more through all of yours, but for my topic this week I’ll simply be sharing my Favourite Debut Novels. I have done this topic before, but it was all the way back in 2015, and I’ve read so many great debut novels since, so this will be some of my favourite debut novels from the past seven years:

1. Rebel of The Sands-Alwyn Hamilton (2016 debut)

Rebel of The Sands was one of my absolute favourite books of 2016, made even better by the fact that Hannah and I had met Alwyn at YALC the year previously where she was promoting her then-not-yet-released debut. It was so action packed and fun and I fell completely in love with Amani. Sadly the rest of the trilogy didn’t live up to the promise of the first book for me, but Rebel of The Sands will always be one of my favourites. I hope The Notorious Virtues comes out in the not too distant future, it has been ages since she first announced it!

2. Looking For Jane-Heather Marshall (2022 debut)

I’ve waxed lyrical about how much I loved Looking For Jane many times on this blog before and you’ll be getting more of it here, sorry not sorry. It was such a beautiful, moving and poignant book and so incredibly timely given everything that has happened and continues to happen with the rolling back of reproductive rights in the US. It was also just amazingly written and given that authors tend to get better the more books they write, if this was Heather Marshall’s debut, I cannot wait to see where her career goes!

3. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder-Holly Jackson (2019 debut)

I’m quite picky about mysteries because I find that they rarely ever thrill me in the way that I’m hoping for, so A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder was a real breath of fresh air for me in that respect! It was a really fun and fast paced story and I didn’t work out the twists until right before the end which I loved, there’s nothing more boring for me than when I’ve worked out who did it by halfway through the book. I still haven’t finished the trilogy yet but I’m hoping to make some progress on that this year.

4. The City of Brass-S.A. Chakraborty (2017 debut)

This was one of my lockdown reads and I have to say sitting out on my balcony becoming engrossed in Nahri and Ali’s adventures was the perfect distraction from everything that was going on at the time! I was quickly gripped by Nahri, Ali grew on me through the book and I absolutely loved the world that Chakraborty created. I finished the first book in April, and had devoured the whole trilogy by mid-August! I’m really excited for Chakraborty’s latest book, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi to come out, I’m looking forward to seeing what she does outside of the Daevabad world.

5. A Song of Wraiths and Ruin-Roseanne A.Brown (2020 debut)

This book was my companion in the November lockdown and I completely fell in love with both Karina and Malik and it was a really fun and exciting read. Sadly I didn’t love the second book in the duology quite as much, but I’ll definitely be looking out for Roseanne Brown’s next YA series (she’s writing an MG one at the minute and I just don’t read a whole lot of MG anymore).

6. Children of Blood and Bone-Tomi Adeyemi (2018 debut)

I’m not sure I’ll ever completely get over finishing this book on the train to YALC, being so hyped to meet Tomi and ask her some of the questions I had after finishing…..and then her signing queue being cut off before it got to me and my friend’s number due to time constraints. Please come back to the U.K. again Tomi! Anyway, point being, I really loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the world Tomi created and despite the occasional pacing issues, I found it to generally be a really exciting and action packed read. I was sadly let down by the second book in the trilogy though which hugely suffered from middle book syndrome. I’m hoping the third book will live up to the promise that the first had, whenever it finally comes out, Goodreads has the release date set as 22nd September this year…..but I’ve not seen any announcements from the author on that front, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

7. To Kill A Kingdom-Alexandra Christo (2018 debut)

Both of my friends and I got this book at YALC in 2018, and we all loved it, so ringing endorsement from all three of us on this one! It was such a fun read, I loved the characters (especially Lira), Alexandra Christo’s writing was fabulous and it was just such a fun story that by the time I finished it, I was wishing it was longer because I wanted to spend more time with the characters. I’ve since read the first book in Alexandra Christo’s duology, Into The Crooked Place and really enjoyed that, and I’m looking forward to reading its sequel, City of Spells.

8. Caraval-Stephanie Garber (2017 debut)

After failing to win an ARC of this at YALC in 2016, I was approved for one on Netgalley and read it in January of 2017. Though it was a slow starter, I ended up completely falling in love with the book and the world that Stephanie Garber created, it truly felt like I was immersed in the world of Caraval and experiencing the game alongside Scarlett. I ended up loving the sequel, following Scarlett’s sister Tella even more, though the final book (Finale) was a bit of a let down. I’m excited to explore a new part of the world of Caraval whenever I finally manage to read Once Upon A Broken Heart (it is currently sitting on my shelf judging me).

9. Enchantee-Gita Trelease (2019 debut)

I completely fell in love with Gita Trelease’s debut in January 2019, she so vividly portrayed 18th Century Paris and Versailles that it felt like I could be wandering alongside Camille which is always something I love in a book. I love the magic, I loved the characters, and most of all I loved Camille’s relationship with her sister Sophie, which is the driving force of the book. I sadly still haven’t got around to reading the sequel, Liberte, as I couldn’t get it on audio and I didn’t want to read the e-book. I may have to bite the bullet and get a physical copy, but I hate not having a complete series (I got Enchantee from Netgalley) and I don’t want to spend money on a book I’ve already read!

10. Timekeeper-Tara Sim (2016 debut)

I hate that this series isn’t more widely talked about in the blogging community because I loved it so much and it’s one of those rare trilogies where there isn’t a single bad book, all the books are great: no middle book slumps here (the second book of the series was actually my favourite!). It’s such a fun concept, an alternate Victorian London (and later India) which is powered by clock towers which start to be destroyed and the main character, a clock mechanic has to work out who is trying to destroy the towers and stop them before time itself stops. It also has one of my absolute favourite m/m romances of all time between the clock mechanic Danny, and a clock spirit called Colton, they are the absolute epitome of the grumpy/sunshine trope and I love them to pieces. If you like fantasy, you should definitely read this trilogy because it’s honestly unlike anything I’ve ever read before in the best possible way. I need to read more of Tara Sim’s books, I think I’m going to try her adult novel, City of Dusk next.

11. Not Even Bones-Rebecca Schaeffer (2018 debut)

Another pandemic read (in that I read it in 2020, not that it’s about a pandemic) and one that I absolutely loved. It’s brilliantly dark, and I loved both the main characters Nita and Kovit, I love it when basically every character in a book is a villain which was definitely the case here. It was a really unique concept as well, of a girl who dissects the body parts of supernatural beings for her mother but ends up becoming her mother’s next sale when she saves her mother’s latest victim due to her ability to alter her biology. I love it when I read a book and feel like I’ve read something completely different and I definitely got that here. I was so excited for the next book that I ordered it the minute I finished this one…..and it’s still sitting unread on my shelf! Classic book blogger behaviour!

12. The Crown’s Game-Evelyn Skye (2016 debut)

I read this one in the winter of 2017, and I really enjoyed it, despite the slow start! I loved the characters (well I loved Vika and Pasha, Nikolai I could take or leave) and I really loved the magic that the characters were able to do and the variety of magic shown in the book, from small spells to big enchantments. I also loved the setting, Skye created such a vivid picture of Imperial Russia that it felt like it came alive on the page for me. Sadly, I didn’t love the conclusion to the duology, The Crown’s Fate as it felt rushed and more suited to being a middle book in a trilogy than the final book in a duology, but The Crown’s Game was a strong debut. I still have the first book in her second duology, Circle of Shadows on my shelf to read, hopefully I can get around to that one soon!

So there we go, those are some of my favourite debuts from the past seven years since I last did this topic! From this list, it seems like 2016 and 2018 were a particularly strong year for debuts as I have three favourites from both of those years (though I didn’t actually read two of the 2018 books until 2019 and 2020 respectively). Have you read any of these books? Did you like them? What 2023 debuts are you looking forward to? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, as it’s Valentine’s Day, it is of course our annual Valentine’s Day freebie. I have to admit, I’m running out of ideas I’ve not done for this one, especially given I don’t much care for Valentine’s Day and I feel like I’ve run the gamut of Valentine’s topics over the past several years, but I’ve decided to do the one I swapped out for Favourite Rom-Coms last year and do Books With Hearts On The Cover since we’ve not yet done a cover topic this year and you guys always seem to really like those!