Category: Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Books On My to-Read List with Animals on the Cover

Posted April 10, 2023 by Jana in Top Ten Tuesday / 18 Comments

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic was submitted by Rachel @ Sunny Side, and features animals! I thought this was the perfect springtime topic, and was excited to add it to the schedule. These books can feature animals in any way you want: pictures of them on the cover, titles with animals in them, or books with noteworthy animals in them! I’ve chosen to share books from my to-read list that have animals on the cover.

You Lucky Dog by Julia London
A Cat Cafe Christmas by Codi Gary
There is Also a Dog by Kayley Loring
Raiders of the Lost Heart by Jo Segura
Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler
Jana Goes Wild by Farah Heron
Doc Showmance by Zoe Forward
Lucy on the Wild Side by Kerry Rea
A Spot of Trouble by Teri Wilson
To Get to the Other Side by Kelly Ohlert

I haven’t read any of these yet, but I want to! Have you read any of them?
Can you think of a book that has a prominent animal friend in it? I wanted to do that topic instead, but couldn’t think of ten of them. I’d love recommendations!


Five Indie Books I Loved & Five I Want to Read

Posted April 3, 2023 by Jana in Top Ten Tuesday / 10 Comments

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic was submitted by Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits, and focuses on indie books! What’s an indie book? Well, it’s a book published by a small press not affiliated with one of the “Big 5” traditional publishers: Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, and Macmillan. The term “indie publishing” is often used interchangeably with the term “self publishing”, so I’m counting those for this week’s topic as well! I love supporting indie authors, so I was delighted to see the request that we highlight indie books this week. I’m sharing 5 indie titles that I loved, and 5 that are on my to-read list.

Indies I Loved

1. First to Fall by Jenny B. Jones
2. My Phony Valentine by Courtney Walsh
3. The Portrait by Emilia Kelly
4. Faking Christmas by Cindy Steele
5. Take Me Back by Meghan March

Indies I Want to Read

6. Three Strikes and You’re Mine by R.S. Grey
7. Let Love In by Marie Soleil
8. Cruiseshipped by Savannah Scott
9. Darkwind by Renee Dugan
10. The Make Up by Hailey Gardiner

Tell me some indie titles you love or are excited to read!


Top Ten Books to Read if You Love Christina Lauren’s Rom-Coms

Posted March 27, 2023 by Jana in Top Ten Tuesday / 12 Comments

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is “books to read if you love author x”. I love Christina Lauren’s rom-coms, so I thought I’d share my recommendations for more rom-coms by other authors! And I’m sharing both open and closed door romances, too!

Open Door

Well Played by Jen DeLuca
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
Roman Crazy by Nina Bocci and Alice Clayton
Hotshot Doc by R.S. Grey

Closed Door

First to Fall by Jenny B. Jones
My Phony Valentine by Courtney Walsh
The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
The Tourist Attraction by Sarah Morgenthaler

Do you have any recommendations for more rom-coms I might love, based on my picks this week?


Top Ten Authors I Am Craving a New Book From

Posted March 20, 2023 by Jana in Top Ten Tuesday / 16 Comments

Welcome to another TTT! This week’s topic is TTT Rewind, which means you’re invited to scan the list of 641 past topics that have been done over the last 13ish years and pick one you’d like to do! Maybe you missed a fun one that you’d like to write about, or maybe you’d like to write a follow-up or update to one you’ve done previously. I love doing this, because I can see which topics everyone has loved and it gives me ideas for hat to do in the future!

I decided to re-do a topic I did 10 years ago! My reading tastes have changed a lot since I wrote about authors I’d like a new book from, so I thought it would be fun to do it again. A lot of the authors on my list have already announced new books (I’m just impatient and want them now), and some of them have been quiet for a while and I hope to see a new book announcement (or an official release date) soon!

1. Lisa Kleypas
I kid you not, I had a dream the other night that she had announced a new book but it was a completely outlandish announcement! In my dream, she announced that she was co-writing a book with some unknown horror writer and it would be unlike anything she’d ever written. LOL. Lisa Kleypas writing horror? Please no! I’ve been searching and searching for any news from Lisa, and have only found crickets. I so hope she’s still writing!

2. Christina Lauren
After DNFing their latest book, I need an announcement for a new one ASAP. I miss their books, so I might need to do a re-read of one of my favorites soon!

3. Sarah Morgenthaler
I’ve heard news of her next book, but things have been quiet for some time and I’m wondering if it’s still happening!

4. Tessa Dare
Suuuuper excited for The Bride Bet, but it’s been a long wait so far and it looks like it’s going to continue for a while.

5. Jen DeLuca
I JUST learned that there’s going to be another Renn Faire book and I’m so excited! I’d been hoping and wishing, but only 4 had been announced. Oh, and she’s also just announced the first in a new romance series set in Florida that involves ghost hunting! Sign me up!

6. Sarah J. Maas
I know she just announced the next Crescent City book, but I’m only here for ACOTAR. Bring on the next book, please!!

7. Kate Quinn
I’m very much looking forward to her upcoming historical fiction that she’s writing with Janie Chang!

8. Sarah Hogle
She just announced Old Flames and Fortunes last month, and it sounds so happy and whimsical!

9. Danielle L. Jensen
I have been stalking her social media for news on the next Bridge Kingdom book and it’s finally happening!! This year!!

10. C.L. Wilson
I have been waiting FOREVER for the next Weathermages of Mystral Book, The Jaguar King, but things have been so quiet. And Goodreads is saying 2030 for a release date. I hope that’s wrong, but there is radio silence in Ms. Wilson’s world right now. Ahhhh!

Which topic did you pick to do this week?
What authors do you need a new book from ASAP?


Top Ten Books on My Spring 2023 To-Read List

Posted March 13, 2023 by Jana in Top Ten Tuesday / 19 Comments

Welcome to another TTT! Happy seasonal to-read list day to all who celebrate! Spring is coming in just a week, which means it’s that time again! I love writing these lists up, even if I don’t stick to them 100%. I think it’s really fun to make goals and share what I’m excited about. I also really love seeing what you’re all excited to read, too! I think I’ve got a nice mix of books releasing between now and June 21st and older titles, plus a nice sprinkling of books available through Kindle Unlimited, which I’m really enjoying right now. So here we go!

Bookshop Cinderella by Laura Lee Guhrke

Fans of Lisa Kleypas and Julia Quinn will adore this opposites-attract romance featuring a dashing duke, a shy bookshop owner, and a wager that will change their lives forever.

Evie Harlow runs a quaint little bookshop in London, which is the biggest adventure an unmarried woman with no prospects could hope for. Until Maximillian Shaw, Duke of Westbourne, saunters into her shop with a proposition: to win a bet with his friends, he’ll turn her into the diamond of the season. The duke might be devilishly attractive, but Evie has no intention of accepting his ludicrous offer. When disaster strikes her shop, however, she’s left with little choice but to let herself be whisked into his high-society world.

Always happy to help a lady in distress, Max thinks he’s saving Evie from her dull spinster’s life. He’ll help her find a husband and congratulate himself on a job well done. But as shy Evie becomes the shining star he always knew she could be, she somehow steals his heart. And when her reputation is threatened, can Max convince her to choose a glittering, aristocratic life with him over the cozy comfort of her bookshop?

Falling for Your Fake Fiancé by Emma St. Clair

What happens when the man I love to hate becomes the man I must pretend to love?

I can’t seem to escape Thayden Walker and his infuriating charm.

Even his mother and his Great Dane seem bent on playing matchmaker.

But I’m totally immune.

Until I’m presented with an offer that puts my ability to withstand him to the test.

If I marry Thayden, all my student debt goes poof, and he’ll take over the family firm.

There’s so much more at stake than money or a job, especially when I start to see the man beneath the mask.

Playing house with Thayden is the most dangerous game of all.

And we’re both set up to lose more than we could ever win.

Unless we’ve been on the same side all along …

Sweet Right Here by Jenny B. Jones

Twice jilted, I’ve sworn off love forever.
But Miller James might be the one man to change my mind.

Newly un-engaged, I’ve returned to Sugar Creek to the welcoming arms of my family to make a fresh start. While I have a reputation for being unlucky in love, I’ve just scored the career coup of a lifetime—to work at Hope Farms, a therapy ranch for military veterans. The problem? The owner is the arrogantly handsome Miller James. He might be an old friend, but Miller’s all grown up now and made it clear I’m not welcome. I’ve got six months to make my program a success, but it’s hard to help others heal with Miller’s interference—and the return of someone from my past.

Miller’s got some secrets of his own. After a family tragedy rocked his world, the entrepreneurial genius left his first class life behind to open Hope Farms. And maybe everything Miller touches does turn to gold, but when my sisters recruit him in their pursuit of my next Mr. Right, Miller gets a little too involved. The lines are blurring between work and romance, and my boss has ideas that make me question his strategies—and his heart.

Can two broken people mend enough to heal together? Nothing’s fair in love and farming, but can Miller James and I harvest our own happily ever after?

The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull

From internationally bestselling author Bryn Turnbull comes a breathtaking novel about art theft and forgery in Nazi-occupied Paris, and two brave women who risk their lives rescuing looted masterpieces from Nazi destruction.

Sophie Dix fled Stuttgart with her brother as the Nazi regime gained power in Germany. Now, with her brother gone and her adopted home city of Paris conquered by the Reich, Sophie reluctantly accepts a position restoring damaged art at the Jeu de Paume museum under the supervision of the ERR—a German art commission using the museum as a repository for art they’ve looted from Jewish families.

Fabienne Brandt was a rising star in the Parisian bohemian arts movement until the Nazis put a stop to so-called “degenerate” modern art. Still mourning the loss of her firebrand husband, she’s resolved to muddle her way through the occupation in whatever way she can—until her estranged sister-in-law, Sophie, arrives at her door with a stolen painting in hand.

Soon the two women embark upon a plan to save Paris’s “degenerates,” working beneath the noses of Germany’s top art connoisseurs to replace the paintings in the Jeu de Paume with skillful forgeries—but how long can Sophie and Fabienne sustain their masterful illusion?

French Holiday by Sarah Ready

One (crumbling) French castle. Two enemies-at-first-sight. The holiday of a lifetime.

Merry DeLuca has a problem—a big problem. Her sister just married her best friend and the only man she’s ever loved. Her life is rapidly spiraling down the drain and she doesn’t have an escape plan.

So when Merry is offered a three-month holiday living in a romantic castle in the French countryside she leaps at the chance. Merry knows her French holiday will fix everything—there will be mouthwatering pastries, delicious (meaningless) flirtations, and languid strolls through vineyards at sunset. Her holiday will be perfect.

At least, Merry believes that until she arrives and finds Noah Wright—the best man at her sister’s wedding and the worst man she’s ever known—staying in her castle.

Famous travel documentarian by day and arrogant devil by night, Noah refuses to leave the castle. Which means that Merry and Noah are stuck together in France, in a crumbling castle, in a holiday where nothing goes right. Not for Merry and not for Noah.

So they strike a truce—they’ll live as cohabitating friends for three-months, and then they’ll amicably part ways, never to see each other again.

But the thing about friendship? Sometimes secrets are uncovered. Mysteries revealed. Hearts laid bare. And friendship can start to feel a lot like caring. A lot like love. It can even make you wish that the holiday never has to end.

Where Are the Children Now? by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke

The legacy of the “Queen of Suspense” continues with the highly anticipated follow-up to Mary Higgins Clark’s iconic novel Where Are The Children?, featuring the children of Nancy Harmon, facing peril once again as adults.

Of the fifty-six bestsellers the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark published in her lifetime, Where Are the Children? was her biggest, selling millions of copies and forever transforming the genre of suspense fiction. In that story, a young California mother named Nancy Harmon was convicted of murdering her two children. Though released on a technicality, she was abandoned by her husband and became such a pariah in the media that she was forced to move across the country to Cape Cod, change her identity and appearance, and start a new life. Years later her two children from a second marriage, Mike and Melissa, would go missing, and Nancy yet again became the prime suspect—but this time, Nancy was able to confront the secrets buried in her past and rescue her kids from a dangerous predator.

Now, more than four decades since readers first met Nancy and her children, comes the thrilling sequel to the groundbreaking book that set the stage for future generations of psychological suspense novels. A lawyer turned successful podcaster, Melissa has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mom, Nancy, relocate from Cape Cod to the equally idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse.

Just like the original, Where Are the Children Now? keeps readers guessing and holding their breath until the very last page.

The Foxglove King by Hannah F. Whitten

In this lush, romantic new epic fantasy series from New York Times bestselling author Hannah Whitten, a young woman’s secret power to raise the dead plunges her into the dangerous and glamorous world of the Sainted King’s royal court.

When Lore was thirteen, she escaped a cult in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire. And in the ten years since, she’s lived by one rule: don’t let them find you. Easier said than done, when her death magic ties her to the city.

Mortem, the magic born from death, is a high-priced and illicit commodity in Dellaire, and Lore’s job running poisons keeps her in food, shelter, and relative security. But when a run goes wrong and Lore’s power is revealed, she’s taken by the Presque Mort, a group of warrior-monks sanctioned to use Mortem working for the Sainted King. Lore fully expects a pyre, but King August has a different plan. Entire villages on the outskirts of the country have been dying overnight, seemingly at random. Lore can either use her magic to find out what’s happening and who in the King’s court is responsible, or die.

Lore is thrust into the Sainted King’s glittering court, where no one can be believed and even fewer can be trusted. Guarded by Gabriel, a duke-turned-monk, and continually running up against Bastian, August’s ne’er-do-well heir, Lore tangles in politics, religion, and forbidden romance as she attempts to navigate a debauched and opulent society.

But the life she left behind in the catacombs is catching up with her. And even as Lore makes her way through the Sainted court above, they might be drawing closer than she thinks.

Gilded by Marissa Meyer

Long ago cursed by the god of lies, a poor miller’s daughter has developed a talent for spinning stories that are fantastical and spellbinding and entirely untrue.

Or so everyone believes.

When one of Serilda’s outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her… for a price.

Soon Serilda realizes that there is more than one secret hidden in the castle walls, including an ancient curse that must be broken if she hopes to end the tyranny of the king and his wild hunt forever.

Marissa Meyer, #1 New York Times-bestselling author, returns to the fairytale world with this haunting retelling of Rumpelstiltskin.

Haley and the Yeti by Laura Langa

Her grumpy neighbor wasn’t part of the plan.

After her soul-crushing breakup, Haley Kineman is stepping out of her comfort zone, moving to sunny Tucson, Arizona, and shooting for the stars—literally. When she’s not working as a phlebotomist, Haley’s striving to meet her celebrity crush who’s filming locally.

Haley has even enlisted her grumpy next-door neighbor—affectionately nicknamed Yeti—to help her get onto the movie set. With his long enviable locks, masculine beard, and alpine mountain physique, he’s an obvious choice for an ally.

All Yeti wants is to quietly develop software in his home office, but Haley throws his protective nature into overdrive after being injured in an incident. Then Yeti has no choice but to accompany Haley on her sight-seeing, thrift-shopping, iguana-saving adventures.

But Haley’s bright demeanor keeps messing with his head, making him consider things that aren’t possible. Because with Yeti’s damaging past, no woman would want him.

As their friendship deepens, Haley’s not sure if she should stick to her star-studded plan, or if a real love story is closer to home.

A Crown of Ivy and Glass by Claire Legrand

Lady Gemma Ashbourne seemingly has it all. She’s young, gorgeous, and rich. Her family was Anointed by the gods, blessed with incredible abilities. But underneath her glittering façade, Gemma is deeply sad. Years ago, her sister Mara was taken to the Middlemist to guard against treacherous magic. Her mother abandoned the family. Her father and eldest sister, Farrin—embroiled in a deadly blood feud with the mysterious Bask family—often forget Gemma exists.

Worst of all, Gemma is the only Ashbourne to possess no magic. Instead, her body fights it like poison. Constantly ill, aching with loneliness, Gemma craves love and yearns to belong.

Then she meets the devastatingly handsome Talan d’Astier. His family destroyed themselves, seduced by a demon, and Talan, the only survivor, is determined to redeem their honor. Intrigued and enchanted, Gemma proposes a bargain: She’ll help Talan navigate high society if he helps her destroy the Basks. According to popular legend, a demon called The Man With the Three-Eyed Crown is behind the families’ blood feud—slay the demon, end the feud.

But attacks on the Middlemist are increasing. The plot against the Basks quickly spirals out of control. And something immense and terrifying is awakening in Gemma, drawing her inexorably toward Talan and an all-consuming passion that could destroy her—or show her the true strength of her power at last.