Top Ten Tuesday: More, please! Authors I wish had more books for me to read…

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Authors You Wish Were Still Writing Today, with the prompt: These could be authors who have passed away or retired/are taking a long hiatus from writing. You could also spin this and share authors who have switched to a genre you’re not interested in.

Tricky… After giving this some thought, what I’ve come up with is a wishlist of sorts. I’d love more books from all of these authors! Some authors on my list are no longer with us, and others either haven’t released anything for several years, seem to have stopped writing fiction, have retired from writing… or in one case, wrapped up a series I really wish had more books!

The Dearly Departed:

  • Jane Austen: Of course! Needs no explanation.
  • Georgette Heyer: Included with an asterisk… she was such a prolific writer that there’s a daunting list of her books that I still haven’t read. I’m in no danger of running out… but still, wouldn’t it be nice if she were still producing more?
  • Mary Stewart: Now, to be fair, I’ve only read one of her books! But one of my reading goals is to read many more, and I’m eager to keep exploring.

It’s Been a While:

  • Tamora Pierce: She hasn’t released a new book in quite some time (and at least according to chatter on Reddit, is dealing with serious health issues that make another book sound questionable). Her Tortall books are so wonderful — it would be lovely to get more stories set in that world.
  • Trish Doller: I loved Float Plan and the other books in the series, and I’m just hoping she’ll have another book soon! I don’t see anything listed as upcoming on Goodreads, and it’s been a few years since her last Beck Sisters book!
  • Robin McKinley: Author of some of my favorite fantasy and fairy tale books. As far as I can see, it’s been more than ten years since her last published book, but online chatter tells me that she’s supposedly working on a new novel. Here’s hoping!

No More Fiction?

  • Nicole Peeler: Nicole Peeler wrote a fantasy series that I loved, Jane True, but that wrapped up about ten years ago, and she does not appear to still be writing fiction. Jane True is a great series! More people should know about it, in my humble opinion.
  • Amy Stewart: It’s been about five years since Amy Stewart wrapped up her Kopp Sisters series. She’s been publishing non-fiction since then, but I do wish she’d go back to the world of the Kopp Sisters… or just write more fiction of any sort!

Wishing for more in a series:

  • Charlaine Harris: Yes, yes, I know she’s still writing, and I’m happy she is! But — I do wish she’d write more in the Gunnie Rose series, which has actually already ended! That’s all… just a silly little wish on my part.

Officially Retired:

  • Mary Doria Russell: Officially retired from writing fiction (although still very active on social media). I’ve loved her historical fiction and science fiction (The Sparrow remains an all-time favorite).

    What authors do you wish had more books for you to read?

    If you wrote a TTT post this week, please share your link!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Backlist Books to Read (2026 update)

    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a freebie, which means we all come up with our own topics. I’ve done freebie posts focusing on backlist books a few times (here are my lists from 2025 and 2024), and thought I’d come back with some new and updated picks.

    Below are backlist books from favorite authors, all of which I’d like to make time for. I’ve read these authors’ more recent books, and now want to go back to earlier books and see what I might have missed!

    1. TJ Klune: Murmuration was originally pubished in 2016, and is being reissued in November 2026. How could I possibly resist? I love this new cover.
    2. Kelley Armstrong: After finishing her Rockton and Haven’s Rock series, I’m curious about her supernatural series, Women of the Otherworld, starting with Bitten.
    3. Jenny Colgan: I have a handful of her early books to read — and while some that I’ve tried feel pretty dated, I’m still up for trying Amanda’s Wedding, and possibly others as well.
    4. Colleen Oakley: I’ve enjoyed several of her books… and this earlier one is sitting on my bookshelf.
    5. Sally Hepworth: The Secrets of Midwives is the only one of her books that I haven’t read yet, and I think I need to fix that.
    6. Ariel Lawhon: I’ve now read two of her more recent books with my book group. I Was Anastasia sounds like something I’d find appealing.
    7. Rachel Koller Croft: I loved her disco vampire book, We Love the Nightlife, and definitely need to read this earlier release as well.
    8. Jennifer Weiner: Every time I read a book by this author, I’m eager to read even more. Mrs. Everything was released in 2019 and I’ve been meaning to read it ever since.
    9. Katherine Center: I believe I have only two of her early books yet to read. The Lost Husband is the one I’m most likely to pick up.
    10. Julia Quinn: I gobbled up the Bridgertons series, so why not read the prequel series too?

    Have you read any of my backlist picks? Any you especially recommend?

    If you wrote a freebie post this week, what topic did you choose? Please share your link!

    Top Ten Tuesday: April Showers

    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is April Showers, with the prompt: Interpret this however you’d like: rainy day reads, books that make you cry, books that give you happy tears, books to wash away a bad reading experience, books set in rainy places, books with rain/raindrops/umbrellas on the cover, blue book covers, etc.

    I’ve decided to go with the rain theme: “Rain” in the title, or rain on the cover, or a cover/title that’s rain-adjacent (hence the umbrella covers!). Here are my ten:

    1. In Mercy, Rain by Seanan McGuire: Story set in the world of the Wayward Children series
    2. Nothing But the Rain by Naomi Salman: On my TBR
    3. Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie: I have a copy of the paperback on my shelf, but haven’t read it yet
    4. Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes: And yet another owned but not read!
    5. Rainwater by Sandra Brown: A book group book from over five years ago
    6. The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer: An umbrella not just on the cover, but important to the plot! (amazing book)
    7. The Umbrella Academy graphic novel series: I’ve read the first volume in this series — this is the image from the Netflix series, but I like the look of it much better than the book cover
    8. Gathering Storm by Maggie Craig: Terrific historical fiction… and storms are rain-adjacent!
    9. Soulless by Gail Carriger: OK, granted, it’s the Parasol Protectorate series… but the cover image looks much more like an umbrella than a parasol to me
    10. Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra: Read with a book group something like 20 years ago! I don’t think I understood more than half of it… but I do like the title and cover

    What April Showers books did you feature this week?

    Share your link, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Describe Me/My Life

    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Book Titles That Describe Me/My Life, with the prompt: Example titles: Well Traveled could describe you if you like to travel, Hotshot Doc could describe you if you’re an awesome doctor, Falling into Place could describe a life where things are starting to work out, An Infinite Love Story could describe your relationship, It Could Have Been Her could describe a thing you’re happy you avoided or a path you could have taken but didn’t. You can explain your choices or not, and they can be as specific or as abstract as you’d like.

    Fun challenge! I searched my bookshelves, and here’s what I’ve come up with:

    1. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: Coffee and books sum up my life pretty accurately!
    2. The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan: My husband is the family cook… and yes, I know how lucky I am!
    3. This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune: I love planning vacations, and try to find something new to explore each summer.
    4. Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire: Fields, trails, paths by the beach… get me outside with space to walk and appreciate the views, and I’m happy.
    5. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain: I haven’t made it to Camelot, but I’m originally from Connecticut, and even though it still feels like home, I’ve lived far away from there most of my adult life.
    6. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: My fandoms bring me joy! It’s the little pop culture moments that add a bit of zing.
    7. Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan: Sweets are my weakness, and I will never say no to meeting a friend at a bakery
    8. Finding Fraser by KC Dyer: Reading Outlander for the first time, over 15 years ago, not only introduced me to a favorite series and characters but also led me to my book group, which brings me so much joy.
    9. Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire: Dancing has been a big part of my life since childhood! Not in a polished performance — but in the chaotic way that recreational dancing brings people together and provides endless enjoyment and fresh challenges
    10. A House for Happy Mothers by Amulya Malladi: Being a mom — even now that my kids are grown — means the world to me.

    Do you have book titles that describe your life?

    Share your link, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set In Places on My Bucket List

    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books About/Set In Places on My Bucket List. I think this list will be very similar to a recent TTT about armchair travel… but I’ll try to avoid too much duplication (although books #1 and #2 just can’t be helped!)

    Here are my top 10 books with bucket list destinations:

    1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
    Bucket list destination: Scotland

    Not exactly shocking to see Outlander on a TTT list of mine… but this is the book that first made me dream of a trip to Scotland, and I’m still determined to make it happen!

    2. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
    Bucket list destination: Prince Edward Island

    3. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
    Bucket list destination: Australia

    4. Love & Olives by Jenna Evans Welch
    Bucket list destination: Santorini, Greece

    5. Jane Was Here by Nicole Jacobsen & Devynn Dayton
    Bucket list destination: A Jane Austen tour of England!

    6. Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
    Bucket list destination: Tuscany

    (although the experiences described in this horror book are definitely not on my bucket list!)

    7. The Love Haters by Katherine Center
    Bucket list destination: Florida Keys

    8. Off the Map by Trish Doller
    Bucket list destination: Ireland

    9. Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
    Bucket list destination: Ontario (ideally, summer by a lake in Ontario!)

    10. Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
    Bucket list destination: Moloka’i, Hawaii

    (I’ve been to other of the Hawaiian islands, but not Moloka’i — and I’ll take any excuse for a trip to Hawaii!)

    What books made your list this week?

    Share your link, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten books on my TBR list for spring 2026

    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is about our spring 2026 reading plans.

    I did a quick scan of my winter TBR post… and was surprised to see that I didn’t do quite as badly as I’d thought! Of my 10 winter TBR books, I actually read five and DNFd one. I do still want to read these remaining four books…

    … but I’m not sure when. Let’s just say that I’m going to try to get to these sometime this year — because at the moment, between ARCs and book group books, I feel like I’m “booked” solid.

    Earlier in the year, I shared a post on my most anticipated new releases for the first half of 2026 — all of which remain books I’m eager to read (or have read already!). I’m including a few below, as well as a bunch of others… because I’ll never run out of books that I want to read.

    Here are the top 10 books I’m planning to read this spring — mostly new releases, but also two books from series that are high priorities for me:

    1. The Name Game by Beth O’Leary
    2. Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune
    3. Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor (I can’t wait to finally start this series!)
    4. The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
    5. We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune
    6. The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer
    7. Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monghan
    8. Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell
    9. Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
    10. Love by the Book by Jessica George

    What books will you be reading this spring? Do we have any in common?

    Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Green Book Covers (Happy St. Patrick’s Day!)

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    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Green Book Covers (In honor of St. Patrick’s Day today!)

    Here are ten twelve from my shelves — some that I’ve read, and some on my TBR. Yes, I’m including more than 10 — I added a whole bunch, and couldn’t decide which to cut!

    1. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
    2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K Rowling
    3. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
    4. The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
    5. The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O’Clover
    6. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
    7. The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh by Claudia Grey
    8. Sula by Toni Morrison
    9. Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill
    10. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
    11. A Storms of Swords by George R. R. Martin
    12. The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

    If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles Featuring Ordinal Numbers

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    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Book Titles Featuring Ordinal Numbers.

    My original thought was to go in order from 1 to 10, and stick with books I’ve actually read. However… I got stuck on #6 and #8, and rather than adding books that I haven’t read, I’m skipping those and adding in a couple of others.

    So, here we have ordinal numbers mainly from 1 – 10, plus two teens!

    First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong
    The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser

    The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi

    Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

    The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

    The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher

    Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

    The Tenth Good Thing About Barney by Judith Viorst

    The Thirteenth Husband by Greer Macallister

    The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

    (I considered including two books that have been recommended to me at various times, The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert and Eighth Grave after Dark by Darynda Jones — but since I doubt I’ll ever read either one, decided to drop them!)

    What books made your list this week?

    If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Genre freebie — send in the clones!

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    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Genre Freebie, with the prompt Pick a genre and build a list around it. You could do historical fiction featuring strong female leads, contemporary romance set in foreign countries, mysteries starring unreliable narrators, lyrical fiction books in verse, historical romance featuring pirates, Gothic novels with birds on the cover, etc. There are so many options!

    After flipping between a few options, I’ve landed on science fiction for my genre… and getting more specific, I’m focusing on sci-fi books with clones, cloning, or other similar genetic shenanigans!

    Here are a bunch I’ve found fascinating, including a few oldies:

    1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
    2. Archetype by M. D. Waters (review)
    3. The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey (review)
    4. Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (review)
    5. The Boys From Brazil by Ira Levin (check out this Flashback Friday post for more on this book and #6)
    6. Joshua Son of None by Nancy Freedman
    7. Micky 7 by Edward Ashton (the only one here that I haven’t read yet — the book is on my TBR, and I really enjoyed the movie!)
    8. Y: The Last Man (series) by Brian K. Vaughan
    9. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
    10. Extinction by Douglas Preston (review)

    Have you read any great books about clones? I’d love to hear recommendations!

    Which genre did you feature this week?

    If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

    Top Ten Tuesday: Random book quotes from my recent reading

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    Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Quotes From/About Books, with the prompt: Share book quotes you love, quotes about being a reader, etc.

    I last did a TTT post about favorite book-related quotes in 2020 (here)… and the quotes I highlighted are still favorites! So, instead of repeating myself, I thought I’d do a slightly different spin on the topic and share some selections that I highlighted during my Kindle reading this past year. Most are rather silly… and I’m having fun revisiting them!

    1: The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

    “You know why no one has killed me yet?”

    “Why?”

    “Because I never kill anyone,” says Viktor. “Honestly, once you start, that’s it, you have to keep killing.”

    “That’s like lip salve,” says Pauline. “Once you start using it, your lips dry out, and so you have to keep using it.”

    2: The Lark series by E. Nesbit

    Life is a lark—all the parts of it, I mean, that are generally treated seriously: money, and worries about money, and not being sure what’s going to happen. Looked at rightly, all that’s an adventure, a lark. As long as you have enough to eat and to wear and a roof to sleep under, the whole thing’s a lark. Life is a lark for us, and we must treat it as such.

    3: A Damsel in Distress by P. G. Wodehouse

    I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that proposing’s a thing that simply isn’t within the scope of a man who isn’t moderately woozled.

    4: Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

    She has not run down the stairs like this since she was a teenager, when your heart reaches the front door before your feet.

    5: Writing Mr. Wrong by Kelley Armstrong

    “Please tell me you’re serious. The hockey star you kissed in high school is now suggesting fake dating? After a meet-cute reunion on live TV? Can I book you guys a hotel room with only one bed?”

    6: Lucy Undying by Kiersten White

    Then I sat and thought of Mina and had a nice, self-indulgent cry. Sometimes a girl finds herself alone at the feet of an unknown land, covered in grime, having just decapitated a stranger, and it’s all too much.

    7: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

    As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: “When shall we three meet again?”

    There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: “Well, I can do next Tuesday.”

    8: Miss Lattimore’s Letter by Suzanne Allain

    By the end of the morning, a morning spent in traversing the room back and forth in earnest conversation, the two young ladies were quite pleased at having made the acquaintance of someone who seemed destined to become a friend. They even had that most important characteristic of all in common: they counted the same books among their favorites.

    9: We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft

    When she smiles at me, I see her fangs have sprouted for the first time. They’re adorable!

    10: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows

    So. Her husband-to-be was a philanderer. A smooth operator. A debaucher. A rake. A frisker. (Jane became something of a walking thesaurus when she was upset, a side effect of too much reading.)

    Do you have any favorite quotes from books you’ve read recently?

    If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!