Top Ten Tuesday: It’s all about LOVE… My ten favorite love stories from this past year of reading (new & improved for 2022)

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 Love Freebie, which means we all put our own spin on the topic of LOVE.

Just like I did for the February Love Freebie TTT posts in 2020 and 2021, I’m going to keep it simple and highlight my ten favorite love stories that I read in the past year:

1. Heartstopper graphic novels by Alice Oseman: I just want to give the main characters all the hugs! These books are sweet and funny and also heart-breaking at times.

2. The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer: Reading a romance novel with a Jewish holiday as its central plot point was so much fun.

3. Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev: I’m loving this author’s series of Austen adaptations! (Next one will be an Emma retelling, and I can’t wait!)

4. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon: You didn’t think I’d write a list of favorite love stories and not include Outlander, did you? There’s SO much going on in this book — battles and danger and journeys and more — but Jamie and Claire’s love story is still the heart and soul of the series.

5. Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell: A terrific science fiction adventure with a compelling romance at its center.

6. All the Feels by Olivia Dade: Another fun, steamy romance set in the same fanfic-centric world as Spoiler Alert.

7. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry: I loved this friends-to-lovers-to-not-friends-to-lovers tale! It’s quirky and funny and sincere, and just so much fun.

8. The Stand-In by Lily Chu: I had a great time listening to this audiobook, about an ordinary woman introduced to the glamorous world of movie stars, and finding love along the way.

9. Donut Fall in Love by Jackie Lau: Another falling-in-love-with-a-celebrity romance, but with baked goods!! I mean, how could I possibly resist?

10. The Sweetest Remedy by Jane Igharo: A lovely story about family and connection and yes, finding true love.

What were the best love stories you read during the past year?

If you wrote a TTT post this week, please share your link and let me know your topic!

And PS – Happy (early) Valentine’s Day!

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And PPS — Since this post is going up on February 8th…

Happy Anniversary to us! 24 years ago today, my husband and I said “I do” in a cute little wedding chapel in Reno, Nevada!

1Feb2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Character Names in the Titles

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 with Names/Character Names In the Titles. I did something similar for a freebie TTT topic several years ago (here), and although it’s tempting, I’m not going to repeat any for today’s list!

Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren (review)
Gwendy’s Button Box by Richard Chizmar and Stephen King (review)
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer
How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior (review)
Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir (review)
Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti (review)
Beth & Amy by Virginia Kantra (review)
Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots by Seanan McGuire
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado
Naomi & Ely’s No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

What books made your list this week?

Please share your link so I can check out your top 10!

25Jan2022

Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2021

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2021.

There were way more than 10, and it’s so hard to choose favorites… but I’ll go with these ten, whose books I really enjoyed:

Julia Quinn (I read ALL the Bridgerton books!)
Rosie Danan
Sarah Morgenthaler
Crystal Maldonado
Kristen O’Neal
C. Robert Cargill
Adrian Tchaikovsky
William Kent Krueger
Everina Maxwell
Emiko Jean

What new-to-you authors did you discover in 2021? Any particular favorites? Do we have any in common?

Please share your link so I can check out your top 10!

18Jan2022

Top Ten Tuesday: 2021 Releases I Was Excited to Read But Didn’t Get To

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 2021 Releases I Was Excited to Read But Didn’t Get To. So, so many of these!

Here are 10 that fit the topic — all of which I still really want to read!

Have you read any of these? Which ones should I tackle first?

If you posted a TTT list this week, please share your link!

11Jan2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection. I did buy a LOT of books at the end of 2021 — but I think I’ve share most of those already.

Usually, I build these posts around my physical books purchases, but to switch things up, here are my 10 most recent additions to my Kindle library:

Have you read any of these? Which ones do you think should be my priorities to read?

If you posted a TTT list this week, please share your link!

4Jan2022

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the First Half of 2022

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the First Half of 2022. While one of my goals this year is to read the books I already own, I can’t help feeling excited about a bunch of new releases that will be coming my way too!

My 10 most anticipated new releases for the first half of 2022 are:

Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children, #7) by Seanan McGuire (1/4 — my copy arrives today!)
An Impossible Imposter (Veronica Speedwell, #7) by Deanna Raybourn (2/14)
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle (3/1)
Spelunking Through Hell (Incryptids, #11) by Seanan McGuire (3/1)
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (3/15)
Reputation by Lex Croucher (4/5)
The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth (4/5)
To Marry and to Meddle (The Regency Vows, #3) by Martha Waters (4/5)
Book of Night by Holly Black (5/3)
Tokyo Dreaming by Emiko Jean (5/31)

What new releases are you most looking forward to in 2022? Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

7Dec2021

Top Ten Tuesday: The long & the short of it

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 — so we all come up with whatever topic we feel like writing about.

My topic this week is the long & the short of it — the longest and shortest books I’ve read in the past year. Keeping it simple!

My five longest books were:

1. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (Outlander, #9) by Diana Gabaldon: 960 pages. Just finished this week!

2. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: 940 pages. My book group’s classic read — took us about a year, but we made it.

3. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (Outlander, #8) by Diana Gabaldon: 825 pages. This was a re-read, but so necessary in preparation for book #9.

4. Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3) by Rainbow Rowell: 579 pages. I really wish this wasn’t the end of the story — I want more!

5. The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley: 544 pages. Another re-read, but it had been many years since the first time I read it, and I loved it all over again.

And the shortest:

1. The Wickeds (Faraway Collection) by Gayle Forman: 32 pages. This is really just a short story, but I’m including it anyway! This collection of fairy tales was fun, and I liked this one best of all.

2. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen: 122 pages. Another book group classic read, with such great discussions.

3. A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow: 128 pages. Wonderful fairy tale novella.

4. Rizzio by Denise Mina: 128 pages. Another novella, historical fiction this time, telling the story of a real-life murder in the court of Mary, Queen of Scots.

5. One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky: 144 pages. Great sci-fi novella.

What were your longest and shortest reads this year?

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

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30Nov2021

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Memories

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 Bookish Memories — described by the meme host as share stories of your reading life as a child, events you’ve gone to, books that made an impression on you, noteworthy experiences with books, authors you’ve met, etc. Reminisce with me!

In no particular order, here are ten random bookish memories that have stayed with me:

1 Traveling to Phoenix, Arizona in 2014 to attend a book event with Diana Gabaldon for the release of Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, the 8th book in the Outlander series. I had consistently been unable to attend every one of her events in my own town, so I made the decision to travel for this one, and it was so worth it!

2. Reading with my kids! Highlights include cracking up while listening to my 3-year-old trying to recite along with Richard Scarry’s A-Z book of cars. Hilarious! Also, reading the entire Harry Potter series out loud with my son, and starting him off early (as an infant) by reading poems to him from A. A. Milne’s books.

3. My favorite childhood reading spot — I grew up in an observant Jewish household, which meant no TV or other forms of entertainment on Saturday afternoons. We had a big armchair in the living room, and I would spend hours on those afternoons curled up in it with a book.

4. Meeting Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy!!) at a small book event at a local bookstore. She was doing a reading from a book she’d written (Death’s Daughter), and my daughter and I arrived early to browse… and met Amber while she was also browsing. We chatted, and she was so nice! (And clearly a book lover…)

5. Attending summer camp as a young teen and having copies of Our Bodies, Ourselves passed around the bunk. Between that and certain Judy Blume books, it was an eye-opening summer for a lot of us!

6. Going to a silent reading party — and enjoying silent reading in a room full of 60+ other booklovers.

7. Going to a midnight release party for Breaking Dawn and winning a trivia contest! Yes, I won a Twilight trivia contest, and I’m not (too) embarrassed about it.

8. Reading and sharing with my book group, who are just a fantastic group of readers (and are truly fantastic people in all ways).

9. Reading everywhere I go, including on some beautiful beaches and in gorgeous national parks.

10. Sharing books, book ideas, and long, long visits to bookstores with my wonderful daughter, as a child and as an adult.

What bookish memories do you cherish?

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

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23Nov2021

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I’d Love An Update On

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 Characters I’d Love An Update On (Where are they now that the book is over?). I did a version of this topic ages ago (here), and I’m happy to come up with a fresh list of characters whose lives I’d want to check in on!

Simon & Baz (Simon Snow trilogy by Rainbow Rowell): The trilogy just ended with the 3rd book’s release this past July, but these two characters are young adults with their whole lives ahead of them, and I’d love to know what happens next for them!
Jude (Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black): Jude gets a happy ending, but surely being a queen of faerie as a mortal woman can’t be easy? I’d love to see how it’s going in another few years, just to make sure she’s happy.
Lara Jean Covey (To All the Boys trilogy by Jenny Han): She gets a happy ending, but I want to know how she and Peter’s relationship really works during college and beyond.
Rowan (Arc of a Scythe trilogy by Neal Shusterman): Such an unexpected turn of events in the final book! I’d love to know how it all worked out for the characters.
Scarlett & Rhett (Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell): I know Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley was supposed to be the sequel, but I kind of hated it and pretend like it never happened… so I’d like to know how Scarlett and Rhett’s lives REALLY turned out. Did they go back to Tara? Did they get back together? Was tomorrow really another day?
Elma and Nathaniel York (Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal): This is one where we will find out more, eventually. We left these characters newly arrived on Mars in the book that was released in 2018. Book #4 in the series is supposed to be released in 2022, and it should be picking back up with these two characters’ stories… can’t wait!
Maia Drazhar (The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison): I love The Goblin Emperor so much, and would absolutely spend any amount of time reading about the years of Maia’s reign as Emperor. He’s such a fabulous character, and I want to follow the rest of his life and see how things turned out for him.
Maggie Hoskie (The Sixth World books by Rebecca Roanhorse): I really liked the two books in this series and assumed there would be more… but I didn’t see anything specific online about when or if a next book would be forthcoming. In any case, I’d love to read more about Maggie, and hope we’ll get additional books eventually.
Edward & Bella (Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer): Haha, I know… but I actually included these two on my previous version of this list, and the same questions hold true: How’s eternal life working out? How is it being married to someone you know you’ll be with FOREVER? How’s parenthood treating them?
Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen): Sure, there are tons of retellings and imagined sequels, but none by Jane Austen, so it’s not like they’re official! How did Elizabeth adjust to life at Pemberley? I’d love to know.

What characters would you most like to keep up with? Whose lives are you wondering about?

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

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16Nov2021

Top Ten Tuesday: Books for Outlander fans

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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 to Read If You Love/Loved X (X can be a genre, specific book, author, movie/TV show, etc.). I’m in the midst of an Outlander obsession at the moment, with the long-awaited book #9 coming out NEXT WEEK… so you’ll excuse me if this series is pretty much all that’s on my mind right now.

Here are 10 books I think Outlander fans should check out:

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

What’s the connection?

Set in Scotland, historical fiction, Jacobite uprising, time-slip romance (and really, can’t go wrong with any of this author’s books!)

Clanlands by Sam Heughan & Graham McTavish

What’s the connection?

Outlander stars (!!), fun facts about Scotland, lots of references to the creation and filming of the Outlander TV series

A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong

What’s the connection?

A romance across time, time travel, lovers from different eras

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

What’s the connection:

Strong female lead character, male lead who seems too good to be true, time travel (in book #2), epic romance

Finding Fraser by KC Dyer

What’s the connection?

You literally could not be more connected to Outlander! A romantic adventure in which the main character heads to Scotland to find her very own Jamie Fraser.