Howdy, friends! I hope you all had a good Halloween and didn’t go too overkill on candy (just kidding, is it even Halloween if you don’t gorge yourself on chocolate?!?!) It’s nearly one week into November and I’ve only just realised that October has finished and I probably should’ve started on my wrap-up – OOPS. Don’t worry, I’m organised. I’m on top of things. Well . . . at the very least I’ve had a few good boogies to All I Want for Christmas. Judge me not, my little grinches.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and this week’s prompt is:

Backlist Books I Want to Read

So! We’re going to dive right down to the very bottom of my TBR and have a look at what’s lurking in those depths. There are so many books there that I continually forget about and therefore end up on the backlist for a very long time.

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1. The Adamantine Palace
by Stephen Deas

It maddens me every time I see that I still haven’t read this because DRAGONS and the cover is gorgeous! This is about a man wanting to rule an Empire, he’s going to poison the king, murder his lover and bed her daughter. But there’s a dragon on the loose and it’s highly intelligent and furious. What I take from this blurb is that this dragon is going to be awesome and eat the bad guy who really shouldn’t be king. THAT, I would like to see.

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2. Odalisque
by Fiona McIntosh

A very nice lady at a book fair recommended this to me and I couldn’t resist. The MC has fought his way to freedom after being caught by slave traders. He ends up in a very high position of protecting his city (what a turn around, am I right?!) and all is well and awesome until the king (called a Zar) dies and the heir is young so his mother steps up. But she’s cruel and NASTY. We’ve got a friendly jester to love and a new girl in the harem (she’s called the ‘odalisque’) AND the gods are beginning to rise in battle. Honestly, what isn’t happening in this book?

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3. The Illumination
by Jill Gregory

This is a book about a museum curator and right at the time when  I was determined that I, too, would become a museum curator. I became a publisher instead (go figure) but nonetheless, I remain intensely curious about this career. Now, the MC in this book specialises in Mesopotamian protective amulets and magical beliefs (so specific, sheeeesh) and she receives an odd gift from her sister. Then she learns her sister was murdered only hours after sending it. AW HELL NAH. So it becomes a race to discover the origins of the pendant and she becomes sucked into an international battle between political and religious factions.

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4. His Majesty’s Dragon
by Naomi Novik

WHY I haven’t read this yet beats me. Completely. This is a retelling of the Napoleonic Wars IF there were dragons. Like, how have I not read this?! I literally don’t need to say more than that.

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5. Half Bad
by Sally Green

A very popular book and a bandwagon I completely missed. I think I found this secondhand and snapped it up but really, I think I should have read it because I’m sure it’ll be a good read. It’s about a boy who lives in a cage and is trained to kill. This is set in modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans. The MC is the illegitimate son of one of these witches and he needs to escape, find his father, and receive three gifts to give him his own magic.

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6. Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks

I’m a big fan of Geraldine Brooks and have been meaning for a very long time to get around to reading more of her work. This is one is set in 1666, England where the plague is carried from London (unknowingly) to a small village. We follow the story of what happened next through the eyes or our MC as death spreads everywhere.

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7. The Gargoyle
by Andrew Davidson

This was a very random find at my local news agency, believe it or not, in their little bargain bucket. Our narrator is nameless and it begins when he is driving along a dark road when a flight of arrows distracts him. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward – undergoing the tortures of the damned. He’s a monster now.  BUT THEN, okay it gets crazier. So, a woman comes into his life who sculpts gargoyles and she tells him they were once lovers in medieval Germany. I KNOW. I don’t know if this is supposed to be real or a way of healing but I HAVE to know.

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8. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
by Laurie R. King

I’m nervous to read this one because I worry it’ll be slow-going. But it has awesome reviews and sounds really intriguing. This is set in 1915 and is about a retired Sherlock Holmes. It’s a reasonably famous book and about his time studying honey bees. He ends up tutoring a young girl called Mary Russell and then gets involved in solving some crime!

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9. You Had Me At Hello
by Mhairi McFarlane

I bought this when it went cheap (story of my life) because of its title. The ratings and reviews aren’t stellar for this one but it’s about long lost love and what happens when the one that got away comes back. Lots of people have compared it to Me Before You and honestly? I’d read anything if you told me it read similarly to that.

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10. Everland
by Wendy Spinale

This is a steampunk retelling of Peter Pan and quite frankly, I’m disappointed in myself that I haven’t read it yet! It’s set during WWII and the only people who’ve survived the destruction and the outbreak of a deadly virus are children. Captain Hook, in this story, is desperate to leave the city – he doesn’t know if the virus has spread past England’s borders. He’s on the hunt for the cure and thinks it can be found in one of the children. He experiments on them and none ever return. Man, I’m so excited for this book.

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That’s a wrap!

What book do you keep forgetting to read?

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~~ Kirstie ~~

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