Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was Super Excited to Get My Hands on but Still Haven’t Read

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

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There are so many reasons why books get left behind, lost in the meandering paths of the to-be-read pile, superceded by other releases and purchases, swamped by life and family and work commitments. Or perhaps you do pick them up but they don’t chime with your mood at that point or your expectations…

So, this Tuesday, let’s take a gander at those books that I was excited about but which – for whatever reason – I have not read…

The Mirror and The Light, Hilary Mantel

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.

Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?

Why was I excited for this? I adored the first two books in Mantel’s Wolf Hall series – the sense of time and place, the characters…

Why have I not read it yet? I had the somewhat ambitious idea of re-reading Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies before starting this final book… and never quite managed it!

Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory – even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Why was I excited for this? I enjoyed Ninth House, although that is the only Bardugo I have read, especially the character of Darlington whose absence is at the core of the novel. So I was looking forward to the sequel in which he was to be rescued from Hell

Why have I not read it yet? I have begun this and read a while into it… until Darlington was rescued somewhat early in the novel with a priapic glowing cock… it was rather off-putting.

At Night All Blood is Black, David Diop

Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France’s German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open.

Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?

Why was I excited for this? It won the International Booker, and people I know whose opinions I trust have raved about it… and I like the rhythm of the title.

Why have I not read it yet? The opening scene was brutal and gritty… and I wasn’t quite in the right place to

The Land of Lost Things, John Connolly

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world.
But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard.

Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey – to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres’s childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting.

To the Land of Lost Things.

Why was I excited for this? I had loved The Book of Lost Things when I read it years ago!

Why have I not read it yet? I’m not altogether sure why I’ve not read it yet… perhaps just that a series of other books have got in the way of it!

Normal Rules Don’t Apply, Kate Atkinson

The first story collection from Kate Atkinson in twenty years, Normal Rules Don’t Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales from the bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life

In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.

With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination, a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems.

Why was I excited for this? I have adored everything Kate Atkinson has written… especially the Jackson Brodie novels! Erudite and witty with a biting sense of humour, holding its literariness lightly without sacrificing its characterisation or plot.

Why have I not read it yet? Short story collections are not my favourite genre… This is not the only book of short stories that I have been putting off…

The Fraud, Zadie Smith

Kilburn, 1873. The ‘Tichborne Trial’ has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be – or an imposter.

Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.

Why was I excited for this? I mean, it is Zadie Smith, it is an historical mystery, it is rich in social conscience…

Why have I not read it yet? … I am not entirely sure…

Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez

His father could find what was lost. His father knew when someone was going to die. His father had talked to him about the dead who rode in on the wind. The dead travel fast.

Gaspar is six years old when the Order first come for him.

For years, they have exploited his father’s ability to commune with the dead and the demonic, presiding over macabre rituals where the unwanted and the disappeared are tortured and executed, sacrificed to the Darkness. Now they want a successor.

Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar break free?

Why was I excited for this? I have been looking for a gripping horror for a while now – without success – and I have heard so much good about this…

Why have I not read it yet? I wonder whether, having been let down by other books, I hesitated to read this for fear of it failing to live up to the hype.

Witch King, Martha Wells

After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.

But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?

Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.

He’s not going to like the answers.

Why was I excited for this? I love the Murderbot Diaries…

Why have I not read it yet? I think there are two reasons for this: 1) I wonder whether the Murderbot Diaries is so dependent on Murderbot’s own voice that it may not be transferrable; and 2) the willing immersion into a high fantasy setting can be a tiring experience…

Yellowface, R. F. Kuang

THIS IS ONE HELL OF A STORY.

IT’S JUST NOT HERS TO TELL.

When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it.

So what if it means stealing Athena’s final manuscript?

So what if it means ‘borrowing’ her identity?

And so what if the first lie is only the beginning…

Finally, June has the fame she always deserved. But someone is about to expose her…

What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

Why was I excited for this? I loved Babel so much…

Why have I not read it yet? The blurb makes this seem so very different to Babel…

Vagabonds, Eloghosa Osunde

Lagos is a city for all . . . you share this place with flesh and not-flesh, and it’s just as much their city as it is yours.

Èkó, the spirit of Lagos, and his loyal minion Tatafo weave trouble through the streets of Lagos and through the lives of the ‘vagabonds’ powering modern Nigeria: the queer, the displaced and the footloose.

With Tatafo as our guide we meet these people in the shadows. Among them are a driver for a debauched politician; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her reality. As their lives begin to intertwine―in markets and underground clubs, in churches and hotel rooms―the vagabonds are seized and challenged by the spirits who command the city. A force is drawing them all together, but for what purpose?

Why was I excited for this? I love the idea from the blurb: the city of Lagos itself personified, becoming a character; the focus on those otherwise outcast and at the edges of society…

Why have I not read it yet? The power of work to drain time, energy and opportunity…

Casting an eye upon these novels and story collections, it does remind me to return to them. At least once I have moved and have unpacked my books!

I wonder whether any of you, my dear readers, have read these, and which would you advise me to return to and pick up again? Please do let me know in the comments….

Upcoming Themes

June 4: Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About (Any emotion! Did a book make you super happy or sad? Angry? Terrified? Surprised?)
June 11: Bookish Wishes (List the top 10 books you’d love to own and include a link to your wishlist so that people can grant your wishes. Make sure you link your wishlist to your mailing address or include the email address associated with your e-reader in the list description so people know how to get the book to you. After you post, jump around the Linky and grant a wish or two if you’d like. Please don’t feel obligated to send anything to anyone!)
June 18: Books on My Summer 2024 To-Read List
June 25: Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2024

Published by The Book Lover's Sanctuary

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14 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was Super Excited to Get My Hands on but Still Haven’t Read”

      1. It’s the lack of sleep that’s getting to me. Even my 5 year old doesn’t sleep through the night 🤣

        🤣 I’ve still got some years to go then!

        Thank you. You too 😊

        Liked by 1 person

  2. The only one of these I’ve read is Witch King. It is very *not* Murderbot. I didn’t love it. The rereleased City of Bones felt like a much better fantasy from Ms Wells.

    Hell Bent has been on my TBR stack for a while, too, and that comment…. just… o.O

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I’ve yet to read Ninth House myself (but I still want to), but… “a priapic glowing cock”? 😭 I’m intrigued. And RF Kuang’s books are definitely very different from each other. The Poppy War was oddly easy to read, and I’m scared that that won’t be the case for Babel and Yellowface.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I’ve heard amazing things about At Night All Night Blood Is Black. I’ve read Yellowface and I enjoyed it but honestly, I didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as everyone else. The ending was really clunky for me. I also have The Fraud and haven’t read it yet.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I bought The Mirror and the Light when it first came out on audio, and I still haven’t listened to it. I loved the first two books, so I’m not sure what’s holding me back. Lack of time, I guess!

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Yeah, Hell Bent wasn’t as good as Ninth House, but I’m still planning to read the next book and hope it gets better. I’ve read Yellowface and really liked it, but I haven’t read Babel so I can’t compare. I hope you enjoy all of these if you read them!

    Haze
    https://thebookhaze.com/

    Liked by 1 person

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