Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Read Before the End of the Year

If you have been following this year (which would have been really hard), you would have noticed that my year was really rough. This was due to a lot of factors, those being that I moved at the beginning of the year, got a new puppy, and corona happened, which limited me going out to the library (which is where I get most of the books I read). In October, I ended up trying to attempt in two readathons to jumpstart the slump I entered at the beginning of the year (like I had done multiple times of the year). This time it helped and I'm not in my slump anymore. So before I get too far into November, I wanted to share my top ten books I want to read before the end of the year (all of them will be books I own). I already read one book that I would have put on here (House of Salt and Sorrows - look for the soon to posted review of this novel), so I don't want to read too much that would be included in this post. Without further ado... the books...

1. Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

I absolutely love Kerri Maniscalco's writing, and I really need to also finish the Stalking the Jack the Ripper series, but this book is about witches, which wasn't really something I was interested in reading much (with a few exceptions), but after reading Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin last year, I am fascinated with witchy novels now. That's all I really know - I'm kind of going into this blind.

2. Blood & Honey by Shelby Mahurin

Serpent & Dove was one of my favorite reads from last year. I quickly read through the novel because of how much I was hooked by the characters and the story. So basically Serpent & Dove is about a witch and a witchhunter who are forced into marriage while there is a war going on between the witches and the hunters. Blood & Honey picks up pretty much where Serpent & Dove left off. I'm expecting it too bring out a lot of emotions from me, and I'm honestly already looking forward to the next book in the series, Gods & Monsters.

3. Stroke of Malice by Anna Lee Huber

Stroke of Malice is the eighth novel in the Lady Darby series, it's about two individuals who investigate murders in the mid 1800s, and I absolutely love it. It also happens to be set in like England, Ireland, and Scotland. I've been trying to find some books that are very similar, and I haven't really found any that have intrigued me as much as this series. I'm hoping to wrap this book up - I've already started and I'm a few chapters in - before the year is over because the next book comes out in April, and I'm already ready for that one.

4. One by One by Ruth Ware

I thoroughly enjoy Ruth Ware's novels. I am up to date on all of her novels except for this one. What I love most about her books is the unreliability of the narrators (not all of them), and the style of her writing. Turn of the Key was one of my favorite reads of this year, and One by One sounds like I will enjoy it even more. Our main character gets snowed in with eight of her coworkers, who are all untrustworthy, and maybe some people start dying? It sounds like a book that is right up my alley.

5. Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller

Tricia Levenseller has become an automatic buy author for me after I fell in love with her Daughter of the Pirate King series. It is one of my favorite duologies of all time, and I am ready to jump into her other novels - they have been sitting on my shelf for too long unread. This book is viking inspired, and it sounds amazing! This is about the daughter of  the village leader, who has been training her whole life to take over. During her coming-of-age trial, her test is sabotaged and she fails - which results in her being sent out into a monster-filled wilderness on a quest to kill a god or die trying.

6. Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

I have no idea what this book is about, but anything Amie Kaufman is listed as an author on, I will pretty much pick up and read. I'm not going to find out what this is about, I'm going into it blind. I do know that it's a Sci-Fi novel. And this book was on my Reading Resolutions for the year (although I did not get a majority of my Reading Resolutions completed - it will be nice to at least mark this off.

7. Impossible Girl by Lydia Kang

Impossible Girl takes place in the mid 1800s, and is about a female resurrectionist who procures bodies with anatomic anomalies and sells them. And then murders start happening - and she is the target due to her anatomical anomaly - two hearts.

 

8. Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco

This book should not be a surprise because a few books up, I had mentioned how much I need to finish reading this series. If you haven't read Stalking Jack the Ripper, you definitely should. Stalking Jack the Ripper is about Audrey, who secretly studies forensic medicine in her uncle's laboratory. Then some gruesome murders start happening, and she starts investigating. Hunting Prince Dracula takes place shortly after Stalking Jack the Ripper wraps up, Audrey goes away with a friend, Thomas Cresswell to Romania where Europe's best school of forensic medicine is, and stumbles into another killer.

9. Windwitch by Susan Dennard

Truthwitch was a top read and it has been a long time coming for me to read the sequel. This series about a world of witches of different talents whose world is thrown into a war. I don't really know much about what Windwitch is about because I decided not to spoil anything by reading the summary, but it takes place right after Truthwitch.

10. Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

I have been wanting to read a novel by V.E. Schwab for some time. I "technically listened" to City of Ghosts by her, but since I honestly cannot remember it, I'm planning to either listen to it or read the book again, and don't really include it. It's about a woman who makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed with being forgotten by everyone she meets. It sounds very intriguing, and I look forward to jumping into this novel.