Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Six(ish) Books I Read On My Vacation

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I'm back from my cruise through the Yucatan. My husband and I had fun exploring new places, soaking in beautiful scenery, and learning about the history of the region we visited. We balanced out our excursions with a lot of relaxation time. Although the weather was mostly very hot and very humid, I did make good use of my balcony. It was lovely to read outside, especially after the sun went down and I could enjoy the warm breezes ruffling my hair while I Kindled my way through several books. 

Before I left on my trip, I posted this list of the Top Ten Books I Might Read On My Upcoming Vacation. I was only gone for nine days, some of which would be taken up by excursions, so I knew I wouldn't read all ten of them. Spoiler alert: I was right. Still, I thought it might be fun to look at what I did read and what I thought of what I read. So, I'm going to ignore this week's TTT prompt—Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I Haven't Read Yet—and do Top Ten Six(ish) Books I Read On My Vacation.

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Six(ish) Books I Read On My Vacation

These are the ten books I put on my potential reads list. I highlighted the ones I read (titles link to my Goodreads review):

1. Last One Out by Jane Harper - I ended up finishing this mystery/thriller the night before I left, so I'm not counting it as one of my six vacation reads. As much as I usually love Harper's work, Last One Out turned out to be a bit of a slog for me. It's just...slow. I liked it overall, but I came close to DNFing it several times because I got bored with it. Disappointing.

2. The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn

3. My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney - This needs to be my next read since it's already two weeks overdue at my library and I can't renew it because someone else is waiting for it. Oops!

4. A Map to Murder by Michelle Chouinard - This third installment in the A Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco series was one of my at-sea day reads. It's another fun murder mystery in an always-entertaining series. I enjoyed it.

5. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

6. The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson

7. Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

8. The Fish and Chip Shop Detectives by Jenny Kane

9. Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn - If you like interesting narrative non-fiction, you should definitely pick up this book. It tells the fascinating story of how the author discovered that her grandparents were Nazi spies in Hawaii. 

10. The Season of Sinking by Daphne Woolsoncroft

In addition to the two highlighted titles, I also read:

1. Missing Molly by Natalie Barelli - This was my first read of the vacay. It's got a unique premise: a woman who does the books at a small-town newspaper learns her company will be starting a true crime podcast, the first season of which will highlight a notorious unsolved case involving a murdered family and a missing pre-teen. Unbeknownst to her colleagues, the bookkeeper is the missing child. With the murderer still out there, it's imperative that no one discovers her real identity, not even her husband. Can she sabotage the podcast enough to protect herself, even if it means losing her job, her friends, and everything else she's worked so hard to gain? Or will all that be lost anyway when her true identity is exposed? 

Despite this unique and promising premise, Missing Molly was only an okay read for me. The plot is far-fetched, the characters are pretty blah, and the prose is rather humdrum. It kept me turning pages, though.

2. How to Kill a Crime Writer by Sarah Lotz (available July 20, 2026) - Although this murder mystery is largely about a woman grieving the sudden death of her mother, with whom she had a complicated relationship, it's actually a pretty upbeat, hopeful story. It's also funny, quirky, and satisfying. I really enjoyed it.

3. What We Did to Survive by Megan Lally - On the last day of my cruise, as we were gliding away from Mexico and back to Florida, I decided it would be fun to read a YA survival story about a group of teens who go sailing on a stormy day in Puerto Vallarta and end up in a fight for their lives. This novel tells a pretty generic story with a cast of heavily stereotyped characters, but it kept me turning pages.

4. Devils at the Door by Tessa Wegert - I read this murder mystery, the fifth book in the Shana Merchant series, during a very long wait at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. Although it gets into some weird subject matter, the novel is engrossing and compelling, just like all the other installments in the series.

5. The Chow Maniac by Vivien Chien - This is the "ish" part of six(ish) since I haven't actually finished this cozy mystery yet. I read half of it on the plane ride from Raleigh, North Carolina, back to Phoenix. It's the 11th book in the Noodle Shop mystery series. It's about a secret society of Chinese Americans in Cleveland, the members of which are suddenly perishing in ways that seem suspicious. A man who fears he is next hires P.I. Lydia Shepard to investigate, and she enlists the help of Lana Lee, restaurant manager and amateur sleuth.

There you go, the six(ish) books I read on my vacation. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What do you like to read while on holiday? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Happy TTT!