Today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a fun one. Nice and easy, too! Suggested by Cathy over at What Cathy Read Next, we have: Top Ten Book Titles That Would Make Great Newspaper Headlines. Since book titles and periodical headlines have the same purpose—to grab our attention in order to sell a story—it makes sense that there would be similarities between the two. The best ones, for me, are those that use creative wordplay to convey double or deeper meanings. 

Before we get to that, though, remember to click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl and give Jana, our TTT hostess with the mostest, some love. 

Other than the first, all of these novels are on my never-ending TBR list:

1. The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters—I just finished this YA fantasy/horror novel about a Tennessee nature preserve that has fueled one family's witchy powers for one hundred years. Now, something is disrupting the place's powerful magic, making everything go haywire. Young women are disappearing in the preserve and one teenage witch is terrified that someone she loves is to blame.

I didn't love this book, but it has a great title. Whether you take it literally or figuratively, it's a bone chiller!

2. Murder at Haven's Rock by Kelley Armstrong—This title would definitely signal a front-page, above-the-fold kind of story. The novel is the first in a series that's a spin-off of Armstrong's popular Rockton books. In it, Casey Butler and her husband, Eric Dalton, are starting their own secret town deep in the Yukon wilderness, where people on the run can find safety in a hidden refuge. Haven's Rock hasn't officially opened yet when two of its builders disappear into the forest and don't return. Did they fall off a cliff somewhere? Were they dragged off by wild predators? Or is something much more sinister afoot in Casey and Eric's new town?

3. Lying in the Deep by Diana Urban—I've talked about this creepy-sounding novel a few times before. Its title hints at all kinds of juicy double meanings. The story is about a group of students who embark on a semester at sea, which will take them to 11 different countries in four months. Running from heartache, Jade can't wait to sail away. But when passengers start dying, she quickly realizes that her adventurous getaway has just turned into a horrifying nightmare from which it's impossible to escape.

4. Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize by Margo Rabb—This title sounds like a newspaper headline about some juicy political scandal. It's actually a YA novel that concerns a 16-year-old girl who is sick of being bullied. When she retaliates, the fallout is much worse than she expected. As a punishment, she's sent to New York City where she's forced to serve as a full-time companion to an eccentric, paranoid old woman. Despite her oddities, Lucy's new charge has lessons to teach Lucy that will change the young woman's life.

5. Blood on the Tracks by Barbara Nickless—Another sure-to-get-noticed title/headline, this murder mystery is the first in a series starring Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell, a Denver railroad cop. When a young woman is viciously killed, purportedly by her scarred Iraq War veteran boyfriend, Sydney and her K-9 companion are called in to investigate. They discover a dangerous gang of rail riders with sinister intentions. Can Sydney stop them before they do more harm?

6. The Vanishing of Margaret Small by Neil Alexander—I'm always intrigued by titles/headlines about mysterious disappearances. In this novel, the titular character begins receiving checks in the mail signed only "C." Margaret believes they must be from an old friend from her childhood, who knew her when she was "vanished" to an institution for children who had trouble learning. In order to find out who is sending the checks and why, Margaret must revisit painful memories of a time she'd rather forget.

Carla over at Carla Loves to Read recommended this one. Read her review here. 

7. A Traitor in Whitehall by Julia Kelly—This title sounds like a headline straight out of Washington, D.C.! It's actually set in London during World War II. Our heroine is a worker in a munitions factory when a chance encounter with a family friend leads her to a job working as a secretary in Winston Churchill's war rooms. When one of her co-workers is murdered, she becomes an amateur sleuth, determined to find out what really happened to her friend.

8. An Impossible Impostor by Deanna Raybourn—Number seven in Raybourn's popular Veronica Speedwell historical mystery series, this installment sees Veronica and Stoker on a covert mission to discern if a back-from-the-dead amnesiac is the lost heir to a large fortune or a skillful fraud. 

9. The Kind to Kill by Tessa Wegert—In this fourth installment of Wegert's Shana Merchant series, the Thousand Islands Senior Investigator is on the case of a tourist who has gone missing during a pirate-themed festival. Trying to solve the puzzling mystery while also defending her reputation, which has taken a hit due to her blood relationship with a notorious serial killer, she has her hands full. 

10. Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark's Jews Escape the Nazis by Susan Hood—Hopeful headlines are important, too, so I'm ending my list with this one. It's a verse novel written for middle graders that recounts the heroic efforts of 22-year-old Sinding, who smuggled hundreds Jewish families out of occupied Denmark to safety in Sweden during World War II. 

There you are, ten books on my TBR list that boast titles that could be newspaper headlines. Have you read any of them? Which titles-that-could-be-headlines did you choose today? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog. I also reply to comments left here.

Edited to add: I'm in the middle of commenting on all of your blogs, but I keep encountering an error that says "An appropriate representation of the requested resource could not be found on this server. This error was generated by Mod_Security." I have no idea what this means or how to fix it! Very frustrating. If you made a TTT list and added your link to the general list and you do not have a comment from me on your post by the end of today, then your blog is giving me this error. 

I'm a little late to the party today, but I didn't want to miss Top Ten Tuesday, even if I'm going to go rogue with the topic. What's new, right? The prompt du jour is a great one—Top Ten Characters From Different Books Who Should Team Up (or date, be friends, etc.). For some reason, I have a tough time with character-based prompts. It's probably because I'm old and my aging memory just can't keep a bunch of story people in my head. Unless they really stand out, I'm probably not going to remember them very well. Since I couldn't think of a creative way to twist this topic, I decided to just be lazy with today's list and go with the Ten Last Physical Books I've Acquired (but only those I haven't mentioned on the blog already). How does that sound?

As always, this fun weekly meme is hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. If you've never joined in, you totally should! All the instructions are on Jana's blog.

Ten Last Physical Books I've Acquired 

- in no particular order -

1. The Messenger by Megan Davis (Thank you, Pegasus Books!)—When Alex Giraud moves to Paris to live with his dad, he has trouble fitting in with the kids at his posh boarding school. Feeling suffocated by his controlling father, Alex finds belonging with a street smart new friend. The boys plan a robbery that goes horribly wrong, leaving Alex's dad dead and him and his friend in prison for murder. When Alex is released, he has only one goal: find out who really killed his father. 

2. Kneaders: A Celebration of Our Recipes and Memories by Colleen Worthington (Thank you, Shadow Mountain Publishing!)—If you live in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Texas, or Utah, you may have heard of Kneaders Bakery & Cafe. It's a chain out of Utah that sells yummy breads, baked goods, soups, sandwiches, etc. This giant cookbook is filled with some of their delicious recipes and the stories behind them, which were compiled by popular author Ally Condie. 

3. North of Nowhere by Allison Brennan (Thank you, St. Martin's Press!)—Kristin and Ryan McIntyre have been hiding from their father, a powerful mobster, for the last five years. When he discovers their whereabouts, the siblings run for their lives, barely escaping in a small plane. The pilot crash lands in the Montana wilderness. With a violent storm fast approaching, Kristin and Ryan find themselves on the run in a remote forest with dangerous enemies hot on their trail. How will they survive?

4. The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton (bought from Barnes & Noble)—This biographical historical novel concerns the Kindertransports, which moved thousands of kids out of Nazi-occupied countries for their safety. It stars Truus Wijsmuller, a real Dutch Resistance worker who risked her life over and over to smuggle out thousands of Jewish children. 

5. Where the Water Takes Us by Alan Barillaro (Thank you, Candlewick Press!)—In this debut novel, a young girl is sent to live with her grandparents while her mother deals with a difficult pregnancy. Ava usually loves her time at their lake house, but she's so worried about her mom that she can't relax or shake the feeling that something is going to go terribly wrong. When Ava discovers a pair of orphaned birds, she makes a deal with fate: she'll save the birds in exchange for the health and safety of her mom and her baby twin siblings. Can she hold up her end of the bargain? Will fate do the same?

6. The Peach Seed by Anita Gail Jones (Thank you, Henry Holt!)—A debut novel, this is a second-chance romance involving a man and a woman whose lives were irrevocably changed—and divided—when a peaceful protest they were involved in went wrong. When the two encounter each other again, they must reckon with their pasts, presents, and futures.

7. Cold Pursuit by Nancy Mehl (Thank you, Bethany House!)—This book, the first in a new series, is about an ex-FBI profiler in need of a fresh start. She gets it in St. Louis, where she opens a private investigation business with her former partner at the FBI. A grieving mother still searching for her son who disappeared four years ago brings them their first case. Although they presume the boy is dead, their investigation becomes increasingly baffling. Someone clearly doesn't want them to pursue the case. Does that mean there's a chance their missing person is still alive? Or that his killer will do anything to get away with murder? Either way, the private eyes are in for a dangerous run.

8. I Did It for You by Amy Engel (Thank you, Penguin Random House!)—Fourteen years ago, Greer Dunning's sister was murdered. When a similar killing occurs, despite the fact that the man convicted of her sisters' murder has already been executed, Greer returns to her hometown to investigate. She refuses to give up until she finds out what really happened to her sister.

9. At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities by Heather Webber (Thank you, Tor/Forge!)—Two grieving women find solace in the friendship they form at a coffee and curiosity shop in small town Alabama. Can they make peace with their individual pasts in order to move on to promising futures?

10. A Traitor in Whitehall by Julia Kelly (Thank you, St. Martin's Press!)—It's 1940 and Evelyne Redfern is living a tedious life consisting of long hours at a London munitions factory and not much else. Her only escape is the mystery novels she races through in her few leisure hours. When a chance encounter with an old acquaintance gives her the chance to change things up by working as a secretary in Winston Churchill's cabinet war rooms, she takes it. Then, one of her colleagues is murdered. A shocked Evelyne launches her own amateur investigation to figure out who killed the young woman.

There you go, the last ten physical books I've acquired. Have you read any of them? Which character pairings did you come up with for your list today? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Carrying on with the Crayola theme from last week, today's Top Ten Tuesday is all about colorful book covers.  Funny thing about that—when you read a lot of dark mysteries, chilling thrillers, and sobering historical novels, you don't end up with a lot of bright, fanciful cover art!  Since those genres are my jam, I struggled to come up with any colorful covers at all, let alone ten.  As I was scrolling through my TBR lists on Goodreads, however, I did see some interesting trends and patterns in the cover art of some of the books I'm looking forward to reading.  Even if you're not a big hist-fic fan, you've probably noticed that dozens of recent additions to the genre feature covers with women looking away from the camera.  If you look further, you'll also see that many of these are done in mostly dark colors—black, grey, navy, emerald, etc.—with just pops of brighter hues, usually red.  While cover trends can get annoying, making books look too much alike, I can't deny that the kind of cover I just described really appeals to me.  It signals that this is the kind of novel I like, the sort I really want to read.  Like, now.  Just yesterday while browsing the book section at Costco, I answered the seductive siren call of a historical novel cover with—guess what?—a woman in a red (I guess it might be more purplish) coat looking away from the camera!  Well played, book marketers.  Well played.  I want to show you what I mean, so my list today will be comprised of historical novels on my TBR list that follow this trend.

What kind of list do you want to make today?  You can use the prompt, twist it up a little, or create your own list.  It doesn't matter what you do, just join in the TTT fun.  Hop on over to That Artsy Reader Girl to get started.

1.  The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin—This is the novel that hopped into my cart at Costco.  Don't you hate it when that happens?  It's about a woman who moves to London just as World War II is heating up.  She finds a job in a bookshop, where she learns about the transformative power of books and stories, especially in perilous times.

2.  The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (available June 29, 2021)—Based on a true story, this novel stars Belle de Costa Greene, who was hired by J.P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, art, and books for his Pierpont Morgan library.  A society darling known for her impeccable taste, Belle was keeping an explosive secret that could have ruined everything for her—her father is Black.

3.  Those Who Are Saved by Alexis Landau—Vera is a Russian Jew living in France.  When the Nazis take over the country, all Jews are ordered to report to an internment camp.  Desperate to save her young daughter, Vera leaves young Lucie with her governess, who vows to protect the little girl.  A chance to escape to America complicates the already impossible situation, leading to a heartbreaking separation that will tear Vera apart.  Will she ever see Lucie again?

4.  The Librarian of Saint-Malo by Mario Escobar (available June 1, 2021)—As France is torn apart by war, a librarian tries to offer her neighbors comfort through books.  When the Nazis threaten to destroy volumes they deem dangerous, she risks everything to save her beloved tomes.

5.  The Clockmaker's Wife by Daisy Wood—Featuring a dual-timeline, this novel concerns a woman in modern-day New York who finds a beautiful watch that belonged to her grandmother, whom she never knew.  Intrigued, she begins looking into her grandmother's past and is shocked by the harrowing World War II tale she uncovers...

6.  Off the Wild Coast of Brittany by Juliet Blackwell—Another WWII story set in France, this one revolves around a woman who's left high and dry after her husband leaves her.  With a half-finished guesthouse to deal with, she and her sister set about making the place inhabitable for visitors.  As they do so, they uncover the home's incredible war-time secrets.

7.  The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat—Having fled Austria, a young Jewish woman is hiding in plain sight on the Nazi-occupied island of Jersey.  

8.  The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly—Okay, so this one has more than one pop of color, but I still think it fits the theme.  The story juggles three different timelines, all revolving around people who lived and worked around the lush garden at Highbury House.

9.  The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman—This one also bucks the trend a little since the person in red is a young girl and she's not facing away from the "camera," just shielding her face.  Still.  Set during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, the story concerns a 13-year-old German girl living in Philadelphia who must face prejudice against immigrants, crippling poverty, and forced separation from the younger brothers she has vowed to protect at all costs.

10.  The Outcasts by Kathleen Kent—When she gets a chance to escape the Texas brothel where she's basically being held hostage, Lucinda Carter takes it and doesn't look back.  With the promise of a pirate's treasure to be had, she embarks on an adventure that she hopes will lead to wealth, love, and freedom.

There you have it, ten books that follow the dark-covers-of-historical-novels-with-pops-of-red-and-women-facing-away trend.  Which others have you noticed?  Have you read any of these?  Which colorful covers did you choose for your list today?  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!