Today's TTT prompt is nice and simple: Top Ten Books With One-Word Titles. Judging from most of the titles on my TBR list, I prefer mine longer, but there just happen to be exactly ten novels the list that fit the prompt. Huzzah! 

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Click on over there and give her some love.

1. Above by Isla Morley—Like Emma Donoghue's Room, Above concerns a woman who must raise a baby in captivity. How does a mother protect and nurture her child in a world that is isolated and dangerous?

2. Artifice by Sharon Cameron—This YA novel is about a young Dutch woman who watches with horror as the Nazis buy up and steal her country's artistic treasures. Desperate for money to help the Resistance smuggle Jewish babies out of Amsterdam, she begins selling forgeries to the Nazis. It's a dangerous game, one that could end in her death.

3. Dust by Dusti Bowling—Plagued by asthma, Avalyn has been breathing easier since her family moved to a town with clean air. Then, a new boy moves in. Dirty and withdrawn, he's an instant target for bullies. Avalyn wants to befriend him, but she has trouble breathing around him, especially as his emotions seem to trigger swirling dust storms. Who is this boy, really? How can Avalyn help him? If she can't, will she ever be able to breathe freely again? 

4. Goldilocks by Laura Lam—With the Earth dying around them, humans must head for space if they have any chance of surviving. An all-female spaceship crew is ready and willing to colonize a planet in the Goldilocks Zone. If only they were the officially sanctioned team. When push comes to shove, they do what they have to and steal the ship. Almost immediately, things start to go wrong. How can the team save the world when they can't even trust each other?

5. Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese—This buzzy novel reimagines the life of the woman who inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous heroine, Hester Prynne. When Isobel Gamble's husband leaves her in America with little hope of returning, the seamstress finds herself stranded and penniless in a strange new land. Nathaniel Hawthorne befriends her and the two grow close...and that's about all the plot summary offers in the way of story hints!

6. Homecoming by Kate Morton—An Australian journalist living in London returns to her homeland to be at the bedside of her ailing grandmother. While the elderly woman is in the the hospital, her granddaughter examines her attic, finding shocking information on an old unsolved murder. It's clear her family was involved in some way, but how? And why? The journalist is determined to find out.

7. Killingly by Katharine Beutner—Based on a real-life missing persons case that has never been solved, this historical mystery concerns a strange, quiet student who goes missing from Mount Holyoke College in the late 1800s. Her tight-lipped best friend might know more than she's saying. What secrets is she keeping? What really happened to Bertha Mellish?

8. Remembrance by Rita Woods—Juggling multiple timelines, this historical novel explores themes of slavery, racism, freedom, and hope.

9. Sheerwater by Leah Swann—As Ava drives toward her new home with her two young sons in the backseat, she's shocked to witness the crash of a small plane. She runs to help. When she returns to her vehicle, her children have vanished. Where are Ava's sons? How will she get them back?

10. Unmissing by Minka Kent—Merritt Coletto's idyllic life with her husband shatters forever one night when his ex-wife comes knocking on their door. She's been missing, presumed dead, for a decade. Shocked by her tale of abduction and terror, they bring her into their home. The longer she stays, though, the more suspicious Merritt becomes. Is Lydia telling the truth about where she's been for the last ten years? And what does she really want from her ex-husband and his new wife? 

There you go, ten books with one-word titles that are on my TBR list. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What are your favorite books with one-word titles? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Even though there's nary a nip in the arid desert air here in Arizona, I'm more than ready for some cozy Fall reading.  So ready, in fact, that I already posted part one of this list last week.  Naturally, I always have more books in the queue, so I'm going to share ten more today that I'm hoping to read before 2021 comes to an end.

If you want to share your Fall TBR list (please do—I'm always looking for recs!), click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl to find out how to join in the TTT fun.

1.  Willodeen by Katherine Applegate—I'm a big Applegate fan, so I've been excited about this one, her newest.  It's about a lonely girl who's more comfortable with animals than humans.  When a handmade gift brings unexpected magic into her life, it changes everything for her and the precarious world in which she lives.  I'm about halfway through this short novel and I'm very much enjoying it.  No surprise there.  

2.  The Haunting Season by various authors—I just got a copy of this collection of spooky short stories by a variety of popular YA writers from the good folks at Pegasus Books.  This ghostly volume is going to make for great Halloween reading!  

3.  God Spare the Girls by Kelsey McKinney—This coming-of-age novel is about two sisters raised in a strict religious community headed up by their father.  When they discover that he's been lying to them, it breaks their world apart.  The sisters flee, but they will soon have to make a choice between family loyalty and forging their own paths.

4.  Across the Desert by Dusti Bowling (available October 12, 2021)—Bowling is a local author whose MG books I've been enjoying lately.  I just got approved for an e-ARC of this one, a survival story in which one girl sets out across the treacherous desert to rescue another, whose ultralight airplane has crashed.

5.  A View Most Glorious by Regina Scott (available October 5, 2021)—I discovered Scott's American Wonders series this year and am really loving it.  This third installment concerns a young woman who longs to do something more with her life than just marry well.  When her suffragette group suggests she climb Mt. Rainier to bring attention to their cause, she agrees to the difficult task despite having no mountaineering experience.  Will she succeed?  What will she gain in the process?  With a handsome mountain guide by her side, it's pretty much a given that she'll lose her heart...

6.  The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain (available January 11, 2022)—I've got an e-ARC of this novel, the newest from an author I've liked in the past.  It's a dual-timeline story about a white woman in 1965 who defies her family's wishes by volunteering to help register Black voters and another woman, in 2010, who learns surprising secrets about the history her new neighborhood, which rumor says is haunted.

7.  The Saint of Lost Things by Christopher Castellani—Delaware is one of the last two states I need to complete the 2021 Literary Escapes Challenge.  This novel takes place in the state in 1953.  It's about the triumphs and sorrows of a vibrant Italian-American community.

8.  The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark—I chose this Alex Award-winning novel to fulfill the "Afrofuturist Book" prompt for the 2021 PopSugar Reading Challenge.  It takes place in an alternate New Orleans and stars a young woman who earns a coveted place on an airship by giving the captain sensitive information.  She soon finds herself on a dangerous mission, where her secret magic might just help her save the world as she knows it.

9.  Unmissing by Minka Kent (available February 15, 2022)— This thriller revolves around a couple who is creating a lovely life together.  When a late-night knock on their door reveals the husband's first wife, who has been missing and presumed dead for ten years, they're both shocked.  The couple takes in the woman, but something about her story just doesn't add up.  What really happened to her?

10.  The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer—I haven't read a lot of World War II stories this year, but this is one I do want to get to soon.  It tells the inspired-by-a-true-story tale of a Polish woman who risks everything to help smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto.

There you go, ten more books I'm hoping to read before the year is out.  What do you think of my selections?  Have you read any of them?  What are your most anticipated reads for Fall?  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!