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. 

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

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.

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.

I really can't believe it, but there are only 25 days left in 2022! Where has the time gone? Interestingly enough, I have exactly 25 more books to go until I meet my goal of reading 200 books this year. Will I make it? I don't know. I could read a book a day until January 1st, but I've also got a lot of other things that need to be done. I'd like to at least meet my goal, if not surpass it. We'll see how things go. Since today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is a freebie and next week's is Top Ten Books On My Winter 2022-2023 TBR List, I'm going to combine them and do two posts about the 25 books I plan to read before the year ends. 

Before I get to that, though, two things: (1) If you're not aware, TTT is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Click on over for all the deets on this fun meme and to give her some love. (2) If you're a reading challenge fiend like me, please check out my other blog, Ready for a Reading Challenge? It's a database of current reading challenges being hosted all over the Internet. If you're hosting a reading challenge this year, let me know. I'm happy to add it to my database to help spread the word. 

This list is a combination of books I still need to read for reading challenges, a couple book awards I'm helping to judge, a review I'm writing for a genealogical magazine next year, and just fun reads that I've been meaning to get to. I've mentioned most of them before, so bear with me.

1. Roll for Initiative by Jaime Formato—This Cybils nominee has a strong Dungeons and Dragons theme, which made it a little hard to get into for me with my total lack of D&D knowledge or interest. Once you get past that, though, it becomes an engaging story about finding your tribe. I've only got about 100 pages left in the book. Overall, I've enjoyed it.

2. Oh My Stars by Lorna Landvik—I'm listening to this lively story on audio. It's set in small-town North Dakota (a very difficult state to find if you, like me, are doing a read-a-book-set-in-every-state challenge), where a suicidal Southern woman lands unexpectedly after a bus breakdown. Violet has never belonged anywhere, so she's shocked when tiny Pearl starts to feel like home. 

3. The Kind to Kill by Tessa Wegert—This mystery, the fourth in the Shana Merchant series, just came out today. When a tourist goes missing during a Thousand Islands community festival, our fearless detective takes the case amidst outcries that she attracts trouble to the otherwise peaceful community. Shana can't help her familial connection to a serial killer, but will his dirty deeds lead to the end of her career?

4. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly—I need an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner for the POPSUGAR reading challenge and I've been meaning to read this one anyway. If you're not familiar with it, it tells the true story of five Black female mathematicians who worked for NASA starting in the early 1940s. Although their work was essential to the success of the American space program, they had to fight against blatant racism and sexism in the workplace just to perform their jobs.

5. The Hope of Elephants by Amanda Rawson Hill—Who doesn't love elephants? This middle-grade verse novel is about a young girl who's coping with her dad's cancer diagnosis as well as the terrifying possibility that she may have inherited his genetic mutation. I'm interested to see how pachiderms come into play...

6. The Blackout Book Club by Amy Lynn Green—I really enjoyed Green's last historical novel, so I'm looking forward to this one, her newest. It's about a woman who becomes the unlikely head of a small library in Maine during World War II. When the library's future is threatened, she invents a book club to save it from closure, a move that just might save herself as well.

7. Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson—I love the Truly Devious YA mystery series so I'm excited to read this newest installment, the fifth. This time around, Stevie Bell is studying abroad in England when she's introduced to a notorious cold case in which two Cambridge students were murdered after a game of hide-and-seek got out of hand. Can the intrepid amateur sleuth figure out whodunit?

8. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear—With New Year's resolution-making time right around the corner, this will be a good, motivational book to re-read. It's a quick read, but one that has some great ideas to impart.

9. Flip Turns by Catherine Arguelles—Another Cybils contender, this novel features a girl whose family owns a town swimming pool. When a series of pranks is launched at the pool, she must channel her inner Nancy Drew to figure out who's pulling the tricks and why.

10. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens—I mentioned in my last list that I re-read this classic every year. I'm feeling super Grinch-y this year, so it should be just the thing to reset my frame of mind.

11. Doing Life With Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out by Jim Burns—On a related note ("Adult" children, man, they're rough!), this book is about how to successfully navigate those tricky and changing relationships between parents and their growing-up children. I feel like I'm completely failing at this, so hopefully this book will be helpful.

12. Death On the Nile by Agatha Christie—I need something for a "Book Turned Into a Movie in 2022" reading challenge prompt, so I chose this classic mystery, which I've never read before. Normally, I don't watch a movie before I read the book it's based on, but I did already watch (and enjoy) the film.

There you go, 12 (of 25) books I'm planning to read before 2022 disappears forever. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What did you do for your Freebie 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 read lots of books every year written by authors I haven't read before. In fact, of the 203 books I read in 2021, 126 of them were by new-to-me writers. I've knocked out 12 novels so far this year; half of them are by authors whose books I've never explored before. I think it's safe to say I enjoy making new author discoveries. It's especially fun when they've got a nice, long backlist for me to check out! For today's list, I tried to highlight the new writers I found last year that I liked so much I read more than one of their books in 2021.

If you'd like to participate in Top Ten Tuesday (and you really should—it's the most fun weekly book event on the Internet), just hop on over to That Artsy Reader Girl for all the details.

1. Kate Albus—Okay, I actually only read one book by Albus this year, but only because that's all she's published so far. A Place to Hang the Moon is such a gem that I really, really can't wait to see what this debut author does next. 

2. Addison Armstrong—I'm the mother of two boys who were born at 29 weeks gestation. My experience with these tiny babies naturally drew me to Armstrong's debut, The Light of Luna Park, which tells the based-on-a-true-story of an innovative doctor in 1926 New York who saved the premature babies other physicians wouldn't by charging Coney Island visitors money to gawk at them. The admission fees paid for the infants' care, which helped many of them to grow and thrive. Armstrong's second novel, The War Librarian, sounds equally as fascinating as her first.

3. Elizabeth C. Bunce—Bunce is probably best known for her YA novels, but I found her because of her charming middle-grade mystery series. I listened to all of the books—Premeditated Myrtle, How to Get Away With Myrtle, and Cold-Blooded Myrtle—last year and loved every one of them. I am anxiously awaiting In Myrtle Peril, which comes out in October.

4. Amy Lynn Green—Green has written two historical novels for adults. I loved The Lines Between Us, a thought-provoking mystery about conscientious objectors who worked as firefighters in the U.S. during World War II.

5. Jocelyn Green—Another historical fiction author, this Green also writes books set in America's past. I enjoyed the first two novels in her Windy City saga—Veiled in Smoke and Shadows of the White City—in 2021. The third installment, Drawn by the Current, comes out in a week. I can't wait!

6. Jennifer L. Holm—I fell in love with The Lion of Mars, Holm's uplifting middle-grade novel set in space, when I read it last July. After that, I raced through her Boston Jane trilogy, which I very much enjoyed. 

7. Regina Scott—I've talked a lot about Scott's American Wonders series ever since I read A Distance Too Grand back in July. I also enjoyed the second book, Nothing Short of Wondrous, and am looking forward to reading A View Most Glorious sometime soon. 

8. Sarah Stewart Taylor—I discovered Taylor's Maggie D'arcy series mystery series last year. I enjoyed the first two books in the series and am looking forward to The Drowning Sea, which comes out in June. Taylor has also penned a mystery series starring an art historian who's an expert in gravestone art, which sounds excellent. Unfortunately, my local libraries don't carry the books. Boo hoo.

9. Tessa Wegert—Death in the Family, Wegert's debut, generated a lot of buzz when it came out in 2020. It lived up to the hype for me, so I read the second book in the series as well. I'm excited for the third, Dead Wind, which comes out in April. 

10. Elissa Brent Weissman—Weissman's heartfelt The Length of a String was one of my favorite books of 2021. I'm currently listening to her newest novel, The Renegade Reporters, which is a fun one.

There you go, ten new authors I found in 2021. Have you read any of them? Which writers did you discover last year? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog. 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic asks the old cliché question:  If you were stranded on a deserted island, which books would you want to have with you?  Really, the only one I'd need would be How to Get Yourself Rescued From a Deserted Island for Dummies.  That would get me off the island and back to my large home library pronto.  Voilà!  Problem solved.  Since this prompt (obviously) didn't really speak to me, I decided to spin it a little to make it more fun.  How about Top Ten Most Memorable Books With An Island Setting instead?  I've read lots of books set on islands big and small.  For this list, I'm going to focus on the latter.

If you want to hop on the TTT train, click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl for all the details.

(in no particular order)

1.  Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery—This novel, the first in a beloved series, is set on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

2.  And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie—Eight strangers are invited to Soldier Island, a fictional speck of land on the English coast, in this classic murder mystery. 

3.  Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton—On another made-up island, this one near Costa Rica, dinosaurs are alive, well, and available for viewing if you've got the dough.  Sounds awesome.  Until things start to go horrifically awry...

4.  Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko—This historical middle-grade novel, the first in a series, is about a boy who lives with his family on California's Alcatraz Island.  Before reading this series, it had never occurred to me that children might have lived in the vicinity of the infamous prison, but they absolutely did!  Crazy.

5.  The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See—Jeju, a small Korean island, is the setting for this fascinating historical.  It's about the island's female free divers, traditionally the breadwinners for their families, and how their trade changes over time.

6.  Death in the Family by Tessa Wegert—The first in a compelling mystery/thriller series, this one is set on a private island in the Thousand Islands region of New York state.  When a murder occurs during a family get together, Detective Shana Merchant and her partner are called out to investigate.  Atmospheric and engrossing, it's a tense page-turner.

7.  Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton—Bolton's written a bunch of intense thrillers, but this one is my favorite.  It takes place in the U.K.-owned Falkland Islands.  The mystery concerns a missing child whose disappearance in such an isolated and dangerous locale is at first assumed to be a tragic accident, but is soon determined to be something much more sinister...

8.  Moloka'i by Alan Brennert—Set on Hawaii's famous island leper colony, this is an intriguing and eye-opening historical novel.

9.  The Lewis Trilogy (The Blackhouse; The Lewis Man; The Chessmen) by Peter May—Scotland's Hebrides Islands are the setting for this atmospheric trio of mysteries.

10.  The Weight of Lies by Emily Carpenter—In this tense family drama, a woman visits fictional Bonny Island, Georgia, the setting for a horror novel turned cult classic written by her mother.  Determined to write a biting tell-all, she uncovers some astonishing secrets about her own family and past.

There you have it, ten memorable novels I've read that are set on small islands.  Have you read any of them?  What are your favorite books with small island settings?  Which titles would you like to have with you on a deserted island?  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!