Today's TTT prompt—Top Ten Books That Defied My Expectations (books you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving, books you thought you'd love but didn't, etc.)— is a good one, but I'm just not feeling it. Even though it's early September and it's still a million degrees outside, I'm gearing up for some cozy Fall reading. To me, that means mysteries, mysteries, and more mysteries! Yes, I read this genre throughout the year, but it just seems especially suited for the cozy/spooky season. Maybe that's why there are so many intriguing-sounding ones still to be published this year. I'm going to highlight ten up-and-coming mystery/thrillers that I want to read.

First, though, be sure to click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl and give our host, Jana, some love. If you want to join in the TTT fun (and you do!), all the details are there.

1. The Darkness Surrounds Us by Gail Lukasik (releases today!)—With the Spanish flu wreaking havoc on her Chicago home, nurse Nellie Lester needs to get out of town. She takes a job at a crumbling mansion on an isolated island in Michigan, hoping for a new start and to find answers to her mother's mysterious past. Not only does the place feel haunted by her mother's presence, but the discovery of the previous nurse's dead body proves there's something very sinister going on. Can Nellie figure out the island's deadly secrets before it's too late?

2. The Wings of Poppy Pendleton by Melanie Dobson (available September 19)—During a Gilded Age party at her family's castle in New York's Thousand Islands area, a young girl goes missing while her father lies dead in the smoking room. Seventy-five years later, a mysterious girl arrives on the island, prompting the owner of the island to look into the old mystery. What really happened to Poppy Pendleton?

3. Death and the Sisters by Heather Redmond (available September 26)—This opener begins a new historical mystery series starring a teenaged Mary Shelley, her stepsister, and Mary's future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. When Mary discovers a man—who happens to be Percy's classmate and rival— dead in her home after a party, she and her cohorts use their collective smarts to solve the murder. 

4. The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok (available October 10)—Because of China's One Child Policy, Jasmine Yang's infant daughter was snatched away from her. Now in New York City without a penny to her name and on the run from her controlling husband, Jasmine is on a desperate hunt to find her stolen child. A wealthy publishing executive, Rebecca Whitney has the perfect life—including an adopted Chinese daughter. When the lives of these two very different women collide, it causes both to question everything they both know about identity, motherhood, and the true meaning of family.

5. What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim (available October 10)—A year later, the Kim Family is still baffled and devastated by their matriarch's mysterious disappearance. When they find the dead body of a stranger in their backyard, they're even more shocked, especially since he's carrying a letter addressed to the missing woman. Who is the unknown man? And what does he have to do with Sunny Kim? Where is Sunny and why did she vanish?

6. Murder by Degrees by Ritu Mukerji (available October 17)—It's 1875 and Lydia Weston is a professor and anatomist at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. When the body of a dead chambermaid is found in a Philadelphia river, a supposed suicide, Lydia becomes suspicious. Following clues on the corpse and in the dead woman's diary, she sets out to discover how the young woman really died.  

7. People to Follow by Olivia Worley (available October 31)—"In Real Life" is a hot new reality show that takes ten well-known teen influencers to a Caribbean island where they will completely unplug for three weeks of televised, non-filtered living. When the production crew fails to show and one of the influencers dies violently, the remaining nine find themselves stranded in a remote paradise with a killer. 

8. Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen by Sarah James (available November 7)—The Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed by volunteers who are also Tinseltown stars, is the place to be in 1943. Aspiring playwright Annie Laurence hopes to make enough of a splash there to get the murder mystery film she's written produced. When a hated film critic is killed at the Canteen, Annie joins a group of amateur sleuths to figure out who murdered her.

9. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (available November 14)—When a man's dead body is found in the iced-over Kennebec River in 1789, the local midwife and healer is called upon to examine the corpse. A keeper of her town's secrets, Martha knows the dead man is one of the possible perpetrators of an alleged rape that happened several months ago. As both crimes are investigated, her small town is torn apart by scandal and prejudice. What will the truth do to Martha, her family, and her community?

10. The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski (available December 26)—As the heirs to a copper fortune, the Van Ness siblings are constantly in the spotlight. They gather yearly at a luxury winery for the R&R they all desperately need. This year, their vacation is beset with the usual family drama as well as a torrential rainstorm and a shocking murder. Whodunit?

There you are, ten upcoming mystery/thriller novels I want to read. Which Fall releases are you excited about? If you did today's prompt, which books defied your expectations? I'd truly love to know. Leve me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

How is it September already? Wow, this year just continues to fly by! August was a good month for me and bookish books. I read six (my Goodreads ratings are in parentheses):

What Happened to Rachel Riley by Claire Swinarski (5 stars)

The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor (3 stars)

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado (4 stars)

The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls by Julie Schumacher (3 stars)

The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Beil (4 stars)

The Bones of the Story by Carol Goodman (4 stars)

Not too shabby, overall.

I'm not sure what bookish books I'm going to try to read in September. Since there are only four months left in the year, I'm working on completing all my reading challenges. I do still need a book set in Utah, so I'll probably read at least this one in the next few weeks:

It's the story of a Salt Lake City librarian who struggled to control the tics he experienced because of Tourette Syndrome. A strongman suggested weightlifting as a way to wrangle them. The practice has since become a practical, successful way to manage his symptoms. In this memoir, Josh Hanagarne tells his own story about Tourette's, books, and more. 

Which bookish books are you planning to read this month?

While I've been rocking my reading challenges this year, I didn't quite complete this one, the 20 Books of Summer challenge hosted annually by Cathy over at 746 Books. To be fair, I started late. Also to be fair, I changed out several books over the course of the challenge so I could complete more of them. The rules of the challenge are very flexible, which is nice. Here's what I ended up reading:

1. Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser—This is my current physical book. I've read about 1/3 so far. finished 06.22.23

Today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a simple one: Water. There are so many ways to go with this theme, but the first thing that came to mind for this mystery/thriller lover is books with pictures of houses on their covers. Have you ever noticed how many of them include water—usually crashing ocean waves—to enhance their moody, broody vibes? Not only does the inclusion of water create a sinister sense of isolation, but it also taps into the fear a lot of us have of the mysterious deep. These types of covers always send a thrilling little chill down my spine, which makes me instantly want to add the book to my TBR pile! There's just nothing like a (potentially) haunted house to pique my curiosity, whether the place is inhabited by actual ghosts or just ringing with the echoes of a secret past or whispering premonitions of an ominous future to come...

Before we get to that, though, take a minute to click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl and give some love to our fabulous TTT host, Jana. If you want to hop on the TTT party bus (and you do!), you'll find everything you need to know on her blog.

1. The Only One Left by Riley Sager—I'm still on the very long library waiting list for this thriller. It concerns a teenage girl who allegedly killed her parents and sister at their cliffside mansion in Maine. Now an elderly woman debilitated by a series of strokes, Leonora is finally "speaking" out about the crime by writing her story on an old typewriter. As her home health care aide reads the pages, they become increasingly alarmed. Is the old woman as innocent as she seems or is she as guilty as sin?

2. Lakeview House by Helen Phifer—In desperate need of a new start, Maddy Hart impulsively accepts a position as a live-in caretaker at an imposing house on the shore of Lake Thirlmere. She's never been there before, but something about the place feels eerily familiar. Maddy tries not to be spooked by all the creaks and strange noises she hears while she's cleaning out the house, but the more time she spends there, the more creeped out she becomes. Are the sinister stories she's been hearing about the home's last resident true? Is Maddy in some kind of danger? Isolated and alone, she fears the worst...

3. What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline—I've never read anything by Scottoline, but I'm intrigued by the premise of this one. Jason Bennett is a regular dad whose ordinary suburban life takes a wild, unexpected turn one night as he's driving his family home from a lacrosse game. They become victims of a violent carjacking that puts them in the center of a dangerous FBI case. Encouraged to go into witness protection, the Bennetts are thrown into an entirely new life. As their peace of mind slowly unravels, new facts in the case come to light, convincing Jason that it's up to him to get the justice his traumatized family deserves.

4. The Death of Us by Lori Rader-Day (available October 3, 2023)—Fifteen years ago, Liss Kehoe responded to a late-night knock on her door and was shocked to be handed a newborn. The baby's mother, Ashley Hay, then disappeared. Liss has raised the boy she thinks of as hers, always fearful that Ashley will return and demand her son back. When the missing woman's car is found submerged in a quarry pond on Liss' property almost two decades later, it provides more questions than answers. What really happened to Ashley? Was it suicide, an accident, or something much, much more sinister?

5. The Nesting by C.J. Cooke—Tom Faraday is an architect bent on finishing the home he's building on a fjord in Norway, even though that's where his wife took her own life. He hires Gaia to be a nanny for his two young children. Although she loves the kids, she senses that something is very off in the Faraday household. Odd things are happening, leading Gaia to believe that Mrs. Faraday's death did not come by her own hand...

6. You Never Know by Connie Briscoe—In spite of its mixed reviews, I'm curious about this thriller. It revolves around a deaf woman who is delighted when she meets the man of her dreams. Not only is he charming and successful, but Marcus is also fluent in American Sign Language. It doesn't take long, though, before he seems to become a completely different person. Some sleuthing on her part reveals that her husband's first wife is missing, presumed dead. Then, Marcus himself disappears. Who is the stranger she married, really? And where has he gone?

7. The Midnight House by Amanda Geard—This triple-timeline mystery revolves around Blackwater Hall, a graceful, secret-filled home in County Kerry, Ireland. Will a modern-day disgraced journalist be able to solve its mysteries?

8. Into the Dark by Fiona Cummins—Something odd has happened at beautiful, windswept Seawings. The home's occupants—two parents and two teens—have vanished. When a friend enters, she finds a radio playing, phones charging, cars in the garage, and no one home. A sinister message scrawled on one of the bedroom walls hints that something unspeakable has happened, but what?

9. The Engagement Party by Darby Kane—Twelve years ago, a young woman went missing from her posh school and one of her classmates, a boy no one really knew, took his own life. One text indicated there was a connection between them, which closed the case for the police. Now, a group of college friends have gathered on a private island in Maine to celebrate an upcoming wedding. Someone is using the party as a chance to force out the truth about what really happened a dozen years ago. As the tension ramps up, so does a storm that will strand them all with a killer who has already gotten away with murder once.

Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose—This cover is a bit of a departure from the others, but it's got a house and water so it counts, right? The story is about a group of moms in an Irish village whose lives are shattered when one of their own is found murdered in her home. Ciara's Instagram-worthy life seemed absolutely perfect, so who could possibly have wanted her dead? A whole lot of people as it turns out...

There you are, ten mystery/thrillers I want to read that have covers featuring a house and water. Have you read any of them? What did you think? Which others can you think of that fit with the theme? I'm always looking for recs! What did you do for this watery prompt? 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.