Top Ten Tuesday is held over at That Artsy Reader Girl, where every week bloggers list their top 10 being asked about. This week, we’re talking about those books we’d slay lions for. So here are some books that have stuck in my mind over the last couple of weeks from the recommendations I usually do every week over here.
Paper Ghosts
Carl Louis Feldman is an old man who was once a celebrated photographer. That was before he was tried for the murder of a young woman and acquitted. before his admission to a care home for dementia. Now his daughter has come to see him, to take him on a trip. Only she’s not his daughter and, if she has her way, he’s not coming back . . .
Because Carl’s past has finally caught up with him. The young woman driving the car is convinced her passenger is guilty, and that he’s killed, other young women. Including her sister Rachel. Now they’re following the trail of his photographs, his clues, his alleged crimes. To see if he remembers any of it. Confesses to any of it. To discover what really happened to Rachel. Has Carl truly forgotten what he did or is he just pretending? Perhaps he’s guilty of nothing and she’s the liar. Either way in driving him into the Texan wilderness she’s taking a terrible risk. For if Carl really is a serial killer, she’s alone in the most dangerous place of all . . .
Who is right here? Inquiring minds want to know NOW! LOL!
Any Man
In her blazingly original and unforgettable debut novel “Any Man”, Amber Tamblyn brings to startling life a specter of sexual violence in the shadowy form of Maude, a serial female rapist who preys on men.
In this electric and provocative debut novel, Tamblyn blends genres of poetry, prose, and elements of suspense to give shape to the shocking narratives of victims of sexual violence, mapping the destructive ways in which our society perpetuates rape culture.
A violent serial rapist is on the loose, who goes by the name Maude. She hunts for men at bars, online, at home— the place doesn’t matter, neither does the man. Her victims then must live the aftermath of their assault in the form of doubt from the police, feelings of shame alienation from their friends and family and the haunting of a horrible woman who becomes the phantom on which society projects its greatest fears, fascinations and even misogyny. All the while the police are without leads and the media hound the victims, publicly dissecting the details of their attack.
What is extraordinary is how as years pass these men learn to heal, by banding together and finding a space to raise their voices. Told in alternating viewpoints signature to each voice and experience of the victim, these pages crackle with emotion, ranging from horror to breathtaking empathy.
Provocative blurb to say the least, and in the current climate, a timely one.
The Nowhere Child
‘Her name is Sammy Went. This photo was taken on her second birthday. Three days later she was gone.’
On a break between teaching photography classes, Kim Leamy is approached by a stranger investigating the disappearance of a little girl from her Kentucky home twenty-eight years earlier. He believes she is that girl.
At first Kim brushes it off, but when she scratches the surface of her family background in Australia, questions arise that aren’t easily answered. To find the truth, she must travel to Sammy’s home of Manson, Kentucky, and into a dark past. As the mystery unravels and the town’s secrets are revealed, this superb novel builds towards a tense, terrifying, and entirely unexpected climax.
Inspired by Gillian Flynn’s frenetic suspense and Stephen King’s masterful world-building, The Nowhere Child is a combustible tale of trauma, cult, conspiracy and memory. It is the remarkable debut of Christian White, an exhilarating new Australian talent attracting worldwide attention.
An Australian author, and a riveting blurb because well, someone comes up to you and says you were kidnapped? I want!
Good Guys
Donovan was shot by a cop. For jaywalking, supposedly. Actually, for arguing with a cop while black. Four of the nine shots were lethal–or would have been, if their target had been anybody else. The Foundation picked him up, brought him back, and trained him further. “Lethal” turns out to be a relative term when magic is involved.
When Marci was fifteen, she levitated a paperweight and threw it at a guy she didn’t like. The Foundation scooped her up for training too.
“Hippie chick” Susan got well into her Foundation training before they told her about the magic, but she’s as powerful as Donovan and Marci now.
They can teleport themselves thousands of miles, conjure shields that will stop bullets, and read information from the remnants of spells cast by others days before.
They all work for the secretive Foundation…for minimum wage.
Which is okay, because the Foundation are the good guys. Aren’t they?
This blurb leaves readers right on the edge of a cliffhanger with who are the good guys…
The Wren Hunt
Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family’s enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.
In a desperate bid to save her family, Wren takes a dangerous undercover assignment—as an intern to an influential Judge named Cassa Harkness. Cassa has spent her life researching a transformative spell, which could bring the war between the factions to its absolute end. Caught in a web of deceit, Wren must decide whether or not to gamble on the spell and seal the Augurs’ fate.
November, bloody hell. Sighs. An early review said this reminded the reviewer of The Dark is Rising Series, and that is my favourite book and series and AAHHHHH!. I need this.
What books would make you kill large, ferocious animals?
These all sound good! My TBR has been fine these past few months, but now that I’m back to blogging you all are pouring the books on again!
Hehhe, welcome back to the dark side, Christy!!!
I really really want Paper Ghosts. I think it’s actually out in the U.S. already…but I need it.
-Lauren
I KNOWWWWW!!!!!!
Actually no book would make me kill an animal…now an insect – yes. That’s why I changed mine to zombies. Great list.
I understand why you would sly lions for these books! they all sound really good especially Paper Ghosts!
I liked Paper Ghosts, but then I’ve liked several of Heaberlin’s books! A lot! Then you have to add more books that I need…
I hope you get to read and enjoy these books very soon, or at least as soon as they are released. Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.
Damn, these all sound so good! Wren House is going on my list to be sure 🙂
Paper Ghosts sounds SO good!
There are way too many books I’d slay a lion for. The Wren Hunt I saw before on your blog here and it’s been on my radar ever since!
No books! I’m against animal cruelty–even for books! I would definitely befriend a lion for a few, but never slay.
I love how you included information with each title and not just there covers. It was interesting and gave me an idea about their content! I’m definitely adding a few of these to my TBR. <3
Lindsi @ Do You Dog-ear?
Wait, Amber Tamblyn wrote a book? I am curious. She always seemed really intelligent.
Oooh, Paper Ghosts sounds so good! I’m also so curious about Amber Tamblyn’s book. I read a couple of op-eds she wrote recently and she’s just such an eloquent young lady.
Ooh these are all new to me! I like the sound of The Nowhere child…
Paper Ghosts is high on my list of books I want to read as well. I really enjoy Heaberlin’s books. Great list, Verushka!