#TopTenTuesday Books I Hope Santa Brings #TuesdayBookBlog

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

• Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
• Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
• Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
• Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Books I Hope Santa Brings. Realistically Santa is unlikely to bring me any books because friends and family rarely buy me them. They don’t know what I already own – let’s face it, sometimes I don’t either – or what I’ve already read. However if I’m fortunate enough to receive a gift card, here are some that might be on my shopping list.  If one or more of these books has appeared on your ‘Best Books of 2023’ list, then thank you for the recommendation. Links from the titles will take you to the full book description on Goodreads.

1. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet – The year is 1869. A brutal triple murder in a remote community in the Scottish Highlands leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae.
2. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett – It’s spring and Lara’s three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they’ve always longed to hear – of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.
3. Light Over Liskeard by Louis de Bernières – Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he’s looking for somewhere to ride out what’s ahead.
4. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch – On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
5. So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan – After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabrine, with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. 
6. Prize Women by Caroline Lea – Toronto, Canada, 1926. Best friends Lily di Marco and Mae Thebault were once inseparable. They lived under the same roof and cared for each other’s children. But with mouths to feeds and demanding husbands to keep happy, both women are forced into terrible decisions as the Great Depression tightens its grip.
7. The Spirit Engineer by A. J. West – Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism in the form of seances that attempt to contact the spirits of loved ones lost at sea.
8. Limberlost by Robbie Arnott – Ned West dreams of sailing across the river on a boat of his very own. To Ned, a boat means freedom – the fresh open water, squid-rich reefs, fires on private beaches – a far cry from life on Limberlost, the family farm, where his father worries and grieves for Ned’s older brothers.
9. Not One of Us (Teifi Valley Coroner #4) by Alis Hawkins – Harry Probert-Lloyd, is struggling: with the blindness that drove him home from London, with the county magistrates and with an estate teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. He needs an escape, so when Dr Benton Reckitt is asked to give a second opinion on the apparently natural death of young Lizzie Rees, Harry willingly goes with him.
10. Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle – Rome 1611. Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist. Motherless, she grows up among a family of painters — men and boys. She knows she is more talented than her brothers, but she cannot choose her own future.

What books are you hoping to receive?