#TopTenTuesday Books On My Spring 2022 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday

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 On My Spring 2022 TBR. Where do I start? Okay, here are just ten with the emphasis on those I need to read for blog tours and books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022. The shortlist in announced at the beginning of April so I need to get a move on…

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson – The winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2021, this is March’s pick for my book club. 

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu – Described as ‘a moving debut novel about war, migration, and the power of telling stories’ following three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home.

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota – On the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize, it combines the story of Mehar, a young bride in rural Punjab in 1929 and that of a young man who in 1999 travels there from England in enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence.  

Traitor in the Ice by K. J. Maitland – Historical crime novel set in 1607 by a favourite author of mine, the follow-up to The Drowned City.

The Magician by Colm Tóibín – Another book on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize, it’s the story of the life of writer Thomas Mann.

Still Life by Sarah Winman – A Walter Scott Prize longlisted book, in which young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, and middle-aged art historian, Evelyn Skinner, meet in Tuscany in 1944 setting off a chain of events. 

The Fall by Rachael Blok – A simple case of suspected suicide turns into an investigation into a long-buried past, involving a mental hospital, a pregnant woman, and fifty years of silence.

The Dark Flood by Deon Meyer – The eighth in the Benny Griessel series of crime novels by an author described by Wilbur Smith no less as ‘the undisputed champion of South African crime’.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase – Set on the Cornish coast, it’s the story of Kat, Flossie and Lauren, half-sisters who share a famous artist father – and a terrible secret.

Fortune by Amanda Smyth – Another book on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize. Set in 1920s Trinidad, and based on a real-life event, it’s described as a novel about love, money, greed and ambition.

 


#TopTenTuesday Dynamic Detective Duos

Top Ten Tuesday new

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 Dynamic Duos. I decided to concentrate on some detective duos who feature in one of my favourite genres – historical crime fiction. Links from the titles will take you to my review.

  1. Physician Nicholas Shelby and tavern owner Bianca Merton in S.W Perry’s series set in Elizabethan London published by Corvus – The Angel’s Mark, The Serpent’s Mark, The Saracen’s Mark and The Heretic’s Mark
  2. Doctor Will Raven and housemaid Sarah Fisher in Ambrose Parry’s series set in 19th century Edinburgh published by Canongate – The Way of All Flesh, The Art of Dying and A Corruption of Blood
  3. Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote and Sergeant Catchpoll in Sarah Hawkswood’s series set in 12th century Worcestershire published by Allison & Busby – Servant of Death, Ordeal by Fire, Marked to Die, Hostage to Fortune, Vale of Tears, Faithful Unto Death, River of Sins, Blood Runs Thicker and Wolf at the Door
  4. Barrister Arthur Skelton and his clerk Edgar Hobbes in David Stafford’s series published by Allison & Busby – Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons and Skelton’s Guide to Suitcase Murders
  5. Amateur detectives Anna Drake and Shilly in Katharine Stansfield’s series set in 1840s Cornwall published by Allison & Busby – Falling Creatures, The Magpie Tree and The Mermaid’s Call
  6. Clerk to the King’s Justices Aelred Barling and his messenger Hugo Stanton in E.M. Powell’s series set in 12th century England published by Thomas & Mercer – The King’s Justice, The Monastery Murders and The Canterbury Murders
  7. Personal detective Sidney Grice and his ward March Middleton in M.R.C. Kasasian’s series set in 19th century London published by Head of Zeus – The Mangle Street Murders, The Curse of the House of Foskett, Death Descends on Saturn Villa, The Secrets of Gaslight Lane and Dark Dawn over Steep House
  8. Lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak in C.J. Sansom’s series set in Tudor England published by  – Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, Lamentation and Tombland
  9. Cambridge historian Ernest Drabble and newspaper reporter Sir Percival Harris in Alec Marsh’s series set in the 1930s published by Headline – Rule Britannia, Enemy of the Raj, Ghosts of the West
  10. Slightly cheating because they’re a trio, lady ‘detectors’ Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë in Bella Ellis’s series set in 1840s Yorkshire – The Vanished Bride, The Diabolical Bones and The Red Monarch