My Top Ten Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025

I am plenty busy with my 20 Books of Summer, my book group, and piles of library books everywhere but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about the books being published in the second half of 2025 for That Artsy Reader Girl’s weekly Top Ten Tuesday:

My September 2024 Reading

A few books stood out this month, including Radio Girls, about the early days at the BBC, and The Trap, the newest book about Emma Makepeace. I also enjoyed The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher, which follows what seems like a recent trend in senior citizen sleuths but features an appealing heroine who is both vulnerable and resilient. I couldn’t decide if I liked or disliked The Second Lady by Irving Wallace but I couldn’t stop reading! There were also some disappointments.

My July 2023 Reads

Summer days drifting away . . . even if you can’t take time off to sit on the beach in July, it seems appropriate to read lighter fiction, which I needed after I finished Middlemarch (despite enjoying it).

WWW Wednesday – July 19, 2023

WWW Wednesday is sponsored by Taking on a World of Words.  

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading: I am halfway through The Last Remains, the final Ruth Galloway mystery by Elly Griffiths (2023), and I will be sad to see this series end.

My Life in Books - 2022

I borrowed this meme from AnnaBookbel, but I have done a few similar versions in the past.

Using only books you read in 2022, answer these prompts. Try not to repeat a book title (links in the titles will take you to my reviews where they exist).

In high school, I was: The Woman in the Library (Sulari Gentill)

My November 2022 Reads

Several highlights from November: I had forgotten how entertaining John Grisham can be and really liked two books about an investigator of judicial (mis)conduct.  I also enjoyed The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren, which I liked best of all her books I've read. And Bleeding Heart Yard was as amusing as all of Elly Griffiths' books!

Mystery/Suspense

Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths - and the Royals are in town!

Title: Bleeding Heart Yard
Author: Elly Griffiths
Publication: Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Present-day London

Description: Harbinder Kaur, now a Detective Inspector for the CID, newly arrived in London and sharing a flat with two strangers, is ready for her first big homicide case.

WWW Wednesday – September 7, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Current reading

I am usually in the middle of several books. In the car, I am listening to The Fall by John Lescroart (2015), a legal thriller featuring attorney Dismas Hardy and his daughter, Rebecca. She is now grown up and an associate in Hardy’s law firm, defending a client accused of murder. I had forgotten how much I enjoy Lescroart’s characters and how they have developed over the years.

Six Degrees of Separation: from The Book of Form and Emptiness to Eloise

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Oseki (2021), which I have not read. It’s about Benny who hears voices from inanimate objects while the story explores themes of mental illness and bereavement.  

August 2021 Reads

Some thoughts on my August reading:

Mystery and Suspense

City of the Lost (Rockton #1) by Kelley Armstrong

A Darkness Absolute (Rockton #2) by Kelley Armstrong

This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3) by Kelley Armstrong – These Rockton books are a seven-book series about Casey Butler, a homicide detective living in an isolated town in the Yukon where people go who don’t want to be found.   I am enjoying them, so long as I don’t have to go live there!  I recommended the first book to my sister around August 5th and she is already on book 5!

Six Degrees of Separation - From Good Girl, Bad Girl to A Chelsea Concerto

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where you end up.   This month’s starting point is whatever book you last read.   I just finished Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham (2019), an Australian author who lives in Sydney, although the story is set in Nottingham (shades of Robin Hood).  This is a very suspenseful novel about a psychologist with a past of his own, caught between a girl who needs to be saved, Evie, a teen without a past, and Jodie, a girl who needs justice. I can't wait to read more by this author (although I did guess whodunnit)!

Bookshelf Traveling - June 20, 2020

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is being hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a new pile of books.  Yes, I have hundreds of unread books in this house but hearing some of my library holds were ready made me do a little jig!

 

I was so excited to drive to Newton for Library-to-go curbside pickup yesterday!  In addition, as I drove past a small library in a nearby town, I saw a rack of books they had put outside, presumably as discards to compensate for not having their curbside pickup up and running. Naturally, I stopped to investigate! I helped myself to copies of An Old-Fashioned Girl (one of my favorite Alcotts) and an entertaining YA I read several years ago called The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You (a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing) which I think my nieces would enjoy.