Top Ten Tuesday – Most Anticipated Releases of the Second Half of 2019

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This week’s topic on Top Ten Tuesday is a tough one for me! I do not track release dates and so on at all. I read all over the place and definitely read a lot of backlist – trying to keep up with frontlist stresses me out so much and I also am a broke student at the moment, which doesn’t help, because even if I wanted to, I can’t buy a lot of the books I want. This meant I ended up having to do a bit of *gasp* research! Of course, once I started, I easily found at least ten books I want to read – so without further ado…

1. The Secret Commonwealth: I love Philip Pullman so much that I’m looking forward to this despite having still not read the first in the new trilogy. My plan is to do a reread of the originals, then start the new trilogy when this comes out! I have my personal differences with some of the things Pullman has said recently, but his books, especially those set in this world, are part of the core of me as a reader, and I hope these are no exception.

2. Ninth House: I am SO excited for Bardugo’s adult debut. Not that I don’t love her YA, but it’ll be so interesting to see her tackling something from the adult perspective. I’ve heard that this gets very dark, and in particular if you have triggers around sexual assault or rape, you might want to be careful with this. However, I trust Bardugo enough to give her the benefit of the doubt at the moment, and she has remarked on Twitter (though I can’t find the Tweet at the moment, apologies) that there was a personal element to this part of the story. I’m fascinated to find out more about this – it sounds like exactly the sort of twisty, tricky tale that I love.

3. Things We Say in the Dark: everything Kirsty Logan touches turns to gold, honestly. I am so in love with her writing it’s scary. AND she’s Scottish. Everything I’ve read by her so far has had luminous prose, a wealth of diversity, and absolutely gorgeous, heartbreaking story-lines, so it’s safe to say that I will be there, day one, with my money in hand.

4. The King of Crows: Libba Bray was one of the first authors I came across when I started to get back into YA in my late teens. Her Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy was one of my favourites at the time, and I still think the first two books are fantastic (I was not pleased with the third, but that’s just my opinion!) I’ve only read the first Diviners book and I loved it more than probably any other YA I read that year. I can’t wait to catch up with the middle two books and finally complete the series with this one.

5. New Class at Malory Towers: the Enid Blyton boarding school books (Malory Towers, St Clare’s, and Naughtiest Girl among others) are childhood favourites of mine, as well as some of my favourite comfort reads. They can be intensely problematic – though I don’t remember them being as much so as the Famous Five/Secret Seven and so on – but there’s something about these books that made boarding school seem so magical to me, and they really explore the world of girls in a way that I think was probably pretty interesting for the time. Not to mention, these stories are the forbears of pretty much every British boarding school story, up to and including Harry Potter. I haven’t read the Pamela Cox follow-up series, though I plan to, but this looks even more interesting to me! I’ve heard great things about Patrice Lawrence, and it looks like they’re going to take the series in a more diverse direction, which is absolutely great. It would be amazing if this could get young readers today into this world.

6. The Testaments: this is one that I’m not necessarily expecting to love, but that I have a lot of anticipation towards, if that makes sense? A bit like Go Set a Watchman or similar. I’m not sure this story needed another book, and Margaret Atwood has shown herself to have not moved with the times as much as might be desired, but at the same time I’m absolutely fascinated to find out what prompted her to come back to this world after all this time (apart from, obviously, all the shit going on in the real world).

7. Early Riser: I love Jasper Fforde; I have since The Eyre Affair. But one of the reasons I’m most excited for this book is that it’s a standalone. Fforde always seems to have multiple series going on, and the wait between instalments can get intense (*shakes fist in direction of Shades of Grey*) so it’s nice that I’ll be able to pick this one up and just enjoy the story without wondering when I’m going to get more.

8. The Peppermint Tea Chronicles: these books are the cosiest of cosy. The stakes are always incredibly low, the action is often absurd, and the cast of characters could not be more middle class. They’re perfect comfort reading, and I always love being able to recognise the geography of Edinburgh in the books. I hope he never stops writing these.

9. After the End: Mackintosh’s books have really surprised me; they’re absolutely a cut above your standard thriller with taut prose and great plotting. This sounds like it could be getting more into straightforward contemporary fiction with a thriller bent, which would be really interesting. She’s definitely an autobuy author for me, and I can’t wait to see if I’m right about the shape of this one.

10. What Magic is This?: I’m going to read anything Holly Bourne writes – even those of her books I like less are always thought-provoking and interesting. This one sounds amazing though. No one does female friendships like Holly Bourne (except Sara Barnard) and I like that this sounds like it’ll have a fantastical bent to it as well as I wondered if she’d ever come back to that.

Thanks as usual to Jana @ThatArtsyReaderGirl 🙂

4 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday – Most Anticipated Releases of the Second Half of 2019

    1. Yeah, I think it’s going to be the Big Book Thing in the second half of this year; it’s been so long since the first one! I’m really intrigued by it. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

      Like

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