Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books I’ve Read In 2018 (So Far)

top ten tuesdays
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

So far this year, I’ve read 56 books and loved so many of them! Check out a breakdown of my ratings below.

Rating Count
5 Stars 16
4 Stars 26
3 Stars 12
2 Stars 2
1 Stars 0

 

So many great reads! It was kind of hard to choose a Top Ten, but all of the books below have been 5 stars, and the first 5 even made their way onto my Favorites shelf, which is no easy task …
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Goodreads Monday: July 9, 2018

goodreads monday

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. To participate, choose a random book from your TBR and show it off! Check it out to share your links.

This one’s a relatively recent add to my TBR, but yet again, I’m grateful to this meme for reminding me how much I’d wanted to read it! It sounds just like the type of crime/mystery novel that’s right up my alley.

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Review: Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. MaasTitle: Queen of Shadows

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Series: Throne of Glass, #4

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Publication Date: September 1, 2015

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)


The queen has returned.

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past…

She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.

The fourth volume in the New York Times bestselling series continues Celaena’s epic journey and builds to a passionate, agonizing crescendo that might just shatter her world.

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Stacking the Shelves: July 7, 2018

stacking the shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tygna’s Reviews and Reading Reality and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Here’s the books that made their way into my hands this week. No super recent releases, but all ones I’ve been eyeing for quite some time!

If any of these appeal to you, too, check out their Goodreads pages via the links on the cover images.

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Blog Tour + Giveaway: The Last Time I Lied (Review)

Title: The Last Time I Lied

Author: Riley Sager

Genre: Suspense, Mystery, Thriller

Publication Date: July 3, 2018

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5 stars)


Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their tiny cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. The games ended when Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin in the dead of night. The last she–or anyone–saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.

Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings–massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. The paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale. When Francesca implores her to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor, Emma sees an opportunity to try to find out what really happened to her friends.

Yet it’s immediately clear that all is not right at Camp Nightingale. Already haunted by memories from fifteen years ago, Emma discovers a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca and, most disturbing of all, cryptic clues Vivian left behind about the camp’s twisted origins. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing threats from both man and nature in the present. And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale, the more she realizes it may come at a deadly price.

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Review: Bring Me Back

Bring Me Back by B.A. ParisTitle: Bring Me Back

Author: B.A. Paris

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

Publication Date: June 19, 2018

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (3.5 stars)


Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him…even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.

Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?

A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.

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Review: Jar of Hearts

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer HillierTitle: Jar of Hearts

Author: Jennifer Hillier

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Publication Date: June 12, 2018

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)


This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who’s been searching for the truth all these years …

When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

But fourteen years later, Angela Wong’s remains are discovered in the woods near Geo’s childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he’s something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo’s first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.

For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela’s death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.

While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.

How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?

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Review: The Word Is Murder

The Word Is Murder by Anthony HorowitzTitle: The Word Is Murder

Author: Anthony Horowitz

Genre: Mystery, Crime, Fiction

Publication Date: June 5, 2018

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)


The New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues.

A woman crosses a London street.

It is just after 11am on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service.

Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.

Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material.

As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz—a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories—suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistibly drawn into the mystery. But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes he’s at the center of a story he can’t control . . . and that his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.

A masterful and tricky mystery which plays games at many levels, The Word Is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.

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Goodreads Monday: June 4, 2018

goodreads monday

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. To participate, choose a random book from your TBR and show it off!

This week’s pick snuck its way onto my TBR at the onset of the year, and then I promptly forgot all about it. Does anyone else have that problem? This meme is constantly serving as a reminder to me that I do this way too often …

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Stacking the Shelves: June 2, 2018

stacking the shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tygna’s Reviews and Reading Reality and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

After a crazy month, I’m getting back into the habit with these memes, and this was a good week to jump back on board! I grabbed a fun haul from the library bookshop this morning, and I’m so excited for all of them.

If any of these appeal to you, too, check out their Goodreads pages via the links on the cover images.

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