Top Ten Authors I've Only Read One Book From And NEED to Read More

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic feels like it was made for me because there are SO many authors I've only read one book from and really, really need to read more of. Like:

1. Markus Zusak. I have the hide to call him one of my favourite authors and yet have only read one of his books (The Book Thief). Don't ask me what's taken me so long. It's terrible.

2. E Lockhart. I recently read and LOVED We Were Liars so I'd like to go back and read Lockhart's other books now.

3. Kate Forsyth. As soon as I finished Bitter Greens I immediately wanted to read more of Forsyth's work. Aaaand I still haven't. I do have two of her other books in my TBR though so that's something, right?

4. Courtney Summers. I adored This is Not A Test and have heard great things about Summers' other books.

5. Margo Lanagan. Loved Sea Hearts. You know the rest.

6. Cath Crowley. Graffiti Moon is great and apparently so are Crowley's other books.

7. Jackie Kay. I really liked Kay's memoir Red Dust Road and I'd love to read her fiction. A couple of her books are already in my TBR. I just need to get to them.

8. Libba Bray. When I read Beauty Queens, I vowed to hunt down and read all of Bray's books straight away... and yeah, still haven't.

9. Margaret Atwood. Of her books, I've only read The Handmaid's Tale and I clearly need to read the rest.

10. Wilkie Collins. I've been meaning to read more of Collins' books ever since enjoying The Woman in White a few years ago and it's yet another thing I haven't got around to.

Which authors do you want to read more of?

Top Ten Books On My Wishlist

1. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins. I probably don't need to explain this one - I think if you're a book blogger and don't already own it, you want it!

2. The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su. I adored the web series so I'm interested to see how they've adapted it as a book.

3. Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction's Most Beloved Heroines by Samantha Hahn. This book of illustrations of female characters looks gorgeous.

4. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. This one has been sitting on my wishlist for years. No idea why I haven't managed to get my hands on it yet.

5. Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson. I loved Matson's first book and liked her second so I'm really keen to read this one too.

6. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. I've heard mixed things about this book but I adored Lanagan's Sea Hearts when I read it last year and have been meaning to check this one out since.

7. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. I am one of those terrible people (or possibly the only one?!) who is yet to read this series. I almost bought it recently but held myself back because I was buying other books - but I will have to get this one some day soon.

8. Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson. This is another book that has been on my wishlist since it came out, a couple of years ago now. For some reason it's never made it to the TBR pile, but I still really want it.

9. The Messenger by Markus Zusak. Despite loving The Book Thief A LOT, I haven't read any of Zusak's other books, which I kind of kick myself over every so often. I need to remedy that.

10. Bossypants by Tina Fey. I was desperate to read this when it came out and then never got around to buying or reading it. Again, I really need to!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. 

Top Ten Books I'd Love To See As A Movie/TV Show

1. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. It's a fun, fluffy and fabulous teen book that would make a fun, fluffy and fabulous teen movie.

2. The Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta. I would love to see Marchetta's fantasy series as a TV show. I love the characters so much and it would be awesome to see them brought to life.

3. Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan. This atmospheric tale of selkies and magic would make a moving and whimsical movie or mini-series.

4. The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. Another fantasy series with great characters that would be fantastic on screen - especially the titular thief, Eugenides.

5. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey. Amazing and Aussie movies don't always go hand in hand unfortunately, but I think this could be a great one - or even a good TV mini-series. We seem to be doing better in that medium lately.

6. The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. Epic love story set across the back-drop of Russia during World War II. Swooooon.

7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. The visuals alone would make this a gorgeous movie, and I think condensing it could only improve the rather slow story.

8. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. Who doesn't love a roadtrip movie?

9. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell. Some classics, mainly those by Austen, Dickens and the Brontes, have been adapted to near death. I'd love to see a different text brought to the screen - like this one!

10. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I adored this weird and wonderful book, right up until the cliffhanger ending. I think it would make an awesome, eerie movie, with hopefully more resolution at the end.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Books I Want Santa To Bring Me

1. The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling. I feel like the only person in the world who hasn't read this book.

2. Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley. Everyone I know adores this book, and every time I see a new, glowing review, I kick myself for not owning it.

3. Metamorphoses by Ovid. I love Greek mythology and I've been meaning to read the Metamorphoses for years, so I'd love to get it as a gift.

4. Saved by Cake by Marian Keyes. This not only looks like a totally adorable cookbook, it also sounds like an interesting and potentially moving read, focusing on how baking literally saved Marian's life as she recovered from depression.

5. Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson. This twist on the Peter Pan tale sounds intriguing and has gotten amazing reviews from people I trust.

6. The Fire Chronicle by John Stephens. I loved The Emerald Atlas when I read it last year, and I've been looking forward to reading its sequel for awhile. I just need to get my hands on it!

7. Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart. I'm obsessed with Miranda's self-titled sitcom, and her book sounds just as hilarious and delightful.

8. On Writing by Stephen King. I'm hoping to focus more on my creative writing in the new year, and it seems like this book is a must-have for all aspiring authors!

9. The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer. I specifically want the Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics edition of Homer's work, because it looks gorgeous. I'm obsessed with this collection.

10. The Original Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. This edition of Mary Shelley's classic includes two versions of the story: the original that Mary wrote, and the version we all know, which was heavily edited by her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. I'd love to see the original and compare the two.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

What's on your wishlist?

On My Wishlist: Ghosts, Battles and More Darcy

On My Wishlist, hosted by Book Chick City, is a weekly meme that keeps track of the books we want! Here's what I'm currently coveting...

Summary: The year is 1856, and orphan Abigail Tamper lives below stairs in Greave Hall, a crumbling manor house in London. Lord Greave is plagued by madness, and with his son Samuel away fighting in the Crimea, the running of Greave Hall is left to Mrs Cotton, the tyrannical housekeeper. The only solace for the beleaguered staff is to frighten Mrs Cotton by pretending the house is haunted.
So when a real ghost makes an appearance - that of her beloved mother - no one is more surprised than Abi. But the spirit has a revelation that threatens to destroy Abi’s already fragile existence: she was murdered, and by someone under their very own roof. With Samuel returned to England badly wounded, it’s up to Abi to nurse him back to health, while trying to discover the identity of the killer in their midst. As the chilling truth dawns, Abi’s world is turned upside down.
Reviewer that made me want it: Melissa at Books and Things

Summary: Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it's a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part, Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy's car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend's attention.
Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: she and the other players' girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won't get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don't count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. And Lissa never sees her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling, coming.
Reviewer that made me want it: Audrey at Holes in my Brain

Summary: In this multiple parallel universes of the Twelve Related Worlds, only an enchanter with nine lives is powerful enough to control the rampant misuse of magic—and to hold the title Chrestomanci...
The Chants are a family strong in magic, but neither Christopher Chant nor Cat Chant can work even the simplest of spells. Who could have dreamed that both Christopher and Cat were born with nine lives—or that they could lose them so quickly?
Reviewer that made me want it: Ruby of Ruby's Reads, via Twitter

Summary: When the famous rock band Slurry and it's members Fitzwilliam Darcy, Richard Fitzwilliam and Charles Bingley need a new support act, they choose Long Bourne Suffering, the band of Elizabeth & Jane Bennett and Charlotte Lucas. From the get go there is a lot of chemistry between the band members and even though Darcy, the leader of Slurry, doesn't want any relationships to develop he can't stop it from happening.

Soon the two bands and their members are connected in a close, complicated and sometimes messed up way. Will they find a way to play the whole tour, get over their issues and find happy ends for all of the band members?

Reviewer that made me want it: Sabrina at About Happy Books

On My Wishlist: Cold Kisses, Skinny Dipping And Love At First Sight

On My Wishlist, hosted by Book Chick City, is a weekly meme that keeps track of the books we want! Here's what I'm currently coveting...

Summary: Pearl is a sixteen-year-old vampire... fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil... until the night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn. Oops.
Her family thinks she was attacked by a vampire hunter (because, obviously, unicorns don't exist), and they're shocked she survived. They're even more shocked when Pearl discovers she can now withstand the sun. But they quickly find a way to make use of her new talent. The Vampire King of New England has chosen Pearl's family to host his feast. If Pearl enrolls in high school, she can make lots of human friends and lure them to the King's feast -- as the entrees.
The only problem? Pearl's starting to feel the twinges of a conscience. How can she serve up her new friends—especially the cute guy who makes her fangs ache—to be slaughtered? Then again, she's definitely dead if she lets down her family. What's a sunlight-loving vamp to do?
Reviewer that made me want it: Missie at The Unread Reader, via My Book Boyfriend

Summary: When her boyfriend, Danny, is killed in a car accident, Wren can’t imagine living without him. Wild with grief, she uses the untamed powers she’s inherited to bring him back. But the Danny who returns is just a shell of the boy she once loved.
Wren has spent four months keeping Danny hidden, while her life slowly unravels around her. Then Gabriel DeMarnes transfers to her school and somehow, inexplicably, he can sense her secret. Wren finds herself drawn to Gabriel, who is so much more alive than the ghost of the boy she loved. But Wren can’t turn her back on Danny or the choice she made for him—and she realizes she must find a way to make things right, even if it means breaking her own heart.
Reviewer that made me want it: Meghan at Forever Young Adult

Summary: Phoenix belongs to the Community - a gang of thieves with paranormal powers. Yves Benedict - an American student visiting London - is her mark. But Yves turns out to be more than just a target. He is her destiny. Her soulmate. But the Community owns Phoenix's past and it wants her future too.
Reviewer that made me want it: Megan at The Book Addicted Girl

Summary: Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. She's stuck at JFK, late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon to be step-mother that Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's in seat 18B. Hadley's in 18A.
Twists of fate and quirks of timing play out in this thoughtful novel about family connections, second chances and first loves. Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.
Reviewer that made me want it: Ginger at GReads

Summary: Sometimes I still wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning, drowning in dreams of being out there in the ocean that summer, of looking up at the moon and feeling as invisible and free as a fish. But I'm jumping ahead, and to tell the story right I have to go back to the very beginning. To a place called Indigo Beach. To a boy with pale skin that glowed against the dark waves. To the start of something neither of us could have predicted, and which would mark us forever, making everything that came after and before seem like it belonged to another life.

My name is Mia Gordon: I was sixteen years old, and I remember everything.
Reviewer that made me want it: Missie at The Unread Reader

On My Wishlist

On My Wishlist, hosted by Book Chick City, is a weekly meme that keeps track of the books we want! Here's what I'm currently coveting... 

 

Summary: Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. 

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay. 

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home. 

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

 

Reviewer that made me want it: Logan at Logan E. Turner

 

 

Summary: Port Fare, New York, has fallen into the clutches of true evil. The Dreser brothers have arrived with a scheme to increase drug sales in the area by whatever means possible. Seth Prescott is part of MET, Mobile Enforcement Teams, a branch of the DEA. He's been assigned to work undercover at Port Fare High, and things aren't going very well, until senior Maggie Brown enters the equation. He's harbored a secret crush on her from day one, and now that she is in the center of the case, he's trying to stay clear and objective while walking the line between business and unrequited love. 

Maggie is truly the poster child for Heroin Chic, complete with jutting bones and dark-ringed eyes, but is she an addict, or is there another reason for her appearance? She struggles with her feelings for Seth, fearing he is just another person who will eventually let her down, as everyone in her life has done thus far...

Seth and Maggie's romantic journey is one of humor, heartbreak, and self-discovery.  

 

Reviewer that made me want it: Somer at A Bird's Eye Review

Summary: Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

 

It can.

 

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

 

There is.

 

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.

 

She's wrong.

 

Reviewer that made me want it: Aylee at Recovering Potter Addict

On My Wishlist

On My Wishlist, hosted by Book Chick City, is a weekly meme that keeps track of the books we want! I have a serious addiction to buying books, so hopefully by keeping track of what I want without actually purchasing (yet) I'll curtail my problem and see my TBR pile shrink a bit instead of growing faster than I can read. Here's what I'm currently itching to get...

Summary: Raised by an unstable father who keeps the family constantly on the move, Sam Border hasn't been in a classroom since the second grade. He's always been the rock for his younger brother Riddle, who stopped speaking long ago and instead makes sense of the world through his strange and intricate drawings. It's said that the two boys speak with one voice--and that voice is Sam's.

Then, Sam meets Emily Bell, and everything changes. The two share an immediate and intense attraction, and soon Sam and Riddle find themselves welcomed into the Bell's home. Faced with normalcy for the first time, they know it's too good to last.

Reviewer that made me want it: Audrey from Holes in my Brain

Summary: Gillian is fifteen, crippled by a tragic accident but dreams of swimming across oceans.

Jacob is fourteen and yearns for his brother's life.

Frankie is fifteen and in love with the new deckhand on her father's boat.

As the story of these three desires intertwine over the course of one lazy summer in a small coastal town, Cargo is by turns heart-wrenching, beautiful and explosive.

Reviewer that made me want it: Nic at Irresistible Reads

Summary: The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes meeting a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realise what's been missing in her own life, and as she starts to fall for him, she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, and decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness. The Language of Flowers is a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about the meaning of flowers, the meaning of family, and the meaning of love.

Reviewer that made me want it: Nomes at Ink Crush

Summary: 17-year-old Lila has two secrets she's prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she's been in love with her brother's best friend, Alex, since forever. Or thereabouts. After a mugging on the streets of South London goes horribly wrong and exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust - her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organisation called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. And that they've found them. Trying to uncover the truth of why her mother was killed, and the real remit of The Unit, Lila becomes a pawn in a dangerous game. Struggling to keep her secrets in a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realises that she is not alone - there are others out there just like her - people with special powers -and her mother's killer is one of them.

Reviewer that made me want it: Mocha at A Cupcake and a Latte

Friday Finds: My Wishlist Just Increased

Friday Finds is a meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading, featuring books we've discovered in the past week. Ever since I joined the wonderful world of book blogging, my wishlist and TBR pile have both grown exponentially, so I thought this meme would be a great way to keep track of any further additions. Here are the books I'm currently eager to get my hands on:


After reading Audrey's review of Split by Swati Avasthi over at Holes in my Brain, I'm super interested in checking it out for myself. If a book can make you stay up to 3.30am because you can't put it down, it's gotta be good.

I saw Austenland by Shannon Hale reviewed by Melina at Reading Vacation and immediately added it to my wishlist. It's right up my alley, following the story of a Darcy-obsessed protagonist who goes on a holiday to Austenland, a Regency-style resort that sounds like my kind of place. If only it really existed.

I know you're not supposed to judge books by their covers, but let's face it, who doesn't?! I know I totally do. Take this one, for instance. Without even knowing what it's about I want to read it, because I freaking love the cover. Turns out it's about zombies, which is not something I usually gravitate towards - but I have been thinking it's about time I looked into it, anyway. Thanks to Sarah at Storybound Girl for featuring this in her Waiting on Wednesday post this week.

Nic at Irresistible Reads posted a wonderful review of Saving June by Hannah Harrington. It sounds like an awesome, character-driven tale and I can't wait to read it. Plus it has a super pretty cover. There I go, judging again.