Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read

So we’re just jumping right in and airing all my dirty laundry right off the bat. I confess that I am really good at walking into bookstores and walking out with books, but less good at the actual reading of all the books.

Does it count that I start with good intentions? Obviously, I wholeheartedly intend to read the interesting new story I’ve just adopted into my flock. The fact that it’s still languishing on my To Be Read bookshelf? Totally beside the point. That’s just part of its Hero’s Journey, and who am I to cut it short?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is about books I was so anxious to get my hands on, but then still haven’t read (through no fault of my own . . . probably). Featuring first lines, lots of regret, and questionable choices.

It’s probably no surprise at all that I get very excited about new books. I mean, not to brag, but that is my job, and I’m nothing if not a professional. Sometimes that means I purchase books at a rate that far surpasses my ability to read them, and then I just do that over and over again because I clearly never learn my lesson. (I said I was a professional, not quick on the uptake.)

Sooo . . . you have one job by the end of this post. Since I feel extremely called out now, I need some help choosing which book I should read next! If you’ve read any of these, let me know what you think, especially if there’s anything on my list that you consider a must-read. In short, make my decision for me, because I’m an indecisive little book dragon.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us a gripping story set in the Cosmere universe told by Hoid, where two people from incredibly different worlds must compromise and work together to save their worlds from ruin.

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and nightmares. When their lives suddenly become intertwined in strange ways, can they put aside their differences and work together to uncover the mysteries of their situation and save each others communities from certain disaster?

I’ve been a fan of Brandon Sanderson since hubby forced me to read Steelheart a few years into our marriage (and he’s been a fan since many years before that). So it was a given that we would get his special project books. Preordered the Kindle versions, even. Yet, for some reason, it’s just been lying around. Digitally, but still. I hear over and over how good this is, and I honestly couldn’t even begin to tell you why I haven’t read it yet.

First Lines:

River of Spirits

Senka lives between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead. As ward to Charon, the Ferryer of the Underworld, Senka assists in ferrying recently departed souls across the river and into their afterlife. Although Charon has taught her many Rules about life in the Underworld, there is much he avoids telling her. Though she doesn’t understand why the Rules are so important, she listens—she must heed them in order to become an official Ferryer, just like Charon.

Then a Living girl, Poppy, enters the Underworld to plead for help in finding the ghost of her brother. Poppy’s grief tugs at Senka’s heart—but helping Poppy goes against the very Rules Senka is so desperate to follow. When Poppy is yanked away by the river’s current, Senka leaps to save her, and she and Poppy are swept downriver, far from everything Senka has ever known.

Lost in the Underwild, Senka and Poppy encounter malevolent spirits of lore and eccentric ghosts—and not all are willing to let souls slip through their grasp. Senka knows the Living can’t stay in the realm of the Dead for long, and if Poppy isn’t returned home soon, she will risk becoming lost to the Underworld forever. But as Senka travels deeper into the Underwild, she discovers there are secrets her guardian has kept from her, including the mystery surrounding her own existence. As Poppy and Senka dodge angry demigods, hungry wraiths, and terrifying dragon chimera, Senka gets closer to learning the truth of her own past. Soon, Senka won’t just need to save Poppy’s life—she’ll also need to save her own.

This book is absolutely stunning. When it was on the new books shelf at my library, I always had to stop and admire it when walking past. It still catches my eye at home, sitting on my shelf. Judging me. I wholeheartedly agree that I deserve it in this case, because everything about this book sounds like something I will love. I have absolutely no doubt. I think I got it at a time when I was just wrapping up my mythology phase, and I ended up not picking it up because I had read so many mythology adventures in a row that I needed a break.

First Lines:

I Was Born for This

For Angel Rahimi life is about one thing: The Ark — a boy band that’s taking the world by storm. Being part of The Ark’s fandom has given her everything she loves — her friend Juliet, her dreams, her place in the world. Her Muslim family doesn’t understand the band’s allure — but Angel feels there are things about her they’ll never understand.

Jimmy Kaga-Ricci owes everything to The Ark. He’s their frontman — and playing in a band with his mates is all he ever dreamed of doing, even it only amplifies his anxiety. The fans are very accepting that he’s trans — but they also keep shipping with him with his longtime friend and bandmate, Rowan. But Jimmy and Rowan are just friends — and Rowan has a secret girlfriend the fans can never know about. Dreams don’t always turn out the way you think and when Jimmy and Angel are unexpectedly thrust together, they find out how strange and surprising facing up to reality can be.

Was this an impulse-buy when I was coming down off a massive hangover from finishing season one of Heartstopper? Why yes, it absolutely was. I couldn’t get enough of sappy adorable teen romance that was all hope and optimism and growth and coming together. Unfortunately, I ended up in such a reading slump that I never ended up picking it up, and by the time I started reading again, I had moved on past this particular genre. With Heartstopper Forever just releasing, it might be a good time to give it a go, though!

First Lines:

The Boy Who Steals Houses

Can two broken boys find their perfect home?

Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known. Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie.

But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.

I have somehow read every book C.G. Drews has written . . . except for this one? I couldn’t even tell you what happened. I absolutely love Cait’s writing. I’ve heard this book will absolutely break my heart, and I’m also totally okay with that. I believe it, too. I remember when it came out, I was super excited that I shared a name with the main character (who was obviously named after me, because how many other cool Sam/Sammy/Sammi/Sammies do you know?). I had to order this one from overseas, because it wasn’t available locally. And I still didn’t read it. I’m sure that says something about me, but let’s not dig too deep into this one, okay?

First Lines:

The Darkness Outside Us

Two boys, alone in space.

After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth can afford to scramble a rescue of its own, and so two sworn enemies are installed in the same spaceship.

Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister.

In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust one another… especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.

I’ve heard amazing things about this, and I actually bought this first book when the second one came out with every intention of reading both. Except I didn’t. I think this was a case of the book being hyped so hard that I started fearing it would never live up to the hype. I’ve got a really bad track record with overly hyped books. I tend to be disappointed by them more often than not.

First Lines:

House of the Beast

Born out of wedlock and shunned by society, Alma found solace in solitude—so long as her mother was by her side. But when illness strikes, Alma reaches out to the father she’s never known and uncovers a dark she’s a bastard of House Avera, one of the four noble families that serve the gods, and her father is a vessel of the Dread Beast, a harbinger of death.

To save her mother, Alma agrees to sacrifice her arm in a blood-soaked ceremony that binds her to the Beast. But the cure never comes, leaving her trapped in a hostile, gothic estate—despised by her relatives and used as a pawn in her father’s schemes.

Now vengeance drives her, guided by the god who shadows her every step. He appears only to her—a beautiful, monstrous prince—whispering that she’s destined to reshape the world. With his dark magic fueling her, Alma sets out to destroy the House that took everything from her. But as their bond deepens and their plans grow more perilous, she must decide if her god’s honeyed words—and her forbidden feelings for him—are leading her to victory, or dragging the mortal world to ruin.

This is another one that I found at the bookstore and thought was absolutely stunning. Don’t get me wrong, the plot also sounds right up my alley, but I definitely fell in love with the physical book in general. I’m still not sure why I haven’t read it yet. I’ve recommended it to people at the library who have returned it only to tell me how much they enjoyed it. And yet . . . here we are. Again, I have no excuses.

First Lines:

The Nine Eyes of Lucien

Lucien has always been able to spin a bad situation to his advantage. From his childhood on the dangerous streets of Shadycreek Run to his years living off the grid and learning blood magic from the Claret Orders, the charismatic blood hunter will find a way to get the upper hand.

When Lucien is on a job in the frozen wastelands of Eiselcross with his fellow mercenaries, a rough-and-tumble crew called the Tombtakers, fate leads him to a mysterious journal in the ruins of an ancient city. The book speaks of the Somnovem, nine beings who can grant Lucien power beyond imagining—if he is able to find them and free them from captivity.

Intrigued by this opportunity, Lucien pores over the journal—but the more he reads, the stranger things become. The nine whisper to him in dreams and waking visions. Time slips away, along with Lucien’s grasp on reality. And tattoos of red eyes begin appearing on his skin. . . .

With the ability to reshape the world within his grasp, Lucien ignores all warning signs. He has always bent fortune to his will, and nothing—not even death—will stop him now.

Even though I’m terribly behind on episodes by now, I absolutely love Critical Role. That’s obviously why I bought this book in the first place. Like many of the books on this list, I’m not sure what’s taken me so long to read it. I’m fairly certain I’m going to love it. Lucien sounds like my kind of . . . well, not person, because he’s not, but you know what I mean.

First Lines:

Ironfoot

It is 1164, and for a hundred years England has been ruled by the Normans. A young Saxon boy named Durwin, crippled by a childhood accident, had caught the eye of a Norman sage teaching at a rural school of magic. Realizing that the boy had promise, Durwin was made stable boy, and eventually allowed to attend classes.

Now twenty, Durwin is proficient enough that he is assigned to teach, but the other sages refuse to promote him and he is hassled by the Norman juniors for his disability. But those troubles turn out to be the least of his worries when he manages to corrects errors in an ancient corrupted spell, which promptly prophesies murder.

Sure enough, word soon reaches the school that one of the local count’s house sage has died, perhaps slain by black magic. Durwin is whisked away to the family’s castle, only to find that one death was only the beginning. The young sage quickly learns of a dizzying plot to assassinate King Henry. Dropped into the middle of the complex politics of England’s royal courts, can Durwin stop them in time?

I’m fairly certain I bought this book (and the sequel) on a whim whilst I was in the midst of a historical fantasy kick. Just couldn’t get enough of the genre. But then I opened it and read the first chapter and decided that the archaic writing was a little much for me at the time. So it’s just sat there since. I think it’s still not the right time for it, while I’ve been on a humor and romantasy kick, but I’m certain it’ll come around again.

First Lines:

The Last Dragon on Mars

Keep your eyes down and your feet moving, or this planet will rust you.

That’s what Lunar Jones tells the other kids at the relocation clinic. All of them were born on Mars, a planet that never wanted people in the first place. With resources scarce and hope even scarcer, it’s easy to get distracted looking up. After all, their ancestors descended from the stars.

Martian history always starts with Earth. The first astronauts discovered that space was already occupied. Not by little green men or flying saucers. It was full of dragons. One for every moon, every planet, every star. When humanity discovered that Earth’s dragon had sacrificed herself to make their home planet habitable, they set their sights on Mars. If one dead dragon could breathe life into a world, why not create another one? Mankind won the war that followed, but with one catch. As the dragon died, he whispered a curse over Mars. The first settlers found their crops wouldn’t grow. Animals hunted them. Storms raged endlessly. It took three generations to figure out the truth: Mars was doomed.

Lunar knows all the old stories about dragons and space, but no one up there’s planning to help him or his crew. Instead, he focuses on scrapping valuable gear that the storms uncover in the war zone. Until one day, a salvaging run goes wrong. Desperate to find shelter, Lunar goes underground in a restricted zone. What he finds there, buried in the Martian dust, might just be the only hope left for a dying planet.

This is one I probably feel the worst about. I actually received an ARC of this at a library conference I attended, and I was so excited. I really enjoy Scott Reintgen’s work, and there was a time when I was doing a great job of keeping up with his releases. Now? Not so much. As excited as I was to get my hands on it (and even more excited for dragons), I never did get around to actually reading it, and I couldn’t even tell you why.

First Lines:

The Spellshop

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

I absolutely did not judge this book by its cover. But if I had . . . could you blame me? It’s absolutely stunning. (So are the other covers in this series, but I did have enough wherewithal to stop after buying and not reading the first one.) People started recommending this one to me basically the moment it came out, so when I saw it on sale somewhere, I took the opportunity to snatch it up, with every intention of reading it shortly after. I have been on quite the romantasy kick for a while now, after all. So I honestly have absolutely no idea what happened, other than now there’s three of them, and I feel more behind than ever.

First Lines: