📚 Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Meant to Read In 2020

Hello my fellow bookworms. Today, I am taking part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday! A weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, who each week assigns a new topic to inspires us to create a top ten list based on it. This week’s topic is:

Books I Meant to Read In 2020 But Didn’t Get To

(You could take this opportunity to tell us what’s left on your seasonal TBRs from last year. Or books you were super excited about and then you didn’t get to them.)

Shamefully, there were many books leftover from my seasonal TBRs from last year, including Spring, Summer and Autumn! I am not going to be too hard on myself though, because as we all know 2020 was a crazy year, plus I have already made a good start culling some of the following list down in the first few weeks of 2021 (titles are listed in no particular order):

   

1. The Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick – After hearing great things about this dual-narrative, historical-fiction from a new-to-me author, I just had to put it on my autumn TBR. I am pleased to report I finished reading it last week and loved it!

2. Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart – Another book leftover from my autumn TBR is this: the first of Stewart’s romantic suspense novels to be published. It really have been too long since I read anything by this brilliant author. Hopefully soon I will rectify this!

3. The Testament of Loki by Joanne M. Harris – Depressingly this first went on my TBR in spring and languished through summer and autumn, too! I have no idea why though because I am keen to read more of Harris’ refreshing, re-imagining of the Norse Gods and legends series.

4. S5 Uncovered by James Durose-Rayner – I am particularly partial to a gripping thriller over the long school summer holiday, so that’s when I added this crime-thriller, based around a series of true events exposed in the BBC’s Panorama programme, to my TBR. Unfortunately I just never seemed to get round to it.

5. The Mother’s Day Mystery by Peter Bartram – Having thoroughly enjoyed the previous books in Bartram’s nostalgic crime series, following Colin Crampton, ace crime reporter, I was looking forward to reading more in autumn. However it wasn’t neglected for long, as I did get round to it a week or so ago.

   

6. The Thursday Mystery Club by Richard Osman – Here is another mystery leftover from my autumn TBR, the debut novel from the TV presenter and creator of Pointless, which I have and continue to hear great things about; so it is good I just started reading it, methinks!

7. Demon Seed by Dean Koontz – Being a recommendation from my dad and seeing as I have read and enjoyed others of Koontz’s books, there is a pretty good chance I am going to like this short, techno horror. However I do find I have to be in the right mood for Koontz and sadly I didn’t found myself in that sort of mood at all in 2020. Hopefully sometime this year!

8. The Wedding Shroud by Elisabeth Storrs – I have to admit this is one of those books that has lay forgotten in the deepest, darkest recesses of my Kindle’s TBR folder for… well years! It was brought back to my intention by the What’s in a Name 2020 reading challenge, but I never found time for it.

9. The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory – Another book I hoped to read as part of the What’s in a Name 2020 reading challenge, but never got round to. Even without that though, it really is high-time for more of Gregory’s enthralling historical Cousins’ War series in my life!

10. Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets by Alison Weir – Finally, but certainly not least, I hoped to continue Weir’s brilliantly ambitious Six Tudor Queen series with this: the fourth instalment, in 2020. Looks like it will have to be 2021 now and hopefully early 2021, as I have the fifth instalment lined up and read to go, too!

For now that’s all folks. Please feel free to share a link in the comments below for your own TTT post, so we can come check it out! I hope to see you again soon for some more lists and bookish chat! 👋📚😃

Now I’d love to hear from you: Have you read any of these? Which would recommend I bump to the top of my TBR pile? Are there any books you didn’t manage to get to last year?