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The Lonely Shelf-01

The Suspense Is Thrilling Me

It’s that time of the season where I’m desperately begging you guys to hold me accountable in two things: narrowing down my TBR and determining which books should stay or be purged from the list. I recently went through and amended my Goodreads TBR to only include review copies so that I could keep them organized; this is how I determined now is the best time to, little by little, go through and seriously consider which pleasure books should be boosted in priority and which should get the boot. I’d love it if you could help me out in the comments; if you have a favorite book you see in these posts, could you let me know? Also, if you see a book that really didn’t sit well with you, could you let me know that too? Of course everyone’s opinions are subjective, but I’m hoping mostly that this will help encourage me to pick up at least one book from each stack that has been sitting and get that sucker read! Here’s how I picked this stack: I led my 4 year old to one of my bookshelves and told her to pick the 5 prettiest books that she saw. 🙂 I’ll be including the book summaries below in case anyone spies a book that might interest them to; thanks for your help guys and I’ll post updates as I get through these! ❤

BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS
BY RENEE CARLINO

To the Green-eyed Lovebird:

We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House.

You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more.

We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other.

Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding…

I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello.

After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half?

M

CINDER
BY MARISSA MEYER
(LUNAR CHRONICLES #1)

Sixteen-year-old Cinder is considered a technological mistake by most of society and a burden by her stepmother. Being cyborg does have its benefits, though: Cinder’s brain interference has given her an uncanny ability to fix things (robots, hovers, her own malfunctioning parts), making her the best mechanic in New Beijing. This reputation brings Prince Kai himself to her weekly market booth, needing her to repair a broken android before the annual ball. He jokingly calls it “a matter of national security,” but Cinder suspects it’s more serious than he’s letting on.

Although eager to impress the prince, Cinder’s intentions are derailed when her younger stepsister, and only human friend, is infected with the fatal plague that’s been devastating Earth for a decade. Blaming Cinder for her daughter’s illness, Cinder’s stepmother volunteers her body for plague research, an “honor” that no one has survived.

But it doesn’t take long for the scientists to discover something unusual about their new guinea pig. Something others would kill for. 

THE NAMES THEY GAVE US
EMERY LORD

Everything is going right for Lucy Hansson, until her mom’s cancer reappears. Just like that, Lucy breaks with all the constants in her life: her do-good boyfriend, her steady faith, even her longtime summer church camp job.

Instead, Lucy lands at a camp for kids who have been through tough times. As a counselor, Lucy is in over her head and longs to be with her parents across the lake. But that’s before she gets to know her coworkers, who are as loving and unafraid as she so desperately wants to be.

It’s not just new friends that Lucy discovers at camp—more than one old secret is revealed along the way. In fact, maybe there’s much more to her family and her faith than Lucy ever realized.

THE BONE SEASON
BY SAMANTHA SHANNON
(BONE SEASON #1)

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

WRONG PLACE
BY MICHELLE DAVIES
(DC MAGGIE NEVILLE #2)

When a man fails in his attempt to murder his wife and then commit suicide, DC Maggie Neville is assigned to be the surviving woman’s Family Liaison Officer.

As the husband lies in a coma in hospital, the wife sets about making sure everyone knows he’s guilty. But there’s something about her story that doesn’t ring true to Maggie.

Digging deeper, she finds an unexpected link between the couple’s case and a series of burglaries she and her colleagues are investigating in the local area – and the mysterious disappearance of a young woman twenty years ago.

*Don’t forget to leave you thoughts below! ❤

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Published by The Suspense Is Thrilling Me

Chelsea is a happily married mother of two who's love of mysteries can be traced back to her first Nancy Drew experience. When not reading and writing book reviews, she likes to drink wine in her jammies and pretend that she exercises.

65 thoughts on “The Lonely Shelf-01”

  1. Pingback: Weekly Wrap-Up: 08/04 |

  3. You will survive without reading Cinder. I know everyone else disagrees, but they’re wrong, and it’s okay 😂. I have the rest of the series, but have no desire to carry on with it.

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  7. Love how you picked these titles! I personally really enjoyed The Lunar Chronicles and I’ve heard great things about The Bone Season and The Names They Gave Us. I hope you will enjoy these!

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  9. I’ve not read any of these, so I can’t help you with this stack. Hopefully I’ll be able to input on future stacks though! I like this methodology of clearing your TBR though 🙂

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  13. Honestly, I’m not a fan of Renee Carlino’s books. I have tried several of them, and get frustrated and DNF. I did read this book you have – and it was just okay for me. I don’t feel like it’s so amazing that you need to make it a priority…you could even skip it all together imo. 😉

    I hear Cinder (the entire series) is worth every minute. I haven’t actually read it, but everyone sings it’s praises.

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  14. I loved the Lunar Chronicles! Cinder is an easy book to get into to kick it off, and then each subsequent book gets better. There are also some great add-ons to the series, like ‘Fairest’ and ‘Stars Above’ where Marissa Meyer has some fun with characters that haven’t been given a perspective. Give them a try!

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  17. Another vote for Cinder, but with the warning that it was the hardest of the 4 books to get through. In hindsight, Cinder is the set up book and it’s almost like the author is building the “cage” that the characters are going to need to fight their way out of. It’s very effective, but reading it made me feel a little claustrophobic (I will never make it through 1984).

    If you finish Cinder and decide to read the rest of the series, the audio version is fantastic! The narrator does a fabulous job of differentiating all the voices.

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  19. Loved the Lunar Chronicles! And you’re lucky enough to come across them after they’ve all came out so no waiting :). My best friend has also read and liked The Bone Season but I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews on it!

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  23. I loved The Bone Season…but the sequel was a DNF, so.. :/

    Renee’s books sound so, so fantastic (I was lucky enough to receive a copy of her upcoming one and can’t wait to dive in!!) and I’ve heard really great things about them!

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  30. The only ones I know are Cinder and The Bone Season because they’re also in my TBR! I can’t say much about either of them. I’m also trying to hold myself accountable for the MASSIVE piles of unread books I have in my TBR. We can create a support group or something.

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  32. The only titles from this stack that I’ve read are Cinder and The Bone Season, so I can’t vouch for the others.

    Cinder: This book is honestly a little slow and a lot of people find it boring in parts, BUT you can’t continue The Lunar Chronicles without reading this one first, and the rest of the series is so amazing that it made me love this one by proxy. I encourage everyone who tells me they’re uncertain about Cinder to power through it, even if you have to skim sections, just so you can move on to the other books because the character cast in this story is so precious and the plot is really fun and interesting as it continues on.

    The Bone Season: I just read this for the first time last week, actually! I really loved it. I didn’t expect to like it, tbh – I don’t know why, but it didn’t strike me as particularly interesting? – but I read it anyways because of a group read in the FB group I admin. Anyways, the first few chapters didn’t really draw me in, but I got sucked in by the page 50 mark or so and tore through the rest of it. I mean, this was one of those rare books that kept me up until 5am and I had to FORCE myself to go to sleep and finish it the next day, lol! So if you like dystopian or urban fantasy stories at all, I recommend giving it a try.

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