Top Ten Tuesday: Books To Read In Winter

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Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! Today, we're talking about 10 books I want to read this winter. I tried to choose a mix of books with winter vibes and books that just sound interesting.

⛄  Winter Book Recommendations  ⛄

MOONSTONE: THE BOY WHO NEVER WAS BY SJÓN

Adult Historical Fiction

 

Máni Steinn is queer in a society in which the idea of homosexuality is beyond the furthest extreme. His city, Reykjavik in 1918, is homogeneous and isolated and seems entirely defenseless against the Spanish flu, which has already torn through Europe, Asia, and North America and is now lapping up on Iceland's shores. And if the flu doesn't do it, there's always the threat that war will spread all the way north. And yet the outside world has also brought Icelanders cinema. And there's nothing like a dark, silent room with a film from Europe flickering on the screen to help you escape from the overwhelming threats—and adventures—of the night, to transport you, to make you feel like everything is going to be all right. For Máni Steinn, the question is whether, at Reykjavik's darkest hour, he should retreat all the way into this imaginary world, or if he should engage with the society that has so soundly rejected him.

 

Why I'm excited to read it: For mysterious reasons, I’m very interested in the 1918 flu pandemic. This is a translated novel from an Icelandic writer. That’s not a perspective I’ve read before. I’m also interested in how the main character uses movies to escape from his life because that sounds like my reality right now.

 

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WAKENHYRST BY MICHELLE PAVER

Adult Historical Horror

 

In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father.

When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened.

Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen—and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: Goodreads calls it “a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl's longing to fly free.” Seems promising. If a book contains a haunted manor house in the wilderness, I want to read it.

 

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MOONRISE BY SARAH CROSSAN

Young adult contemporary novel-in-verse

Seventeen-year-old Joe hasn't seen his brother in ten years. Ed didn't walk out on the family, not exactly. It's something more brutal.

Ed's locked up—on death row.

Now his execution date has been set, and the clock is ticking. Joe is determined to spend those last weeks with his brother, no matter what other people think . . . and no matter whether Ed committed the crime. But did he? And does it matter, in the end?

Why I’m excited to read it: This book has vibes of An American Marriage, doesn’t it? But with teenagers instead of adults. It’s been a long time since I read a novel-in-verse. I usually love them because they strip out the frilly stuff and get right to the point. They’re also really quick to read. Sarah Crossan’s work tends to get amazing reviews, so I’m interested to find out what I think.

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THE GUSTAV SONATA BY ROSE TREMAIN

Adult Historical Fiction

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo. An only child, he lives alone with Emilie, the mother he adores but who treats him with bitter severity. He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy his age, talented and mercurial Anton Zweibel, a budding concert pianist. The novel follows Gustav’s family, tracing the roots of his mother’s anti-Semitism and its impact on her son and his beloved friend.

 

Why I’m excited to read it: I feel like I saw this book on every award longlist back in 2017. All the historical fiction fans were reading it. Well, all of them except me. I couldn’t find a cheap used copy, but I’ve got one now! Rose Tremain has written a ton of books, so if I enjoy this one, I’ll have her whole backlist to read.

 

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Romanov by Nadine Brandes

Young Adult Historical Fantasy

Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.

Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are to either release the spell and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.

That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.

Why I'm excited to read it: Ever since I read The Long Walk as a teenager, I've been obsessed with alternate history. If a book blends speculative elements with real-life events, I need to read it. Romanov has gotten great reviews from my bookish friends. Also, look at the cover! It's so swirly!

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Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

Young Adult (Or Middlegrade?) Contemporary Fiction

When Jack meets his new foster brother, he already knows three things about him:

Joseph almost killed a teacher.

He was incarcerated at a place called Stone Mountain.

He has a daughter. Her name is Jupiter. And he has never seen her.

What Jack doesn’t know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl.

Or how urgently he, Jack, will want to help.

But the past can’t be shaken off. Even as new bonds form, old wounds reopen. The search for Jupiter demands more from Jack than he can imagine.

Why I'm excited to read it: People have been recommending this book to me for years. My teacher friends love it. The writers from my graduate school rave about it. The library waitlist is so long I could never get a copy. Well, now I have one! It's time to find out if it's worth the hype.

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Winterkill by Kate A. Boorman

Young Adult Mystery (?) Horror (?)

Where Emmeline lives, you cannot love and you cannot leave . . .

The Council's rules are strict, but they're for the good of the settlement in which Emmeline lives. Everyone knows there is nothing but danger on the other side of the Wall, and the community must prepare for the freezing winterkill that comes every year.

But Emmeline struggles to be obedient under the Council's suffocating embrace, especially when she discovers that a Council leader intends to snatch her hand in marriage.

Then Emmeline begins to hear the call of the trees beyond the Wall . . .

Why I'm excited to read it: "Excited" is the wrong word. "Cautiously optimistic" might be better. The plot of this book sounds exactly like a dozen other books I've read. That's because I can't pass up the "small town X creepy woods" combination. Cross your fingers that it's good.

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GRAVE MERCY BY ROBIN LAFEVERS

Young Adult Fantasy

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

 

Why I’m excited to read it: Well, it’s about assassin nuns. That’s the main reason I want to read it. Assassin nuns! Also, a very long time ago, I asked for fantasy recommendations on Twitter. I listed a bunch of books I liked and asked for similar books. This one was recommended a few times, so I should probably give it a shot.

 

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The Terror by Dan Simmons

Adult Historical Horror

The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.

When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.

Why I'm excited to read it: The Terror is a good name for this book because IT'S 800 PAGES! When am I going to have time to read that? This is another alternate history book, and it's quickly becoming a classic. It was published 10+ years ago, but horror lovers are still talking about it. It won a ton of awards when it first came out. The synopsis is giving me vibes of Alma Katsu's The Hunger. Monsters and starving people in cold places. I'm ready for it.

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BANISHED: SURVIVING MY YEARS IN THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH BY LAUREN DRAIN & LISA PULITZER

Adult Memoir

You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of a Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals.

Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later.

Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved.

Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

Why I'm excited to read it: I'm interested in this book for the exact reason the synopsis says. I've seen Westboro Baptist Church on TV and thought, Who are these people? Why does this exist? Maybe the author knows the answer to that question.

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What are you reading this winter?