MY NEVER-ENDING TBR
I, much like most readers, have an endless to-be-read list, also known as TBR. Being an author, you just have to accept the fact that you won't be able to read as much as you want to (which is a lot, most probably)! I started reading in June of 2024 when a friend of mine gifted me a copy of Paper Towns by John Green. Although the book wasn't (and still isn't) to my taste, it made me realize how many great books there must be out there, waiting for me to pick them up. So, after the same friend convinced (more like forced) me to buy The Folk Of The Air Series by Holly Black. I bought it, and as soon as it arrived, I started to read the first book. To be very frank, I didn't quite like the first book, but the ending of it convinced me to give the second book a shot (spoiler: it didn't disappoint). I binged the second book in one day, the third in two days, and I can now say the series is still one of my favorites, placed just under the Carval Trilogy, which I'm so obsessed with I can't even put it into words.
Coming to standalones, The Do-Over by Lynn Painter is my all-time favorite standalone book! I loved it so much that, when I couldn't find a similar book to it, I just wrote my very one! I'm self-publishing it in October of this year. 'Why self-publishing?' you may ask, but the answer is for another day. Watch out for my novel: Bad Reviews: A Romance Novel.
Now, coming to the present time, I definitely don't get enough time to read everything I want, but I still read quite a few books, just not as many as I did earlier, and that's fine! I have a BIG TBR to go through, but I'll be sharing ten of the books on it today! Here they are:
1. A NOVEL LOVE STORY
Blurb: Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.
But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel . . .
Because it is.
This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.
Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.
Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly attractive mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.
Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.
Why I want to read it: I've read The Seven Year Slip by her, and it's my favorite book of this year (so far)! I want to read more of her works, for her writing is amazing.
2. THE DEAD ROMANTICS
Blurb: Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.
When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won't give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.
For ten years, she's run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.
Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.
Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.
Why I want to read it: The plot is so interesting, I can't wait to read it, the blurb itself is 5 STARS for me!
3. The Love Hypothesis
Blurb: As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships--but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.
That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding... six-pack abs.
Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.
Why I want to read it: I got it in a mystery book box, and honestly, judging by the blurb, I'm really into it.
4. Picking Daisies On Sundays:
Blurb: Daniella Daisy Maria wanted love. It’s all she hoped for when watching endless rom-coms every Friday night. What she hadn't hoped for was to find it in her childhood best friend Levi. It was the hand-trembling, heart-thumping kind of love that wasn't supposed to happen when you saw your best friend. But it all ended when he didn’t feel the same way and she vowed to never see him again.
Four years later and one night in a crowded bar in the West Village, there he was, just as perfect as ever. Maybe it was the lighting or the way his hair curled above his brow, but she couldn’t say no when he asked her to be his fake girlfriend for his sister’s wedding. Another chance at being his friend and mending her immature mistake? How was she supposed to say no?
The weight of possible rejection from her dream grad school quickly became the least of her problems. With old, resurfacing feelings at every staged, romantic interaction and stolen glance, she struggles to find confidence. She couldn't help but think that maybe she should’ve said no to protect her heart for a second time.
Why I want to read it: Liana has helped me a lot in my publishing process, plus her other book, Don't Be In Love, is nothing less than a masterpiece!
5. Tender Is The Flesh
Blurb: Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
Why I want to read it: The book plotline makes me nauseous and excited at the same time! I can't wait to read it, honestly.
6. Alchemy of Secrets
Blurb: Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor. Most students believe the Professor’s stories are just fiction, but Holland St. James has always been convinced that magic is real. When she tracks down a local legend named the Watch Man, who can supposedly tell you when you’ll die, the world finally makes sense. Except that the Watch Man tells her she will die at midnight tomorrow unless she finds an ancient object called the Alchemical Heart.
With the clock ticking, Holland is pulled deeper into this magical world in the heart of Los Angeles—and into the path of a magnetic stranger. Everything about him feels like a bad idea, but he promises Holland that her sister sent him to protect her. As they chase clues and stories that take them closer to the Alchemical Heart, Holland realizes everyone in this intoxicating new world is lying to her, even this stranger. And if she can’t figure out whom to trust, not even the Alchemical Heart will save her.
Why I want to read it: Stephanie is the author of my all-time favorite book series, Caraval, and now, I can't live in peace without reading a book she has written.
7. Book Lovers
Blurb: Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
Why I want to read it: Emily Henry's writing has always felt unique. Her writing style is very simple, yet it's nothing less than beautiful.
8. Babel:
Blurb: 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Why I want to read it: I saw Haley Pham reading it in a vlog, and now, I'm craving it like it's my favorite snack.
9. 100 Days of Sunlight
Blurb: Terrified that her vision might never return, Tessa feels like she has nothing left to be happy about. But when her grandparents place an ad in the local newspaper looking for a typist to help Tessa continue writing and blogging, an unlikely answer knocks at their door: Weston Ludovico, a boy her age with bright eyes, an optimistic smile…and no legs.
Knowing how angry and afraid Tessa is feeling, Weston thinks he can help her. But he has one condition — no one can tell Tessa about his disability. And because she can’t see him, she treats him with contempt: screaming at him to get out of her house and never come back. But for Weston, it’s the most amazing feeling: to be treated like a normal person, not just a sob story. So he comes back. Again and again and again.
Tessa spurns Weston’s “obnoxious optimism”, convinced that he has no idea what she’s going through. But Weston knows exactly how she feels and reaches into her darkness to show her that there is more than one way to experience the world. As Tessa grows closer to Weston, she finds it harder and harder to imagine life without him — and Weston can’t imagine life without her. But he still hasn’t told her the truth, and when Tessa’s sight returns he’ll have to make the hardest decision of his life: vanish from Tessa’s world…or overcome his fear of being seen.
Why I want to read it: The book is definitely more on the unique side. PLUS IT FEELS LIGHT-HEARTED AND FLUFFY, TOO.
10. Promise Me You'll Love Again
Blurb: In the bustling world of corporate monotony, Minami Song, at twenty-eight, is a dedicated yet quietly yearning soul. Trapped in the confines of her 9-5 existence, she dreams of breaking free from the safety net that binds her.
But when fate intertwines her path with that of Chihiro Akiyama, everything changes. Charged with mentoring him as a second staff assistant, Minami's world is suddenly thrown into disarray. Is she merely training her replacement, risking the stability she clings to? Or could Chihiro be the unexpected spark that ignites a flame within her heart?
As they navigate the intricacies of their professional relationship, Minami finds herself drawn to Chihiro in ways she never imagined. Will their connection transcend the confines of the office, blossoming into something beautiful and unforeseen? In this story of serendipitous encounters and unforeseen romance, Minami will discover that love has a way of finding us when we least expect it.
Why I want to read it: I've been waiting for this book ever since she announced it. Now, I'm just waiting for it to be available in the area I'm living in.
