This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Indie Freebie (This topic encompasses a lot: your favorite indie bookstores, indie books, indie authors, indie publishers/presses, indie books on your to-read list, indie authors I read before they became traditionally published, etc.)”

Here are ten books I’ve read that have all been published by different independent publishers. I enjoyed and can recommend all of these! I’ve linked to both my review and the publisher’s website.

1. Canongate Books – Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

2. Fitzcarraldo Editions – The Tower by Thea Lenarduzzi

3. Fairlight Books – Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton

4. Moonstone Press – The Undetective by Bruce Graeme

5. Dean Street Press – The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth

6. Espresso Publishing – The Blind Woman of Sorrento by Francesco Mastriani

7. Boldwood Books – The Inn at Penglas Cove by Lauren Westwood

8. Pushkin Press – She Walks at Night by Seishi Yokomizo

9. British Library – Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings

10. Faber & Faber – Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin

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Have you read any of these books or anything else from these indie publishers?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Books With Nationalities In The Title” (submitted by Cathy @What Cathy Read Next)

I’ve managed to find ten different nationalities and also had English, Persian and French as options which I didn’t use. These are all books I’ve read and written about on my blog – I’ve linked to my reviews if you’d like to read my thoughts.

1. The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer

2. The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

3. The Italian Girl by Lucinda Riley

4. The Greek House by Dinah Jefferies

5. Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

6. The Irish Princess by Elizabeth Chadwick

7. Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

8. The American Boy by Andrew Taylor

9. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

10. The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter

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Have you read any of these? Which other books with nationalities in the title can you think of?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Books I Was Reading On This Day Over the Last Ten Years”.

I’m not sure if my list is entirely accurate – I track my reading through Goodreads and found it easy enough to find the books I’d marked as finished on or just after 11th August each year, but that doesn’t mean I was necessarily actually reading them on that date. Anyway, I’m sure it’s close enough!

Here are my ten books, beginning with 2025 and going back through time to 2016.

2025 – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie – I’ve been taking part in the Read Christie challenge every year for the last few years, so it’s not surprising that there are two Agatha Christie novels on this list! The one I read last August is a Poirot mystery in which he investigates the murder of a dentist.

2024 – Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives by Alice Loxton – An entertaining nonfiction book containing biographies of eighteen historical figures, with a focus on how their first eighteen years shaped the rest of their lives.

2023 – Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith – Only a small part of this psychological thriller is actually set on a train, but it’s the scene of a very significant meeting between a pair of strangers who find themselves discussing a plan to commit two perfect murders!

2022 – The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper – Ancient Rome is not usually a favourite setting of mine, but I found this novel about a group of prostitutes working in a Pompeii brothel completely absorbing.

2021 – The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude – A British Library Crime Classic first published in 1936 and one of many John Bude novels to feature Superintendent William Meredith. I enjoyed it, but found the solution to the mystery too easy to guess – something I don’t say very often!

2020 – Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie – The second Christie novel on my list and my favourite of the two. This time it’s a Miss Marple mystery – the final Miss Marple novel to be published, in fact – and I found it a particularly atmospheric one.

2019 – The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware – our narrator Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House in Scotland to find that she is just the latest in a long string of nannies in a very short time period. Could the ghostly occurrences taking place in the house be the reason?

2018 – Post of Honour by RF Delderfield – The second book in Delderfield’s A Horseman Riding By trilogy is set during the First World War and explores the impact on the lives of the inhabitants of Devon’s Sorrel Valley.

2017 – Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye – I read this as part of a readalong and loved it, which was no surprise as Kaye’s The Far Pavilions is one of my all-time favourite books. Both books are set in India but are completely separate novels and this one takes place before and during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

2016 – Exposure by Helen Dunmore – I loved this book which on the surface is a Cold War spy novel but has so many extra layers it becomes something quite different, exploring the consequences of one decision on the lives of a man and his family.

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Have you read any of these?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: Cover Freebie (Pick any topic related to book covers. You can make up your own topic or pick one from the list of previous ones!)

I decided to find ten books with bodies of water on the cover – rivers, lakes, seas etc. It was more difficult than I expected but I got there eventually! I have written about all of these books on my blog and have linked to my reviews if you’d like to see my thoughts.

1. The Butterfly Picnic by Joan Aiken

2. Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge

3. The Doctor of Thessaly by Anne Zouroudi

4. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson

5. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

6. The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull

7. Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore

8. The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie

9. The Woman in the Lake by Nicola Cornick

10. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

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Have you read any of these? Can you think of any more books with water on the cover?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: Book Titles That Include the Word “[insert word of your choice here]” (Pick a word and share ten book titles that include that word!)

Lots of possible choices here, but I’ve chosen the word ‘Summer’. These are all books that I’ve read and reviewed on my blog.

1. The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick – The first in a trilogy of historical novels telling the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I enjoyed all three books.

2. A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson – Not my favourite by Ibbotson but I still liked it. It follows the daughter of a suffragette who decides to become a housekeeper at a boarding school in Austria.

3. St Martin’s Summer by Rafael Sabatini – Sabatini’s novels are almost always a lot of fun and this one, set in early 17th century France, is no exception.

4. Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut – This is the only book I’ve read by Galgut and sadly I didn’t like it much at all. It’s a novel based on the life of the author E.M. Forster and focuses on his love affairs during his time in India and Egypt.

5. The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay – The first book in The Fionavar Tapestry, a fantasy trilogy published between 1984 and 1986. It’s very different from his later books, which feel much more like historical fiction.

6. Long Summer Day by RF Delderfield – The first in Delderfield’s A Horseman Riding By trilogy, a wonderful family saga set in a farming community in rural Devon during the first half of the 20th century.

7. Dark Summer in Bordeaux by Allan Massie – One of a quartet of dark, atmospheric crime novels set in Occupied France. I still haven’t read the final two.

8. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson – The war referred to in the title is the First World War and this moving novel follows the story of a young woman who starts a new job as a school Latin teacher in the summer of 1914.

9. The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn – Also beginning with that same innocent summer of 1914, the novel shows us the effects the outbreak of war will have on society, class structure and the life of one seventeen-year-old girl.

10. The Year Without Summer by Guinevere Glasfurd – The stories of six people, some real and some fictional, whose lives were affected by the extreme weather that followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1816.

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Have you read any of these? Can you think of any other books with Summer in the title?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2026”.

I have already put together a list of new historical fiction to look out for in the second half of this year, so a lot of my ‘most anticipated’ titles are on that list. I didn’t want to list any of the same books again, so here are another ten books being published between July and December that have caught my eye.

1. Crash by Belinda Bauer (30th July 2026) – I’ve only read a few of Bauer’s novels but enjoyed them all; I’m not sure if I like the sound of this particular book, a thriller involving planes, but I definitely want to read more of her work so could be tempted to try it.

2. The Curse of the Saltmarsh Girl by Clare Marchant (7th August 2026) – A dual timeline novel with the historical section set during the plague of 1665. I recently read Marchant’s The Alchemist’s Secret, which I enjoyed but haven’t reviewed yet.

3. The Salt King by Natasha Pulley (20th August 2026) – Described as an ‘end of world thriller’ about people turning into salt statues. I liked one of the two Pulley novels I’ve read but not the other, so I’ll be interested to see what I think of this one.

4. The Heiress of Northanger Abbey by Nancy Bilyeau (1st September 2026) – I usually stay away from Jane Austen sequels and prequels, but I’ve enjoyed all of Nancy Bilyeau’s other books, so I may have to read this one!

5. The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett (3rd September 2026) – I’ve loved all of the Janice Hallett books I’ve read so far; the unusual style doesn’t work for everyone but it does for me. This will be the third in her Appeal mystery series.

6. The Strangers by Naomi Alderman (17th September 2026) – I haven’t read any of Alderman’s previous books, although I’ve heard a lot about them. This new novel, about the discovery of a strange new species, is the first one that has really sounded appealing to me.

7. The Scholars by MacKenzie Common (24th September 2026) – A murder mystery set in Oxford University. This is Common’s second novel and as I liked her first book, I’m looking forward to reading this one as well.

8. Murder on the Haunted Express by Emma Mason (22nd October 2026) – Just in time for Halloween, the second book in the Midge McGowan mystery series, set on an apparently haunted train. I hope it will be as entertaining as the first one, which I read last year. .

9. The Mortician by Sharon Bolton (5th November 2026) – I always look forward to a new Sharon Bolton book; I had mixed feelings about her last one, but this one about a young mortician caught between two rival gangs sounds more promising.

10. The Last Handmaid by Clare Whitfield (5th November 2026) – A Gothic novel about Countess Erzsébet Báthory, Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer. I enjoyed Whitfield’s last novel but this sounds quite different.

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Are you interested in reading any of these? Which new releases are you hoping to read in the second half of the year?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Books with Handwriting on the Cover (Or fonts that look like handwriting. Titles, subtitles, covers with letters on them, etc.)”

1. A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie – Many editions of Agatha Christie’s novels have her signature on the cover, so this was an easy choice to start my list. In this one, Miss Marple investigates the poisoning of a businessman who is found dead with a handful of rye in his pocket.

2. The Valley of Adventure by Enid Blyton – Enid Blyton was a big part of my childhood and her Adventure series was one of my favourites. I particularly loved this one and Castle of Adventure. As with Christie’s books, her signature usually appeared on the cover.

3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows – This novel about life in German-occupied Guernsey during the Second World War is written in the form of letters, which makes the writing on the cover very appropriate.

4. Myself When Young by Daphne du Maurier – As the title suggests, this is du Maurier’s autobiography and focuses on her childhood and early adulthood. The book ends just after her marriage so we don’t get any thoughts on her later life.

5. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini – I loved this classic novel set during the French Revolution! The flamboyant calligraphy on the cover suits the theatricality of the main character, Andre-Louis Moreau, who joins a Commedia dell’Arte acting troupe as part of a larger plan to avenge the death of his friend in a duel.

6. Nelly Dean by Alison Case – A retelling of Wuthering Heights written from the perspective of the servant, Nelly Dean. An interesting idea, but I’m glad Emily Brontë chose to tell Catherine and Heathcliff’s story instead of Nelly’s! The title font looks like it could be handwritten, doesn’t it?

7. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon – This is the eighth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series and is set mainly in 1770s America during the Revolution. I loved the first three books in this series, but the later ones not so much. I assume the font here is intended to look like writing in blood.

8. The Lost Book of Salem by Katherine Howe – We follow a 20th century history student as she attempts to track down a spell book belonging to Deliverance Dane, one of the women accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The cover itself looks like a book with a pretty handwritten font.

9. Miss Granby’s Secret: or The Bastard of Pinsk by Eleanor Farjeon – The subtitle is written in handwriting on the cover, which is quite apt because The Bastard of Pinsk is an unpublished manuscript written by Adelaide Granby, who has recently died. Her niece inherits the manuscript and reads it, hoping to learn more about Aunt Adelaide and a possible secret love.

10. The Silk Merchant’s Daughter by Dinah Jefferies – This novel follows the story of the daughter of a silk merchant living through a turbulent time in the history of French Indochina, the group of former French colonial territories which included Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Several of Jefferies’ other book covers also use a similar elegant font.

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What do you think of these covers? Can you think of any others that have handwriting on them? And have you read any of the books I’ve listed here? I’m away in the Lake District this week with limited internet access but will reply to comments when I can.