This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “april showers”, with a generous range of how to interpret that: “Interpret this however you’d like: rainy day reads, books that make you cry, books that give you happy tears, books to wash away a bad reading experience, books set in rainy places, books with rain/raindrops/umbrellas on the cover, blue book covers, etc.”

I did start by looking for books with rain and umbrellas on the cover, but I ran out a bit too quickly… so let’s chat about the books I’ve been saving for a rainy day!

1. After Hours at Dooryard Books, by Cat Sebastian.
   Technically I’ve started this, but I haven’t really properly got into it yet. Sebastian’s books have been such a treat lately that part of me keeps leaving it for when I need a good distraction — though goodness knows with how fidgety I’ve been about my reading, maybe that’s now!
2. Death in Daylesford, by Kerry Greenwood.
   Partly it’s the fact that I want to reread the other books first, but also… there’s a limited amount of new-to-me Phryne Fisher in the world, and I’m saving it for a bit longer.
3. Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 1, by Feng Yu Nie.
   I really wanted this one, but now that I have it, I’ve hesitated to start! I’ve heard fun things about it and the amount of yearning it contains…
4. At the Feet of the Sun, by Victoria Goddard.
   I think I saved this one long enough that I’d have to reread The Hands of the Emperor first. Oh nooo, etc. I loved Cliopher and his growing friendship with his emperor.
5. The Green Man’s Heir, by Juliet McKenna.
   I hear such good things about this series, but somehow I never get round to it — imagining some future time where I’ll be able to mainline the whole series or something.
6. Ian Fleming’s Commandos, by Nicholas Rankin.
   This is a book my grandad bought me — I can’t remember why we were in WHSmiths in Caerphilly, but it was sometime in the last year before he died (so around 2011-2012), and when I showed interest in this and a book about trains, he got them for me. Since he loved James Bond and worked on the railway, it seems an appropriate pick… though I’m not sure I’d actually considered that in the moment, it was just one of those cases of my random interest landing on something. He’d probably have bought me anything I wanted; he doted on me and loved that I was going to university in Wales. He spent my first year scouring the land for book sales, and was actually a major instigator of me ending up with a backlog… which has spiralled out of control ever since. Anyway, this book’s waited on my TBR ever since, but someday I trust it’ll be the right day.
7. Sweet Poison, by Mary Fitt.
   Or basically any other book by Mary Fitt I haven’t read yet; there’s quite a few. I really enjoyed The Banquet Ceases and (in a different way) Clues to Christabel, they’re really solid classic mysteries, and I look forward to settling in. For this one specifically, I’m also intrigued by the archaeology thread…
8. Draakenwood, by Jordan L. Hawk.
   Hawk’s books are generally a lot of fun and quick reads, so I’d been saving this one for a time when I needed that. I’ve probably saved it so long I need to reread the other Widdershins books again. Once more I say unto you: oh noooo, how awful. 😉
9. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, by Toby Wilkinson.
   One day I’ll need a chunky non-fiction book on one of my pet topics, and this one will still be waiting for me on that day.
10. The Boy in the Red Dress, by Kristin Lambert.
    This one looks like a lot of fun, and every time I notice it on the shelves I think about adding it to the month’s TBR… but something tells me ‘not yet’.

Looking forward to seeing other people’s takes on this theme! Everyone’s always more inventive than me, it feels like, ahaha.