This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is a fall freebie, and it’s been a while since I looked at book covers… so I’m going to dig out some fall-themed covers to enjoy! Some of these are set in fall or around Halloween, or have creepy Halloween-y vibes; some are just orange/red colours.

Bit of a random mix, and not all books I’ve necessarily loved, but I enjoy the colours and had fun getting a chance to really look at and think about book covers again — it’s been a while!

I know there’s another cover-themed prompt coming up, so let’s hope I can pick different covers for that one, hehe.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is the seasonal TBR, and aaah, there are so many choices! But there are a few books that I know are coming out which go straight to the head of the pile, for a start… and some books I’ve started that I want to finish, as well as books I got for my birthday. Let’s see!

1. After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine, vol 4, by Liu Gou Hua.
   I loved the first three volumes deeply, and I can’t wait for this one, coming out in early November. The happy ending seems assured, but I wonder what it’s going to look like exactly — and whether anything happens with Jiang Suizhou transmigrating back again…
2. Mistakenly Saving the Villain, vol 4, by Feng Yu Nie.
   I have no idea how this one is going to wrap up, and I’m very curious. Yue Wuhuan is, to put it it lightly, really not the sanest kind of person, and Song Qingshi seems set to enable him forever. If I recall rightly, this is coming out in October.
3. The Nightmare Before Kissmas, by Sara Raasch.
   I’ve been curious about Raasch’s work for a while, though not sure if it’d be my thing. Luckily, this one’s on Kobo Plus, so I can give it a shot with very little commitment. Given one of the characters is the Prince of Halloween, I’m gonna count it as a spooky season read, though I think it might lean more to the Christmas end.
4. The Toll, by Cherie Priest.
   Once upon a time, I had this to review on Netgalley. I never got round to it, but it seems like now’s the time to unearth it, to join the other creepy books I’ll be reading to theme with the Haunted Shelf readathon (signup info here).
5. Certain Dark Things, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
   This is another one I’ve had around for a long time that seems worth unearthing for the occasion! I really really wanted to read it at the time, and I’ve generally enjoyed Moreno-Garcia’s work; I’m not sure why it’s never risen to the top of my TBR before.
6. The Library After Dark, by Ande Pliego.
   This is a book I got for my birthday that seems to suit the season somewhat as well, though it’s more thriller than horror. I couldn’t help but be attracted by the promise of a story revolving around books, though… often books don’t live up to that promise, sadly.
7. A Trade of Blood, by Robert Jackson Bennett.
   I can’t believe I haven’t already got round to this one! I lost access to the Netgalley version through taking too long, because life got busy for a minute. I enjoy the series a lot, so I’m looking forward to it.
8. Kiss Slay Replay, by Rachel Harrison.
   I enjoyed one of Harrison’s other books (Cackle), so I got myself a couple more, including this one, for my spooky season TBR. It sounds from other people’s reviews like it’s pretty fun, so I’m looking forward to giving it a proper shot.
9. Harbour of Hungry Ghosts, by Eliza Chan.
   Somehow I’d forgotten about this one for a couple of weeks there (I think it didn’t get into my list properly), but I did receive a copy to review, so it’s high on my list of books to read now! It’s not strictly the Western tradition of ghosts, but I think it should work well enough with the theme I’m mostly leaning into with these.
10. Our Cut of Salt, by Deena Helm.
    This one sounds really fascinating, with a haunted house in Haifa that hasn’t been visited by the family since the Nakba… it also sounds like it’s likely to be pretty heavy, given the givens, but I’m hoping that it uses that to give plenty of weight to the horror as well. I’m a wuss, though, so hopefully it won’t be too scary!

Whether I’ll actually stick to this or not is always quite the question… but we’ll see!

This week’s prompt is about authors I’ve met, and let’s see… there’s been quite a few, since I’ve been to cons, but let’s stick to the ones that felt important at the time or have really stuck in my head!

1. Robin Hobb.
   She did a reading in the local Waterstones when I was a teenager, and me and my mother were reading her books at the time. Of course we went, and asked questions after the reading.
2. Alastair Reynolds.
   I got my sister back into reading by letting her try Century Rain, sitting on the floor in my room next to the shelves. She whipped right through it and has read it many a time since! So when I saw he was doing a signing in Cardiff, and my sister was around, of course I dragged her there — and though she was very shy, did manage to help her go up and talk to him.
3. Jo Walton.
   Back in the days of Livejournal, we followed each other, and she was very kind and encouraging, and we’ve hung out on a few occasions when she was in Wales (when I still lived there) or at a convention I was attending.
4. Ada Palmer.
   I met her through Jo Walton, and have heard her sing stuff from Sundown. Needless to say I then enthusiastically supported the Kickstarter, and it is not uncommon to hear me somehow attempting to sing both parts of “My Brother, My Enemy” while doing chores (it doesn’t work very well, but I have fun). I have also read (some of) her work, though!
5. Marie Brennan.
   This was at a con and I haaaad to get my books signed. She had actually read my reviews, I was stunned!
6. Tanya Huff.
   I got books signed for both me and my sister, since we both loved (different!) books of Huff’s quite a bit; my sister had been going through some stuff, and Tanya Huff wrote a very kind and encouraging note to her.
7. Scott Lynch.
   My wife is a big fan, and we had a whoooole odyssey trying to get to his signing due to two pairs of my jeans falling apart while at the con. We ventured out, found me new jeans, and made it back in time for the signing. Whew.
8. Martha Wells.
   I didn’t have anything to sign, and it is in the queue for the signing bewailing that fact that Lali of Portal Bookshop came to my aid! I don’t honestly remember if I even said anything coherent to Martha Wells. Worldcon is quite overwhelming, and I think I might’ve been fairly done, ahaha.
9. Rainbow Rowell.
   I went to this signing with another blogger I’d met at Angry Robot’s “Robot for a Day” one-day working-at-a-publisher experience. I don’t think I’d read much of Rowell’s work yet, but she was kind and friendly, and made me reaaally want to read more of her work.
10. Sarah Pinsker.
    Okay, this is actually cheating a bit because we haven’t met in-person (nor spoken for a very long time), but we used to be part of the same invite-only discussion group on Goodreads, The Alternative World. It’s unbelievable how much influence those folks had on my reading!

I’m surprised how difficult I found this to put together, but I guess it’s partly that I’m not super into readings and signings, so I go to them less than some other readers. They stand out to me most when they’re just a little bit meaningful on both sides, like Marie Brennan having known about my book reviews… even though of course it’s all in a day’s work for authors who are signing at bookshops and conventions.

This week’s prompt from Top Ten Tuesday is an indie freebie, but I already talked about mostly indie bookshops in a recent post! So I’m going to talk about ten reasons to support indie bookshops.

1. Indie bookshops can be a huge part of their community.
   They rarely just sell books, but often have events, provide a space for meetings, provide local advertising space, etc.
2. The selection isn’t mandated by corporate.
   An independent bookshop can’t be told they “have to” stock gender critical nonsense or stacks upon stacks of the latest bestseller; they can exercise their own judgement.
3. The selection can be as weird and wonderful as the curator wants.
   Not only do they not have to stock things they don’t want to, they can choose to stock only books they personally champion, lesser-known gems, etc. At the end of the day they do need to sell books… but they can afford to have some on the shelves that fit more niche interests.
4. It helps the fight against monopolies.
   Amazon is so powerful because people feel like they can’t get what they need anywhere else. A thriving indie bookshop can be part of a local economy that says no to that.
5. They can specialise.
   Think of some of the bookshops I mentioned like Criminally Good Books (a crime and mystery shop) and Portal Bookshop (LGBT and diverse SF/F). Waterstones is never going to set aside an entire store for a single genre, and while they can get a decent breadth of popular fiction in each genre stocked, the quality of the stock will depend on the booksellers’ knowledge. If you’ve never noticed this, try going to different Waterstones shops: they have similar selections, but not the same. There was one I went to where they clearly had a classic crime aficionado on staff, because I found some real gems. But this is the default at a specialist indie!
6. Indie bookshops can order rare stock.
   Sometimes they have sources that a chain doesn’t or won’t use, like self-publishing platforms.
7. You probably don’t actually need next day delivery.
   This goes to the same point as #4. We don’t actually need instant gratification when it comes to most books. Sure, sometimes you might need a textbook or reference work really quick… but most of the time it’s not necessary, and indie bookshops can often acquire stock pretty fast if you ask them to order.
8. Indie bookshops can stock books from other countries.
   Sometimes when a book has only been released in the US, an indie can import it to the UK, and vice versa! Even if they don’t have a lot of imported books on the shelves (or you don’t know how to tell), it can be worth asking if it’s something they do.
9. Browsing a physical bookstore can be a lot of fun.
   And enlightening! This is true of physical chains as well, of course, but see my earlier points about indie bookshop curation. Browsing a well-curated indie can bring a lot of surprises.
10. More bookshops and more booksellers is always a good thing.
    Even if you also use chains sometimes (I do!) or rely on libraries for most of your reading (they deserve support too!), then it’s great to support the diversity of bookshops and bookselling out there.

I’m probably preaching to the choir here… but sometimes that’s fun!

I will finish by adding that since that aforementioned post recommending specific indies (only two weeks ago, and in fact on the very day I’d posted it), I learned about a new-to-me indie bookshop in Cardiff called Love Stories. You can find it in Castle Arcade, opposite Troutmark Books, the second-hand bookshop I previously recommended. Love Stories is small but has a pretty good selection, and I had a nice chat while I was there too. So consider that one recommended too!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is technically about books with nationalities in the title, but I didn’t have enough on my shelves and prefer to stick to books I know… so instead, you get ten Welsh books and books about Wales!

1. Afonydd, ed. Sian Northey and Ness Owen.
   This is a bilingual poetry collection in which poets contributed a poem in English or Welsh, and the editors arranged translation into the other language. I found it a lovely experience, a respectful one that acknowledges that many Welsh people only speak English thanks to centuries of suppression by the English. The editors also have another collection, A450, which is similarly put together but not a favourite for me. Something about Afonydd resonated just a bit more.
2. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones.
   Didn’t expect that, did you? But if you’ve read the book (rather than watching the Studio Ghibli adaptation), you’ll know that Howl (Howell) is Welsh, and his Welshness is played on multiple times in the story, from his rugby jersey to the “nonsense” song sung by Calcifer (which is of course “Sospan fach“). I love highlighting the Welshness of this book to people who somehow missed it (it isn’t subtle) or only saw the Studio Ghibli version.
3. Welsh Food Stories, by Carwyn Graves.
   I didn’t know much about typically Welsh food other than the best-known standbys: Welsh rarebit, bara brith, Welshcakes, cawl. I enjoyed this book, and laughed a bit at how stereotypically Welsh some of my tastes (like my love of cheese and of sweet, fruity cider) apparently are.
4. Vanished Wales, by Carwyn Jones.
   Has some unexpected gaps, making no mention whatsoever of Capel Celyn (a Welsh village which was forcibly cleared of people to create a reservoir to serve a city in England)… but nonetheless, a fascinating survey of places in Wales that are now gone, some of which I knew about even though I was born after their destruction, because they remain that present to people.
5. Castles of the Welsh Princes, by Paul R. Davis. 
   If you have a fascination with castles, welp, look no further! Note that this one does not discuss the Norman castles built in Wales, so some of the best known Welsh castles aren’t here.
6. The Grey King, by Susan Cooper.
   As a teen, the fact that this book is set in Wales and heavily influenced by the Welsh landscape and Welsh mythology meant a lot. And it’s a lovely story, though I don’t suggest reading it in isolation — start with Over Sea, Under Stone, or if that doesn’t quite work for you to hook you into the world (it’s aimed at a younger audience), skip to The Dark is Rising and then go back to Over Sea, Under Stone if you’re interested in reading more (just read it before Greenwitch).
7. The Owl Service, by Alan Garner.
   This is a retelling of the story of Blodeuwedd that scared the pants off me as a kid. It is genuinely creepy and powerful, and remains really good.
8. Country Dance, by Margiad Evans.
   I read a lot of Welsh fiction in English when I was at university, both because I studied the topic and because the university library had it in copious amounts, but it’s been a long time and many of them are blurry in my mind, so I’ll choose just a couple of books to stand in for all of them — this one because it was the first book I’d read by a Welsh writer while intending to do so. The introduction (by Caitrin Collier) mentioned the way Welsh literature wasn’t valued, the fact that writers like Margiad Evans are barely mentioned outside Wales (and for her, weren’t even mentioned in Wales when she was looking for Welsh writing)… and yep, I’m familiar.
9. Feet in Chains, by Kate Roberts.
   The current translation available is by Katie Gramich, who taught the module on Welsh fiction in English that I took. I don’t think I’ve actually read this translation, but I loved the class, and this book was a revelation. The fact that Welsh soldiers’ families were notified of their deaths in English, a language that none of them spoke and which no one around them spoke, is a fact that clings to my mind ever since.
10. Postcolonialism Revisited, by Kirsti Bohata.
    The book which made me understand that Wales, too, was colonised — and the effects of that on my own life. It is a somewhat technical read, but one which I wish a few more people would attend to, because the utter incomprehension of the effects of colonisation on Wales and the Welsh language online is a regular irritant.

I’ve run out of space to add more, like Glyn Jones’ The Dragon Has Two Tongues, which contains a quotation I’ve said many times: “To me, anyone can be a Welshman who chooses to be so and is prepared to take the consequences.”

But you get the drift!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about bookish places I’ve visited! I think the emphasis is more generally on cool places from books, author residences, etc, but somehow that’s not a thing that really excites me and I can’t think of much right now!

So… time to talk about my favourite bookshops! After each I’m listing their locations that I’ve visited and can personally recommend, not their full list of shops.

1. Portal Bookshop (York).
   From when Lali saved my bacon with a copy of one of Martha Wells’ books at a signing at Worldcon, I’ve been a big supporter of Portal Bookshop, and was so happy when they managed to set up premises in York — which is close enough to be a good day trip. They stock a range of queer books and diverse SF/F works, and I have them to thank for my love of authors like Jordan L. Hawk and much of my collection of KJ Charles’ books in print.
2. Topping & Company (Bath, Edinburgh, Ely).
   This is a growing chain of indie bookshops, but I first met them in Edinburgh, where the shop is downright magical. I swear there are more rooms than physically make sense with the footprint of the shop, and every time I turned around there was somehow another one. The ladders on wheels and wooden shelving add to that experience a lot. They’ve recently opened a shop in York too, though I just visited their shop in Bath yesterday as part of my birthday trip!
3. Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights (Bath).
   I love the name of this bookshop; the whimsy is definitely part of why I went there. I did find the organisation of the shop a bit bewildering, since all fiction is shelved together without distinction by genre: maybe it sounds weird, given the range of genres I read, but I don’t really like that. It makes my job browsing the shelves harder, when I don’t know if a dragon on the spine means a dragon or just a literary thing. If you’re looking for a bookish conversation or some bookseller recommendations, though, it’s a good one.
4. Gay’s the Word (London).
   Gay’s the Word is the oldest queer bookshop in the UK, and I visited it recently on my graduation trip to London. The shop feels pretty small, but I carried away a sizeable pile of books anyway. I recently read and cried a little over the history of the shop and persecution against its owners and workers in A.J. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, which is a book I definitely recommend.
5. Forbidden Planet (London, Bristol).
   I know, this is somewhat less potentially niche, but the London store is amazing, with a selection of comics, manga, danmei, and SF/F books that really have to be seen to be believed. I can never leave without new books, and the sheer number of books they showcase means I often find temptations that Waterstones don’t seem to stock. I found a few treasures in the Bristol shop, too, though it’s considerably smaller.
6. Troutmark Books (Cardiff).
   This secondhand bookshop was vital to me in my teens and twenties. Whenever I went home to Wales in my teens, and when I lived there as a student, I loved turning up to look at the SF/F section, poke my nose into the comics, etc. It’s been a long time since I visited, but I imagine it pretty much unchanged, with the high shelves still packed to the ceiling. Maybe I’ll pop my head in today, since I might be in the area…
7. Paramount Books (Manchester).
   In the same vein, this secondhand bookshop in Manchester impressed me so much that at one point I actually wrote a review of it on this blog. I don’t buy secondhand books much at the moment, but if that changes I’ll definitely make return visits — perhaps not too regularly, as Manchester isn’t super convenient… but when I can!
8. Criminally Good Books (York).
   On my last trip to Portal Bookshop, I also heard about this shop and had to take a look. I was admittedly more impressed by their non-fiction selection, since I’m a fan of classic crime and there wasn’t a lot of that to be seen (and what they had, I’d read), but I did enjoy the selections of non-fiction and inevitably left with a few books.
9. The American Book Center (Amsterdam, The Hague).
   When I lived in Belgium, we made semi-regular trips to get me English-language books to keep my engines running. The selection (particularly at the Amsterdam location) was unbelievable, though it was mostly the SF/F that drew me. I haven’t visited since we moved to the UK in 2018, but I’m sure it’s still amazing.
10. Bookshop.org (online).
    If you want to support indie bookshops, then this is an indispensable resource in the UK, and almost as quick as getting your books off Amazon — just as quick, if you pay a little extra for first class delivery, at least in the UK! You can choose a specific bookshop to support with your purchases, or it’ll be divided up between signed-up bookshops.

There are a few others I would’ve mentioned but found out they’ve closed since — don’t forget that an independent bookshop can be a fragile thing and needs the support of its enthusiastic community!

This week’s prompt for Top Ten Tuesday is about series you want to catch up on and… uhoh. So many!

1. Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books.
   I haven’t read Radiant Star yet, despite having a review copy. Ugh. I’m sorry. I also haven’t read Leckie’s short story collection, Lake of Souls, which I’d love to catch up with.
2. Vivian Shaw’s Greta Helsing books.
   I still haven’t got round to Strange New World. I hadn’t even realised there would be another book, so I was very surprised to see it, and I guess not mentally ready yet!
3. T. Kingfisher’s… everything.
   This is cheating slightly, I know, but I know there are various of Kingfisher’s books that I haven’t got to yet, including books that fit in the same world/series. I’ll get there, I swear.
4. Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher books.
   I didn’t actually know there had been more books after Murder and Mendelssohn until a few months ago, so I had no idea I was behind! Not sure how I’d missed that. I want to do a reread of at least the later books before I get to the new ones, but I’m looking forward to it.
5. Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell books.
   I was getting a little tired of the repeated artificial barriers to Veronica’s relationship with Stoker, but still, it’s a fun series and I’d like to read at least the next book to decide whether I’m really done with it.
6. Erica Ridley’s Wild Wynchesters.
   These books are a lot of fun, and I think there’s… 2-3 I haven’t read yet? Certainly I have at least one on my shelves.
7. Genevieve Cogman’s Scarlet Revolution trilogy.
   I read the first book and liked it quite a lot, but I didn’t get round to Elusive when it came out, and now I think I’d have to reread the first book — or at least do a quick skim — to get myself back in the loop. Still, I usually have fun with Cogman’s books so I expect it’ll be a riot.
8. Freya Marske’s The Last Binding trilogy.
   This is another where I read and loved the first book, but have yet to continue.
9. Tad Williams’ Osten Ard books.
   I’ve read the original quartet and loved it, but that’s it!
10. Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou’s The Husky and His White Cat Shizun.
    I haven’t even started this series, but it seems fitting to end with it because there’s a lot to catch up with: there are eleven volumes! And I regularly get asked by other danmei fans if I’ve read this one…

So many books, so little time… especially for a mood reader!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “Books I Was Reading On This Day Over the Last Ten Years”. I stopped using Goodreads and didn’t have a replacement for a couple of years in the middle, so this will be easier to do with the books I was reviewing on this day (or as near as possible) in previous years, so I’m going to go with that!

So without further ado…

1. 11th August 2016: Brother Jacob, by George Eliot (1/5 stars). No memory of this one, really, but I don’t think I ever did read any more George Eliot!
2. 11th August 2017: Incognito, by David Eagleman (3/5 stars). I sort of remember the discussion of what to do about criminal behaviour, but not enough to have an opinion now
3. 11th August 2018: Witchmark, by C.L. Polk (3/5 stars). I wasn’t an enormous fan of this at first, just kind of liked it, but IIRC I liked it more on a reread, and liked the second book!
4. 11th August 2019: The Pandemic Century, by Mark Honigsbaum (3/5 stars). Hmm! I do actually remember this one, and that I was kind of irked that it wanted to have things both ways: you shouldn’t panic about a pandemic but you should contain it effectively. I’d have recently graduated from my BSc, so I was in a good position to critique the book (having studied infectious diseases for part of it and chosen that for my dissertation topic). I’m kinda curious if there’s been a version updated to discuss SARS-CoV-2.
5. 10th August 2020: The Green Mill Murder, by Kerry Greenwood (4/5 stars). This was from a point where I was still writing fresh reviews for every reread of a book. It’s one that always sticks in my mind from this series, though I can never remember the way the two halves fit together. (The 11th that year was a Tuesday, so my post on that day was a Top Ten Tuesday post, Books My Bookclub Have Read!)
6. 11th August 2021: Magic Strikes, by Ilona Andrews (4/5 stars). Another reread review! I do love the Kate Daniels series still, and this book is a fun one since it features the arena.
7. 1st July 2022: The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison (4/5 stars). I don’t understand why there are no posts between this and the end of 2022; I have no memory of such a massive blog hiatus. But my next post seems to be a post at the start of 2023, where I apologise for a long absence… so I guess it must be so. Anyway, I loved The Grief of Stones, and have reread it a couple of times since. Shame I didn’t like the third book in the series much.
8. 11th August 2023: The Bookshop and the Barbarian, by Morgan Stang (1/5 stars). I definitely remember this one! I was infuriated by it.
9. 11th August 2024: A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel, by KJ Charles (4/5 stars). I really enjoyed this one; it’s not my favourite of Charles’ work, but I had a lot of fun, as usual.
10. 11th August 2025: Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher (4/5 stars). My goodness, this was over a year ago already? I read this one while we were in the process of moving and I was staying with my parents, and I frankly devoured it.

As a reminder, ten years is a long time! Who knows what I’d think of these books now.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt sees me, and I’m not sure I like it: “Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read”.

I confess, sometimes I even plead with my wife to go out and get me a book that’s just released, and then fail to read it for… months? Fortunately, it’s well-understood that I’m a mood reader, and that the point is having the book available for when the mood strikes makes me happy, so Lisa doesn’t mind this at all.

Anyway, let’s get on with the public shaming showcase! Since I haven’t read these books yet, I’ll stick to showing off the covers…

To be fair to myself, I’ve actually been a lot better about this in 2025 and 2026, since I had a goal of having no more than 20 books concurrently that were bought in the same year and not yet started. That was part of the point, and it’s working well! Three of the books above are ones I got in 2025, and two from 2026 that I feel I could’ve jumped on sooner given how much fuss I made about wanting them… but otherwise, the books are from longer ago. I’m actually quite impressed!