Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
This was a fun if tricky one – turns out I haven’t read that many books with places in them! The prompt comes from Rachel @ Sunny Side, who used it as a freebie previously. And I do think it’s a really great one! The full prompt gives a little more information: titles with name of places in them. These places can be real or fiction!
Top Ten Books With Destination Titles
Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley
Genre: Sci-Fi
Age: Adult
Format: Audiobook
Published: March 16th, 2021
Review
Skyward Inn, within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, is a place of safety, where people come together to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita. But safety from what?
Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars. Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.
Did humanity really win the war?
A thoughtful, literary novel about conflict, identity and community; a fresh new perspective in speculative fiction from critically-acclaimed writer Aliya Whiteley. Jamaica Inn by way of Jeff Vandermeer, Ursula Le Guin, Angela Carter and Michel Faber, Skyward Inn is a beautiful story of belonging, identity and regret.
Marvel: Xavier Institute – First Team by Robbie MacNiven
Genre: Sci-Fi
Age: Young Adult
Format: ebook
Published: March 2nd, 2021
Review
Victor Borkowski – aka Anole – has adjusted well to life at Xavier’s Institute, gaining control over his reptilian mutant powers and the respect of his fellow students. However, when he discovers that his parents have been kidnapped by anti-mutant extremists, the Purifiers, Victor’s discipline and trust in the X-Men is strained to breaking point. Setting out alone in defiance of his instructors, he’s quickly in serious trouble. It isn’t just the fanatical Purifiers threatening his family, there’s a villainous scientist waiting to get hold of Victor himself. Maybe he can’t do this by himself after all…
Phantom Manor : l’Attraction Décryptée by Jérémie Noyer, Mathias Dugoujon
Genre: Nonfiction – Reference
Age: Adult
Format: Hardback
Published: July 31st, 2019
Review
(There’s no blurb for this, but basically it’s a guide to the Disneyland Paris attraction, Phantom Manor. It’s a great book to have if, like me, you’re a fan of the ride!)
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: July 18th, 2023
Review
Love is real. Demons are real. Kill the demons.
Camp Damascus is the world’s most effective gay conversion camp. Nestled in the Montana wilderness, parents send their children from around the world to experience the program’s 100% success rate.
But, this story isn’t about that. This story is about Rose Darling, a God-fearing young lady who can’t stop puking up flies. It’s about her parents who ignore her visions of an eerie woman with sagging, pale skin who watches from the woods. It’s about the desires deep inside Rose that don’t seem to make any sense, and her waking nightmares that are beginning to feel more like memories. And maybe, just maybe, it’s a little bit about Camp Damascus after all.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: August 23rd, 2022
Review
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
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?
A Little Gay History of Wales by Daryl Leeworthy
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: January 22nd, 2020
Review
This pioneering book traces Welsh LGBT life and politics from the Middle Ages to the present. Drawing on a rich array of archival sources from across Britain together with oral testimony and material culture, this original study is the first to examine the experiences of ordinary LGBT men and women and how they embarked on coming out, building community, and changing the world. This is the story of poets who wrote about same-sex love and translators who worked to create a language to describe it; activists who campaigned for equality and politicians who shaped the resultant legislation; teenagers ringing advice lines for guidance and revellers in the underground bars and clubs on Friday and Saturday nights. In this rich social history, Darryl Leeworthy presents a study of prejudice and of intolerance, of emigration and isolation, of HIV/AIDS and counter-movements that conveys the complex reality of LGBT life and same-sex desire. Engaging and accessible, this book is an important advance in our understanding of Welsh history.
Gallant by V.E. Schwab
Genre: Horror – Fantasy
Age: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: March 1st, 2022
Review
Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.
Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.
Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.
Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?
Dread Wood by Jennifer Killick
Genre: Horror
Age: Middle Grade
Format: ebook
Published: March 31st, 2022
Review
The brand new must-read middle-grade novel from the author of super-spooky Crater Lake. Perfect for 9+ fans of R.L.Stine’s Goosebumps
It’s basically the worst school detention ever. When classmates (but not mate-mates) Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira are forced to come to school on a SATURDAY, they think things can’t get much worse. But they’re wrong. Things are about to get seriously scary.
What has dragged their teacher underground? Why do the creepy caretakers keeping humming the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider? And what horrors lurk in the shadows, getting stronger and meaner every minute . . .? Cut off from help and in danger each time they touch the ground, the gang’s only hope is to work together. But it’s no coincidence that they’re all there on detention. Someone has been watching and plotting and is out for revenge . . .
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff by Mark Isaacs
Genre: Nonfiction – True Crime
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: June 18th, 2009
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff takes the reader on a sinister journey through the history of local crime and conspiracy, meeting villains of all sorts along the way – casual or calculating killers, murderous husbands and lovers, gangsters, robbers, poisoners and suicides. There is no shortage of harrowing and revealing episodes in Cardiff’s past, and Mark Isaacs’ fascinating book recalls many grisly events and sad or unsavoury individuals whose conduct throws a harsh light on the history of the city. Among the many shocking – and revealing – cases the author describes are the murder of a Welsh Protestant by an Irish Catholic that provoked rioting; the double life of a respectable widow poisoned with arsenic; the exploits of a ‘Jack the Ripper’ killer in Cardiff’s back streets; the throat-slashing revenge of the Cardiff Race Track Gang; the still-mysterious wartime murder of Alice Pittman; the case of the Somalian sailor arrested for the brutal slaying of an elderly shopkeeper; the demise of Granville Jenkins who was cut to ribbons by a machete, and the accidental or deliberate electrocution of Mrs Darling.Mark Isaacs’ chronicle of Cardiff’s hidden past – the history the city would prefer to forget – will be compelling reading for anyone who is interested in the dark side of human nature.
The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Age: Young Adult
Format: ebook
Published: June 19th, 2020
Review
Les Misérables meets Six of Crows in this page-turning adventure as a young thief finds herself going head to head with leaders of Paris’s criminal underground in the wake of the French Revolution.
Liberty
1828 and the citizens of Paris still mourn in the wake of their failed revolution. Among them, in the dark alleys and crumbling cathedrals of the city, the most wretched have gathered into guilds of thieves, assassins – and worse. Together they are known as The Court of Miracles.
Family
Eponine has lost more than most. When her father, Thénardier, sells her sister to the Guild of Flesh she makes a promise to do anything she can to get her sister back, even if that means joining the Court of Miracles, the very people keeping her sister a slave.
Treachery
Eponine becomes perhaps the greatest thief the Court has ever known, finding a place among them and gaining another sister, Cosette. But she has never forgotten the promise she made, and if she’s to have any hope of saving one sister, she will have to betray the other.
This beautiful reimagining of Les Misérables tells the stories of your favourite characters and what might have happened if the French Revolution had not come to pass.
I know this is going up a day late but I really liked this prompt and wanted to make sure I had something for it, even if it is a little late! As always, if you’ve read these or have your own recommendations, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Unwrapping Words 