Happy Top 5 Tuesday!
This is my favorite Top 5 Tuesday so far! I am crazy about secret beautiful hardcover books. I’d go broke buying books, just because there’s beauty under a dustjacket. I’ve bought many a book I never read, only because I had to possess their beauty.
I think maybe I forced myself to donate some, because searching through my books I could only find a handful worth sharing. These are some of my favorites.
Top 5 Tuesday was started by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm!
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
An unflinching, darkly funny, and deeply moving story of a boy, his seriously ill mother, and an unexpected monstrous visitor.
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting – he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth.
From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd – whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself – Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.
Fangirl (special edition) by Rainbow Rowell
In Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life-and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw
Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow…
Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.
Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.
Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.
Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.
But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.
Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning
“Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it’s good.” — MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever. — Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years.
What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubh — a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds.
In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the Sinsar Dubh turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves.
Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card?
From the luxury of the Lord Master’s penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the erotic bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Mac’s journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.
All the covers are so gorgeous! I own The Cruel Prince book by Holly Black and I’ve not read the book yet because I just feel satisfied looking at the beautiful cover lol.
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I haven’t read it either! But I looove how gorgeous it is!
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I love the one for Cruel Prince and Wicked Deep, but wow! That one for Shadow Fever is amazing! 🖤
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They’re so beautiful. I love when I find secrets under a dust jacket. I had dreams about them last night. 😀
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Those and book maps are the best surprises!
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I love maps too, definitely.
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Ahh the cover for A Monster Calls is beautiful!
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Isn’t it GORGEOUS!! I love it!
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Ahh, the Fangirl “coffee cup” is so cute! I never noticed it was under the cover of the special edition.
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Do you have the special edition? I love it! I love the etching on E&P too.
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Yes! I just never noticed the naked hardcover, lol. LOVE IT!
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It’s an awesome surprise!
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This makes me want to go take the cover off all my books and look. I don’t know why I don’t do it when I buy them! I definitely should because there are some great ones. Love this!
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Oh boy! If you do, please come back and tell me if you found any?? It’s become a habit of mine at the bookstore, to look under the dustjacket and see if there is a surprise!
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I am totally going to do this when I’m at the bookstore now! Yes, when I get to, I’ll try to remember and come back to share with you 🙂
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So many beautiful books!!! A Monster Calls is definitely stunning! I didn’t even think to look under the dust jacket for that one. Now I’m going to have to check my shelves to see if mine is that pretty!
Thanks for participating – added you to the list 🙂
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Well, the dustjacket to A Monster Calls is pretty darn gorgeous itself. I can see why you wouldn’t think to peek underneath.
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I’m a bit of an idiot. I didn’t look under the dust jacket because I have the paperback 😂
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Hahaha!!
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[…] Birdie Bookworm […]
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Oh my stars, A Monster Calls is soooo gorgeous!
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I know!! It’s so beautiful! If I didn’t like the dustjacket so much I may just shelve it just like that!
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They’re both so beautiful 🙂
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A Monster Calls is my favorite Wendy!
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It’s so gorgeous. 🙂
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These are beautiful choices! I had no idea A Monster Calls looked like that. Out of the books I own, The Wicked Deep is my favorite naked hardcover. Great post 🙂
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Thanks so much! I love the naked cover of A Monster Calls. It’s gorgeous.
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I love when naked HCs are pretty! And the Cruel Prince and Wicked Deep ones are gorgeous!
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Thanks! I love finding gorgeous naked books. Its like finding treasure
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