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.
Note: This post contains affiliate links. When you click on and/or purchase from some links, I make a portion of the sale. This helps keep Bitch Bookshelf running.
This week’s theme is books on my TBR for this winter. I flipped through my planner to find ten books I plan to read in the upcoming months and am excited about! These are all fairly new releases or upcoming books that I was lucky to score through NetGalley, Edelweiss, or from the author.
Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, and Daily Upgrades You Need to Make Them Stick by Jen Sincero
The summary, from Amazon:
New York Times bestselling author Jen Sincero gets to the core of transformation: habits–breaking, making, understanding, and sticking with them like you’ve never stuck before.
Badass Habits is a eureka-sparking, easy-to-digest look at how our habits make us who we are, from the measly moments that happen in private to the resolutions we loudly broadcast (and, erm, often don’t keep) on social media. Habit busting and building goes way beyond becoming a dedicated flosser or never showing up late again–our habits reveal our unmet desires, the gaps in our boundaries, our level of self-awareness, and our unconscious beliefs and fears. Badass Habits features Jen’s trademark hilarious voice and offers a much-needed fresh take on the conventional wisdom and science that shape the optimism (or pessimism?) around the age-old topic of habits. The book includes enlightening interviews with people who’ve successfully strengthened their discipline backbones, new perspective on how to train our brains to become our best selves, and offers a simple, 21 day, step-by-step guide for ditching habits that don’t serve us and developing the habits we deem most important. Habits shouldn’t be impossible to reset–and with healthy boundaries, knowledge of–and permission to go after–our desires, and an easy to implement plan of action, we can make any new goal a joyful habit.
Color Me Red by Beena Khan
The summary, from Amazon:
The coldest winter brings first loves. The winter that changed her forever.
Let’s start from the beginning. The past.Meet the man she couldn’t forget and the man that broke her.Isaah and Saagh.The untouchable wealthy notorious bad boys of Emerson UniversityLove can heal a person, but no one ever told me, it can destroy a person too.Before she met Kabir, Red was just a young, orphaned girl starved for attention. She was always taught by her parents that she will meet ‘the one’. She was crossing the street when the college playboy Isaah Lone runs her over with his motorcycle. This begins a love-hate relationship between them. They only speak to quarrel with each other, bullying each other. One day, she has car troubles and goes to the car shop that Isaah’s family owns. Slowly, they realized that they have something in common that they both love: literature.She meets a guy named Saagh who later becomes her best friend. The longer she is with him, the more she sees his dark and possessive side. Torn, she must choose between right and wrong before each man takes a piece of her and never returns it.This is Red’s prequel, the third book in the Red series. A literary new adult standalone college romantic suspense with comedy and no filters. This book has sensitive topics that can trigger someone. Recommended for fans of Jane Eyre, It Ends With Us, The Bronze Horseman and Bully. Don’t forget to scroll up and purchase the book!
The Heiress Gets a Duke by Harper St. George
The summary, from Amazon:
Even a fortune forged in railroads and steel can’t buy entrance into the upper echelons of Victorian high society–for that you need a marriage of convenience.
American heiress August Crenshaw has aspirations. But unlike her peers, it isn’t some stuffy British Lord she wants wrapped around her finger–it’s Crenshaw Iron Works, the family business. When it’s clear that August’s outrageously progressive ways render her unsuitable for a respectable match, her parents offer up her younger sister to the highest entitled bidder instead. This simply will not do. August refuses to leave her sister to the mercy of a loveless marriage.
Evan Sterling, the Duke of Rothschild, has no intention of walking away from the marriage. He’s recently inherited the title only to find his coffers empty, and with countless lives depending on him, he can’t walk away from the fortune a Crenshaw heiress would bring him. But after meeting her fiery sister, he realizes Violet isn’t the heiress he wants. He wants August, and he always gets what he wants.
But August won’t go peacefully to her fate. She decides to show Rothschild that she’s no typical London wallflower. Little does she realize that every stunt she pulls to make him call off the wedding only makes him like her even more.
Sentience by Courtney Hunter
The summary, from Amazon:
Robots, sex, lies, adventure, and chaos. Who can you trust when you can’t trust yourself? And what truly defines humanity and consciousness?
Running from a violent past, Leo Knox desperately decides to participate in a scientific experiment conducted by the infamous and greedy tech-giant, AlgorithmOS. Soon, Leo learns that she has agreed to take part in a Turing Test, a test that measures the ability of artificial intelligence to blend in among humanity, but what she doesn’t know is that the test set to take place is unlike any other of its kind.
Leo enters Eden, the contained preserve where the test will occur, with twenty-three others. While everyone appears to be human, four of the individuals are an indistinguishably advanced form of humanoid AI. The task is simple: identify the AI while trying to survive. The twist? The four AI are completely unaware of their nature, causing every participant to question what they know as reality.
The group embarks on a journey within the preserve, rigged with obstacles devised by the controllers of the experiment to elicit human response and emotion. Quickly, madness ensues and divides form, partnering Leo up with Avery Ford, a Marine who wears his demons on his sleeve. Romance falls together for the two as the world around them falls apart, revealing the lengths people will go to protect those they love, to achieve monetary gain, or simply to survive.
Back at AlgorithmOS, the story unfolds on the screens of Nathan Aimes, a scientist responsible for monitoring the experiment’s surveillance cameras. Nathan studies the humans involved as they wrestle with where they stand on the polarizing issue of AI and its applications. He watches the AI unknowingly fight to prove their humanity just to leave the experiment unscathed. All the while, Nathan is intimately aware of his company’s plans to weaponize or commodify the AI should they pass the test, and he must reconcile this with the chaos that plays out before him.
Meet the Author, Courtney Hunter
Courtney Hunter is a serial creator with experience in the fashion industry and with live performance. New to fiction writing, Sentience is a written extension of a contemporary dance piece that was produced for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in 2017 based on artificial intelligence. She currently works in retail buying and lives in Philadelphia with her partner, Will, and rescue pups, Rickie and Billie. Find out more about Courtney and her other projects at cournteyphunter.com.
Early Reviews of Sentience
A genre-bending thriller full of adventure, duplicity, and robots that begs the question: because we can, does it mean we should? – Independent Book Review
Right from the beginning I was hooked on the concept alone. Westworld meets The Hunger Games? Sold. The author does an excellent job with character creation and development, especially when differentiating roles and personalities. You can foreshadow how they’ll affect the group during an experiment as the book goes on. – Rachel Cowley of @SheepyReads
I absolutely loved this story. The idea, the way it was brought to life, and the completely brutal behavior we witness had me absolutely hooked. There were so many things I just didn’t see coming and that literally had my jaw dropping. This book threw me for a loop multiple times! It had a little bit of everything you could possibly want from a book: brutal murder, romance, robots, and a survivor type trek through the woods. I could go on and on but just read it for yourself and thank me later! – Ashley Daviau of @ReadybyAshleyD
A Lady’s Formula for Love by Elizabeth Everett
The summary, from Amazon:
What is a Victorian lady’s formula for love? Mix one brilliant noblewoman and her enigmatic protection officer. Add in a measure of danger and attraction. Heat over the warmth of humor and friendship, and the result is more than simple chemistry–it’s elemental.
Lady Violet is keeping secrets. First, she founded a clandestine sanctuary for England’s most brilliant female scientists. Second, she is using her genius on a confidential mission for the Crown. But the biggest secret of all? Her feelings for protection officer Arthur Kneland.
Solitary and reserved, Arthur learned the hard way to put duty first. But the more time he spends in the company of Violet and the eccentric club members, the more his best intentions go up in flames. Literally.
When a shadowy threat infiltrates Violet’s laboratories, endangering her life and her work, scientist and bodyguard will find all their theories put to the test–and learn that the most important discoveries are those of the heart.
All Girls by Emily Layden
The summary, from Amazon:
“All Girls is an exciting, innovative debut from a fresh and assured new voice. Emily Layden renders the fictional Atwater School in nuanced, honest, and rich depth, guiding its young characters with a tender and knowing hand. This is a sincere, poignant, and moving story of a group of teenage girls coming to terms with the world they’ve inherited.”
––Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones and the SixA keenly perceptive coming of age novel for fans of Sally Rooney, Curtis Sittenfeld, and J. Courtney Sullivan, All Girls follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced.
But as the months unfold, and the school’s efforts to control the ensuing crisis fall short, these extraordinary girls are forced to discover their voices, and their power. A tender and unflinching portrait of modern adolescence told through the shifting perspectives of an unforgettable cast of female students, All Girls explores what it means to grow up in a place that promises you the world––when the world still isn’t yours for the taking.
You grow to love a place… and then you grow up.
Waiting for a Scot Like You by Eva Leigh
The summary, from Amazon:
Eva Leigh concludes her Breakfast Club and 80s movie-inspired Regency series with a merry widow and a stoic major on a bumpy road to love…
Adjusting to life in peacetime isn’t easy for Major Duncan McCameron. Escorting a lady on her journey north seems like the perfect chance to give him some much-needed purpose. That is, until he learns the woman in question is the beautiful, bold, reckless Lady Farris. She makes his head spin and being alone together will surely end in disaster.
Beatrice, the Dowager Countess of Farris, is finally free of a stifling marriage and she has no plans to shackle herself to any other man. Ready to live life to the fullest, she’s headed to a week-long bacchanal and the journey should be half the fun. Except she’s confined to a carriage with a young, rule-abiding, irritatingly handsome Scottish soldier who wouldn’t know a good time if it landed in his lap. But maybe a madcap escapade will loosen him up…
Between carriage crashes, secret barn dances, robbers, and an inn with only one bed, their initial tension dissolves into a passion that neither expected. But is there a future for an adventure-loving lady and a duty-bound soldier, or will their differences tear them apart?
Don’t miss the earlier books in the Union of the Rakes series—My Fake Rake and Would I Lie to the Duke are available now!
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
The summary, from Amazon:
“A trippy domestic thriller which takes the extramarital affair trope in some intriguingly weird new directions.” – Entertainment Weekly
I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married.It took me so long to hate him.
Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award- winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.
And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.
Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up.
Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
A Deadly Fortune by Stacie Murphy
The summary, from Amazon:
A historical mystery in the vein of The Alienist, in which a young woman in Gilded Age New York must use a special talent to unravel a deadly conspiracy.
Amelia Matthew has done the all-but-impossible, especially for an orphan in Gilded Age New York City. Along with her foster brother Jonas, she has parleyed her modest psychic talent into a safe and comfortable life. But safety and comfort vanish when a head injury leaves Amelia with a dramatically-expanded gift. After she publicly channels an angry spirit, she finds herself imprisoned in the notorious insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island. As Jonas searches for a way to free her, Amelia struggles to control her disturbing new abilities and survive a place where cruelty and despair threaten her sanity.
Andrew Cavanaugh is familiar with despair. In the wake of a devastating loss, he abandons a promising medical career—and his place in Philadelphia society—to devote himself to the study and treatment of mental disease. Miss Amelia Matthew is just another patient—until she channels a spirit in front of him and proves her gift is real.
When a distraught mother comes to Andrew searching for her missing daughter—a daughter she believes is being hidden at the asylum—he turns to Amelia. Together, they uncover evidence of a deadly conspiracy, and then it’s no longer just Amelia’s sanity and freedom at stake. Amelia must master her gift and use it to catch a killer—or risk becoming the next victim.
Make Up Break Up by Lily Mellon
The summary, from Amazon:
The sparkling and heartfelt romantic comedy debut from Lily Menon, Make Up Break Up….
Love, romance, second chances, fairy-tale endings…these are the things Annika Dev believes in. Her app, Make Up, has been called the “Google Translate for failing relationships.”
High efficiency break-ups, flashy start-ups, penthouses, fast cars…these are the things Hudson Craft believes in. His app, Break Up, is known as the “Uber for break-ups.” It’s wildly successful—and anathema to Annika’s life philosophy.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if they’d gone their separate ways after that summer fling in Las Vegas, never to see each other again. Unfortunately for Annika, Hudson’s moving not just into her office building, but into the office right next to hers. And he’ll be competing at the prestigious EPIC investment pitch contest: A contest Annika needs to win if she wants to keep Make Up afloat. As if it’s not bad enough seeing his irritatingly perfect face on magazine covers when her own business is failing. As if knowing he stole her idea and twisted it into something vile—and monumentally more successful—didn’t already make her stomach churn.
As the two rival app developers clash again and again—and again—Annika finds herself drawn into Hudson Craft’s fast-paced, high velocity, utterly shallow world. Only, from up close, he doesn’t seem all that shallow. Could it be that everything she thought about Hudson is completely wrong? Could the creator of Break Up teach her what true love’s really about?
Are any of these books on your TBR list, or have you read any of them yet?
