Top Five Wednesday/ Cliffhangers

Top Five Wednesday, which right now is taken over by the author Laura A Grace. Top Five Wednesday is a weekly book prompt that might help you pick your next read.

July 13th: Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers. We’ve all read them. Whether we like or dislike them, we know they are a strong part of YA reads especially. For today’s prompt, let’s talk about some of the best cliffhangers we’ve read! This could be because of the desperation we felt in how we MUST get the next volume or how enraged we were that the book ended right THERE or maybe a combination!

There is no other way to say it; cliffhangers aren’t my cup of tea, but I get why authors do it. By the way, I had no idea it would be this hard to pick five.

Goodreads Blurb:

A legendary competition.
A mesmerizing romance.
An unbreakable bond
between two sisters.

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . beware of getting swept too far away. 

Goodreads Blurb:

DI Kate Young is on leave. She’s the force’s best detective, but her bosses know she’s under pressure, on medication and overcoming trauma. So after her bad judgement call leads to a narrowly averted public disaster, they’re sure all she needs is a rest.

But when Staffordshire Police summon her back to work on a murder case, it’s a harder, more suspicious Kate Young who returns. With a new ruthlessness, she sets about tracking down a clinical, calculating serial killer who is torturing victims and leaving clues to taunt the police. Spurred on by her reporter husband, Young begins to suspect that the murderer might be closer than she ever imagined.

As she works to uncover the truth, Young unravels a network of secrets and lies, with even those closest to her having something to hide. But with her own competence—and her grip on reality—called into question, can she unmask the killer before they strike again?

Goodreads Blurb:

Don’t lie to me…

When her 13-year-old sister vanishes on her way back from a friend’s house, Detective Kaitlyn Carr must confront demons from her own past in order to bring her sister home.

The small mountain town of Big Bear Lake is only three hours away but a world away from her life in Los Angeles. It’s the place she grew up and the place that’s plagued her with lies, death and secrets.

As Kaitlyn digs deeper into the murder that she is investigating and her sister’s disappearance, she finds out that appearances are misleading and few things are what they seem.

A murderer is lurking in the shadows and the more of the mystery that Kaitlyn unspools the closer she gets to danger herself.

Can Kaitlyn find the killer and solve the mystery of her sister’s disappearance before it’s too late?

What happens when someone else is taken?

Goodreads Blurb:

These Royals will ruin you…

Ella Harper is a survivor—a pragmatic optimist. She’s spent her whole life moving from town to town with her flighty mother, struggling to make ends meet and believing that someday she’ll climb out of the gutter. After her mother’s death, Ella is truly alone. 

Until Callum Royal appears, plucking Ella out of poverty and tossing her into his posh mansion among his five sons who all hate her. Each Royal boy is more magnetic than the last, but none as captivating as Reed Royal, the boy who is determined to send her back to the slums she came from.

Reed doesn’t want her. He says she doesn’t belong with the Royals.

He might be right.

Wealth. Excess. Deception. It’s like nothing Ella has ever experienced, and if she’s going to survive her time in the Royal palace, she’ll need to learn to issue her own Royal decrees. 

Goodreads Blurb:

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness. He was beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily.

Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other’s most private wounds and desires.

The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn’t tear us apart 

I picked five that I read the next book in the series, which is rare because I have a habit of not continuing if the end doesn’t raise enough curiosity.

Alex