Top Ten Tuesdays/ Nature On The Cover

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by thatartsyreadergirl with a new topic every week.

September 13: Books with Geographical Terms in the Title (for example: mountain, island, latitude/longitude, ash, bay, beach, border, canyon, cape, city, cliff, coast, country, desert, epicenter, hamlet, highway, jungle, ocean, park, sea, shore, tide, valley, etc. For a great list, click here!) (Submitted by Lisa of Hopewell)

This one will be interesting because, at the of my mind, I got a blank. This one will solely depend on Goodreads and book covers.

Goodreads Blurb:

It’s the summer of 1969 in a place called Sweet Valley, Arkansas. Cherry and Baby [are] soon to be college seniors at the dinky university just a few miles away. . . . It all looks like a pleasant, predictable American life, but a long second look reveals that things aren’t exactly what they seem to be. . . .
Cherry, the narrator, is my kind of woman: good-looking, straight-talking, and able to describe what it’s like to get amorous when you’re wearing ten thousand petticoats. Most important, she’s willing to decide for herself what’s true.”

he? And should she?

Goodreads Blurb:

It is time…

An ancient book, a power untouched, and a heart unloved lead Keelin O’Brien from her graduate studies in Boston to a small village on the coast of Southern Ireland. Determined to unearth the secrets lying hidden in the enchanted waters of the cove, Keelin has little time for a surly Irishman who infuriates her during the day and haunts her fantasies at night.

Inexplicably drawn to the woman who has stepped from his dreams and into his world, Flynn fights a stubborn battle against his increasing attraction for Keelin. Forces unknown have better plans for the two.

Only the secrets of the cove can show Keelin who she really is, the beauty of her mysterious power, and a love that will break the bounds of what she knows.

Goodreads Blurb:

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Goodreads Blurb:

A killer running rings around the police. A detective spiralling out of control.

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;

Past and present collide in richly mysterious Egypt, where recently divorced Anna Coburn is retracing a journey her great grandmother Louisa made in the 19th century. Cruising down the Nile from Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, Anna carries with her two mementos: an ancient Egyptian scent bottle, and the diary of that original Nile voyage, which has lain unread for a hundred years. As she follows Louisa’s footsteps, Anna discovers both the chilling secret of the bottle and the terrifying specters that pursued her great grandmother.

Goodreads Blurb:

So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one…Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and stepmother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Abdullah, Pari – as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named – is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their heads touching, their limbs tangled. One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pari and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart; sometimes a finger must be cut to save the hand. Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways in which we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us.

Goodreads Blurb:

Why did fourteen-year-old Helen Bassam fall to her death from a tower block? DI Joe Faraday is on the case, but almost immediately, he’s fighting for resources. The body of a drug dealer is found hanging from a tree, and the head of the Major Crimes Squad is pulling in all the manpower he can get. Faraday plunges into Portsmouth’s bleak netherworld of wrecked families and children cast adrift. But as he tracks down a ten-year-old boy who may hold the key to Helen’s death, he’s faced with a crisis much closer to home.

Goodreads Blurb:

Outside of Choteau, Montana are three crosses on a plateau, called Priest Butte. The story goes that a hundred and sixty years ago Blackfeet warriors savagely murdered three priests. OR the story goes that priests tortured and killed three Blackfeet boys. Two stories. One history.

Which is too bloody intriguing for history professor Duncan O’Doherty, Duke, to pass up. He’s spent his life solving, or trying to solve, some of history’s greatest mysteries. Alone. Prone to panic attacks if too sociable, he’s used to being veryalone. But after moving to Montana to solve the Priest Butte mystery, he finds himself with four forceful assistants, all colleagues. One in the group of absentminded professors is Dr. Illiamna Jones. Pretty Dr. Jones. Lovely Illiamna.

When it comes to the Catholic Church giving any kind of clarity, they have a practiced omission for an answer to all of the historical abuses—Duke knows this from his own dark, painful experience. Oddly, the more he and the persuasive Scooby Doo gang dig, the closer he gets to his own past. But he can’t let anyone get close to his past. Not even these Montanan academics—goat herders and sweater makers, all around wonderful people. And especially beautiful Illiamna cannot know what happened. He would rather die than let anyone know, even as the past comes knocking on his door.

Goodreads Blurb:

All alone on the Kansas prairie, Summer Steadman has few options. With her husband and children lost to illness, she has no desire to continue on farther west to where she and her husband planned to build their future. Instead, she seeks employment in a small Mennonite community in order to be near the graves of her family.

Widower Peter Ollenburger, the local gristmill owner, needs someone to teach his young son. When he hears of a “learned woman” in town, he believes she is the answer to his prayers. He soon discovers, however, that helping this outsider may have troublesome consequences.

There is little this father will not do for his son, but as the boy begins to look at Summer as more than a teacher, Peter must make a choice. Does he marry this woman to give his son a new mother, or does he marry only for love?

Will Summer’s broken heart ever be able to love again?

Goodreads Blurb:

Sure, his family isn’t typical-Josh knows that. He’s a twelve-year-old orphan being raised by his eighteen-year-old aunt. When Grandpa and Uncle Charlie start making plans to find Auntie Lou a husband-and take away the only mother Josh has ever known-he knows something has to be done. His family has shaped the young man he has become. Now, as he grows into manhood, he begins to face important questions about life, love, and faith. How can he find his way when his whole world threatens to come apart?

Trying desperately to cling to the life he’s always had, Josh does what he can to keep his aunt single. But when a preacher comes along, Josh sees that things are going to get complicated.

Not sure if I got this one right, but if I didn’t, I hope you still enjoyed and thanks for reading!

Alex