Top Ten Tuesday/ Bookish Candle

I’m so excited since today I finished my TBR, it has been since May that I couldn’t say that. I added a ton of LGBTI+ books for June, but then in June, I kept adding to it, and it felt never-ending, which is why I’m not participating in any readathons this month. Honestly, it has been awesome to be able to read at random, and some of the books are yet to have readers, or very few have read them. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl, who has a new weekly topic.

September 16: Literary/Bookish Candles I’d Make (Pick a book and assign it a fragrance or fragrance combo that would make a nice candle.) (Submitted by Heather @ The Frozen Library) Now I don’t buy candles since 9 out of 10 the scent causes me asthma, but picking books that I believe would be interesting as a scent.

Goodreads Blurb:

He wasn’t meant for a quiet life.

Philip Winthrop, Viscount Soulden, is a fop. An idle popinjay with nothing more on his mind than how to best knot his cravat. He definitely doesn’t spy against the French. Or arrange hasty weddings. Or occasionally commandeer the navy. And he certainly doesn’t seek out mortal danger in order to combat his pervasive ennui. It’s all just a big misunderstanding when he’s shot by a French intelligence officer during a merry riverside chase. And what a wonderful bit of quick thinking to pretend to be a corpse in order to get himself taken to the local surgeon’s autopsy cellar. The French will never find him there. If the French are even looking for him. Which they’re not. Now he just needs to locate a way out before this surgeon fellow attempts to dissect him.

He’d rather deal with the dead than the living.

Surgeon Edmund Fernside does his best to heal the living, but in truth, he’d much rather look into the gaping chest cavity of a corpse than into the startling blue eyes of a…corpse that just climbed off his autopsy table. Well then. Lord Soulden is clearly a man with some complicated secrets. But with the French in hot pursuit and a rather brutal gunshot wound, Soulden’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and Fernside discovers that he enjoys the pleasure of his company. In more ways than one.

Now, trusting each other could mean the difference between life and death.

As Soulden learns to be still for the first time in his life, Fernside wonders if perhaps it’s time to spread his wings a little. They can only hide from the outside world—and from their pasts—for so long before the secrets they’ve uncovered about each other strain the growing attraction between them. Each man must decide whether a life of comfortable lies is preferable to one full of difficult truths. And whether the sanctuary they’ve created together is something worth fighting for.

Goodreads Blurb:

Ex-police officer Rileigh Bishop never wanted to come back to her hometown. But when a dead teenage girl is found with her tongue cut out, she must return. After all, that’s the same way Rileigh’s sister died.

Reluctantly, she joins forces with the county sheriff to solve the brutal murder. The locals maintain a strict code of silence. The narrow mountain roads winding through Appalachia are fraught with peril. As Rileigh dives deeper into the case, she not only unearths connections between this murder and her sister’s death but dark family secrets that should’ve remained buried.

When the investigation nearly ends her life, she must find her resolve to solve the crime — fast.

Because she’s the killer’s next target.

Goodreads Blurb:

A baker who sees the dead. One too many suitors.
And a killer. Living in Honey Hollow can be murder.

My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so I rarely see dead people, mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety, who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.

It’s October in Honey Hollow. Halloween is at hand and there’s a horror around every corner. And then there’s that curse—and that body…

Lottie Lemon has a brand new bakery to tend to, a budding romance with perhaps one too many suitors, and she has the supernatural ability to see the dead—which are always harbingers for ominous things to come. Throw in the occasional ghost of the human variety, a string of murders, and her insatiable thirst for justice, and you’ll have more chaos than you know what to do with.

Living in Honey Hollow can be murder.

Goodreads Blurb:

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom is the highly sensational, ultra-exciting, sort-of true coming-of-age story of a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents’ abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who live in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, Dearly blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, the protagonist joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.

Goodreads Blurb

Sometimes your coffee shop crush makes a great cup of joe, and sometimes he turns out to be the love of your life.

Jack reluctantly leaves Manhattan for small-town Connecticut to focus on finishing the overdue fourth book in his bestselling middle grade series. The local coffee shop is the perfect place to buckle down and meet his deadline, except for the distracting presence of barista Pete, who’s even hotter than the coffee.

When Jack and Pete’s budding friendship quickly turns to flirting, Jack finds himself inspired to finish his book and get to know his sexy coffee shop crush more intimately. But Pete isn’t only a barista, and when they discover that their lives are already intertwined in an unexpected way, can their new relationship survive revelations from Pete’s past?

Goodreads Blurb:

Joy is in love with Malcolm.
But Malcolm really likes Summer.
Summer is in love with love.
And Fox is Summer’s ex-boyfriend.

Thirty, flirty, and asexual Joy is secretly in love with her best friend Malcolm, but she’s never been brave enough to say so. When he unexpectedly announces that he’s met the love of his life—and no, it’s not Joy—she’s heartbroken. Malcolm invites her on a weekend getaway, and Joy decides it’s her last chance to show him exactly what he’s overlooking. But maybe Joy is the one missing something…or someone…and his name is Fox.

Fox sees a kindred spirit in Joy—and decides to help her. He proposes they pretend to fall for each other on the weekend trip to make Malcolm jealous. But spending time with Fox shows Joy what it’s like to not be the third wheel, and there’s no mistaking the way he makes her feel. Could Fox be the romantic partner she’s always deserved?

Goodreads Blurb;

After her life falls apart, a little competition helps Fiona find her Christmas spirit!Fiona is forced to leave her job and her home. Chaotic doesn’t even begin to describe her current situation.

But she’s determined to pursue her dreams, even if it seems like the world is against her.

She lands in Frosty Pines, just in time for Christmas. After accepting a job at the local coffee shop, Fiona starts to fall in love with her boss.

Goodreads Blurb:

A poignant and enchanting novel about a magical bookstore that transports a trans man through time and brings him face-to-face with his teenage self, offering him the chance of a lifetime to examine his life and identity to find a new beginning.

When Darby finds himself unemployed and in need of a fresh start, he moves back to the small Illinois town he left behind. But Oak Falls has changed almost as much as he has since he left.

One thing is familiar: In Between Books, Darby’s refuge growing up and eventual high school job. When he walks into the bookstore now, Darby feels an eerie sense of déjà vu—everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the register is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at sixteen. . . who just might give Darby the opportunity to change his own present for the better—if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever.

Goodreads Blurb:

She needs a fresh start. He wants a second chance…

My new job as a chef in a small town was supposed to be my ticket to peace and quiet. I didn’t expect to run into the former hockey star who gave me the hottest nights of my life. And, oops, he’s sort-of my new boss. So much for keeping my past where it belongs.

Ty still thinks I’m the fun party girl. He has no idea how much things have changed. One thing that hasn’t changed: the spark between us. It’s hotter than the blowtorch I use on my crème brûlée.

I’m already keeping secrets, so what’s one more? Our tryst is forbidden, it’s fun, and it gets complicated as fast as you can say “check, please.” I didn’t expect to have a future with Ty. And I definitely didn’t expect to have a baby with him.

Some falls are harder than others. But it depends on who’s there to catch you…

Goodreads Blurb:

Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI’s most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft.

One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant—a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.

Determined to make a difference, Ana and Leandro start a rewilding club at their school, working with scientists to build wildlife crossings that can help mountain lions find one another. If pumas can find their way to a better tomorrow, surely Ana and Leandro can too.

Alex