Top Ten Tuesday – Books With Single Word Titles

Good morning people! Are the days all blurring together for other people too thanks to lockdown? It’s a good job I have the blog and my regular posts to keep me on track or I’d have no idea today is actually Tuesday! The official prompt for this week is Book Titles That Would Make Good Band Names but as much as I love music I’m not sure if I could pick a good band name if it appeared in flashing lights in front of me. So instead I’ve picked a prompt I missed earlier in the year Books With Single Word Titles and I’m sharing 5 books I’ve read in the past and 5 books still on my TBR.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Books With Single Word Titles

Harvest by Tess Gerritsen

About The Book

In the ER of a Boston hospital, a tale of twisted terror lies waiting…
Dr Abby DiMatteo – a second-year surgical student in Boston Bayside’s elite cardiac team – is about to make a decision that will jeopardize her career.
A car-crash victim’s healthy heart is ready to be harvested, having been cross-matched to a private patient, forty-six year-old Nina Voss. Instead Abby makes sure the transplant goes to a dying seventeen-year-old boy who is also a perfect match.
The repercussions leave her plagued with self-doubt. Suddenly a new heart appears, and the transplant is completed. Then she makes a terrible discovery. The new heart has not come through the proper channels.
Defying the hospital’s demands for silence, Abby begins her own investigation that reveals an intricate and murderous chain of deceptions …

Tess Gerritsen is well known for her Rizzoli & Isles series, but Harvest was a standalone medical thriller that came first. I read after I’d already discovered The Surgeon, and it was back before SWB was born so no review but I remember really enjoying it when I picked it up.

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Ragdoll by Daniel Cole

About The Book

William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after he was suspended for assaulting a vindicated suspect. Still under psychological evaluation, Fawkes returns to the force eager for a big case. When his former partner and friend, Detective Emily Baxter, calls him to a crime scene, he’s sure this is it: the body is made of the dismembered parts of six victims, sewn together like a puppet–a corpse that becomes known as “The Ragdoll.”

Fawkes is tasked with identifying the six victims, but that gets dicey when his reporter ex-wife anonymously receives photographs from the crime scene, along with a list of six names, and the dates on which the Ragdoll Killer plans to murder them.

The final name on the list is Fawkes.

Baxter and her trainee partner, Alex Edmunds, hone in on figuring out what links the victims together before the killer strikes again. But for Fawkes, seeing his name on the list sparks a dark memory, and he fears that the catalyst for these killings has more to do with him–and his past–than anyone realizes.

With a breakneck pace, a twisty plot, and a wicked sense of humor, Ragdoll announces the arrival of the hottest new brand in crime fiction

This is Daniel Cole’s debut novel and it had me hooked! I read the follow up but for some reason didn’t get around to reviewing it. Just an excuse for a re-read before I pick up the final story in the trilogy.

Check out my Ragdoll review

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Everless by Sara Holland

About The Book

Time is a prison. She is the key. Packed with danger, temptation and desire – a perfect read for fans of The Red Queen.

In the land of Sempera, the rich control everything – even time. Ever since the age of alchemy and sorcery, hours, days and years have been extracted from blood and bound to iron coins. The rich live for centuries; the poor bleed themselves dry.

Jules and her father are behind on their rent and low on hours. To stop him from draining himself to clear their debts, Jules takes a job at Everless, the grand estate of the cruel Gerling family.

There, Jules encounters danger and temptation in the guise of the Gerling heir, Roan, who is soon to be married. But the web of secrets at Everless stretches beyond her desire, and the truths Jules must uncover will change her life for ever … and possibly the future of time itself.

If you’ve spent any real time on SWB you’ll know I’m quite a fan of Sara Holland’s Everless Duology so it probably won’t come as a surprise to you to see this appear on my list! I adored the concept and the characters were wonderful

You can find my Everless review here

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Overkill by Vanda Symon

About The Book

Book 1 in the PC Sam Shephard series. Action-packed, tension-filled and atmospheric police procedural set in rural New Zealand.

When the body of a young mother is found washed up on the banks of the Mataura River, a small rural community is rocked by her tragic suicide. But all is not what it seems. Sam Shephard, sole-charge police constable in Mataura, soon discovers the death was no suicide and has to face the realisation that there is a killer in town. To complicate the situation, the murdered woman was the wife of her former lover. When Sam finds herself on the list of suspects and suspended from duty, she must cast said her personal feelings and take matters into her own hands. To find the murderer… and clear her name. A taut, atmospheric and pageturning thriller, Overkill marks the start of an unputdownable and unforgettable series from one of New Zealand s finest crime writers.

I took part in the blog tour for this back in 2018. I enjoyed the book but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it since, looking through my Goodreads to find books for this prompt reminded me about it, I might have to find the second in the series.

Find my Overkill review here

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Moonlocket by Peter Bunzl

About The Book

It’s hard to escape the secrets from the past.

Storm clouds gather over Lily and Robert’s summer when criminal mastermind the Jack of Diamonds appears. For Jack is searching for the mysterious Moonlocket – but that’s not the only thing he wants.

Suddenly, dark secrets from Robert’s past plunge him into danger. Jack is playing a cruel game that Robert is a part of. Now Lily and Malkin, the mechanical fox, must stay one step ahead before Jack plays his final, deadly card…

I’ve read the first two of The Cogheart Adventures and adored them both. Cogheart is very much Lily’s story whereas Moonlocket focuses more on Robert’s story but they are both great, if slightly scary, middle grade adventures! Skycircus and Shadowsea are both sitting on my shelves and I’m looking forward to picking them up!

My Moonlocket review!

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Contagion by Teri Terry

About The Book

Callie is missing.

Her brother Kai is losing hope of ever seeing her again. Then he meets Shay, a girl who saw Callie the day she disappeared, and his hope is reignited.

Their search leads them to the heart of a terrifying epidemic that is raging through the country.

Can Kai and Shay escape death and find Callie?

This has been on my Goodreads shelf for a while now but I’ve not actually gotten around to buying this series yet. It sounds really interesting but perhaps a little too close to home at the moment!

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Nine by Zach Hines

About The Book

In an alternate world startlingly close to our own, humans have nine lives—and they can’t wait to burn straight through them.

As you shed lives, you shed your awkward phases: one death is equal to one physical and mental upgrade. Julian’s friends are obsessed with the idea of burning lives, but Julian is determined to stay on his first for as long as he can. His mother, the ultimate cautionary tale, burned through her first eight in just a few years, and Julian has no intention of succumbing to the debilitating rebirth sickness that she inflicted on herself.

But the regime has death incentives aimed at controlling overpopulation, and Julian realizes that he’s going to have to burn at some point—especially when he becomes a target for Nicholas, the manipulative leader of the Burners, the school’s suicide club. And when Julian eventually succumbs, he uncovers suspicious gaps in the rebirth system that may explain exactly why his mother went so far down the rabbit hole years ago. Along with a group of student dissenters, Julian sets out to find answers and is soon on the verge of exposing the greatest conspiracy ever unleashed on the world.

He has just eight more lives to uncover the brutal truth.

I think this has an incredible concept, it sounds intriguing and terrifying! It’s not been a big book over here in the UK, I’m not sure it even has a UK publisher to be honest but I ordered a copy from Amazon and it’s been sitting on my shelf for a while now.

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#Murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil

About The Book

@doctorfusionbebop: Some 17 y. o. chick named Dee Guerrera was just sent to Alcatraz 2.0 for killing her stepsister. So, how long do you think she’ll last?

@morrisdavis72195: I hope she meets justice! She’ll get what’s coming to her! BWAHAHA!

@EltonJohnForevzz: Me? I think Dee’s innocent. And I hope she can survive.

WELCOME TO THE NEAR FUTURE, where good and honest citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society’s most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0.

When seventeen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she’s about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn’t commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she’s innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman’s cast of executioners kill them off one by one?

This is another really intriguing sounding story, it’s the first in a series, and the third is due for release sometime this year. I bought this when I was going through a phase of loving the sound of dark, twisted YA fiction. Don’t think I’ve left that phase that yet, but I’ve not gotten around to reading this.

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Jungledrop by Abi Elphinstone

About The Book

Eleven-year-old twins, Fox and Fibber, have been rivals for as long as they can remember. Only one of them will inherit the family fortune and so a race is afoot to save the dwindling Petty-Squabble empire and win the love of their parents.

But when the twins are whisked off to Jungledrop, a magical Unmapped Kingdom in charge of conjuring our world’s weather, things get wildly out of hand. An evil harpy called Morg is on the loose. And if she finds the long-lost Forever Fern before the twins, both Jungledrop and our world will crumble.

Suddenly, Fox and Fibber find themselves on an incredible adventure in a glow-in-the-dark rainforest full of golden panthers, gobblequick trees and enchanted temples. But, with the fate of two worlds in their hands, will the twins be able to work together for once to defeat Morg and her dark magic?

I ADORED Everdark and Rumblestar and have had this latest installment of The Unmapped Chronicles on pre-order since last November and I’m gutted they’ve pushed the UK release date from next month to October but I understand why. Luckily enough for my Simon and Schuster approved my NetGalley request so I’ll still get a chance to read it next month.

Check out my Rumblestar review here

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Camp by L. C. Rosen

About The Book

Sixteen-year-old Randy Kapplehoff loves spending the summer at Camp Outland, a camp for queer teens. It’s where he met his best friends. It’s where he takes to the stage in the big musical. And it’s where he fell for Hudson Aaronson-Lim – who’s only into straight-acting guys and barely knows not-at-all-straight-acting Randy even exists.

This year, though, it’s going to be different. Randy has reinvented himself as ‘Del’ – buff, masculine and on the market. Even if it means giving up show tunes, nail polish and his unicorn bedsheets, he’s determined to get Hudson to fall for him.

But as he and Hudson grow closer, Randy has to ask himself how much is he willing to change for love. And is it really love anyway, if Hudson doesn’t know who he truly is?

I was a huge fan of Jack Of Hearts (and Other Parts) so I have high expectations for this next book from L. C. Rosen. It sounds like another book that deals with important issues, roll on the end of May!

You can find my Jack of Hearts review here

There are my ten books with single word titles. Have you read any of them? Which of the five I’ve left to read should I prioritise? Let me know in the comments!