The Last Ten Books That Came Into My Possession

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely folks over at The Broke & The Bookish. To join in simply click on the link and look at the upcoming topics!

This week we're looking at the last ten books that have come into our possession. I feel incredibly lucky as nine of these ten have been sent to me either through Netgalley or as physical copies from the publishers. (I've noted the source for each of them.) So here you have the last ten books that have landed on my bookcase!

The Prince & I by Karen Hawkins
Release Date: August 25th 2015

Meet the Princes of Oxenburg... Fairytales with a sizzling, Scottish, and delightfully sparkling twist.

Gregori Romanovin, Oxenburg's warrior prince, is escorting his grandmother to a ball deep in the Scottish Highlands when he and his entourage are robbed at sword point by a group of ruffians. Led by a man dubbed the Scottish Robin Hood, battle-savvy Gregori senses that something's amiss - that 'he' is really a 'she'.

Lady Murian is a young, beautiful widow seeking revenge against the powerful earl who murdered her husband and stole his birthright. Living in the woods, she and her banished band of men rob wealthy nobles visiting the evil earl.

But when Murian ambushes the Prince's golden coach, she gets far more than she bargained for. And she's left fearing that he is the real thief...of her heart.

I love my historical romances in the summer. It is the perfect time to kick back with some balls, feisty heroines and gallant rakes. You know there's going to end up being a happily ever after, but it won't be smooth sailing all the way there, and they are my ideal read for a sunny afternoon. I haven't read any Karen Hawkins in a long time, but I loved her writing the last time I tried it so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. Thanks to Netgalley for sending me a copy.

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
Release Date: September 24th 2015

In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson regaled readers with uproarious stories of her bizarre childhood. In her new book, Furiously Happy, she explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

As Jenny says: 'You can't experience pain without also experiencing the baffling and ridiculous moments of being fiercely, unapologetically, intensely and (above all) furiously happy.' It's a philosophy that has - quite literally - saved her life.

Jenny's first book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. Furiously Happy is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it's about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. And who doesn't need a bit more of that?

I absolutely adored Jenny's first book, a mostly true memoir entitled 'Let's Pretend This Never Happened', a book that caused me to garner several odd looks and an offer of help I was laughing so hard whilst reading it in public. Jenny is very open about her battle with depression and fights to make people more aware of mental illness, and this book combines her brilliant humour and her determination to raise awareness about mental illness and the fact that 'depression lies'. I cannot wait to read this one. Thanks to Netgalley for sending me a copy.

The Next Together by Lauren James
Release Date: September 3rd 2015
A powerful and epic debut novel about fate and the timelessness of first love. Katherine and Matthew are destined to be born again and again. Each time their presence changes history for the better, and each time, they fall hopelessly in love, only to be tragically separated. How many times can you lose the person you love? For Matthew and Katherine it is again and again, over and over, century after century. But why do they keep coming back? How many times must they die to save the world? What else must they achieve before they can be left to live and love in peace? Maybe the next together will be different.

Lauren's debut novel has been on my radar thanks to that gorgeous cover and brilliant blurb since the start of the year, and thanks to the wonderful Sean at Walker Books, I am insanely lucky to have received an early copy to review. I have heard nothing but good things about this book (including from my mother who received it first before passing it on to me and decided to "just see what it was like". She read it in a matter of hours.)

Night Owls by Jenn Bennett
Release Date: August 13th 2015'Earth to Beatrix: This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store.'
Meeting Jack on the Owl - San Francisco's night bus - turns Beatrice's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive . . . and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists. 
On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is. But Jack is hiding much more - and can she uncover the truth that leaves him so wounded?
A unique and profoundly moving novel, Night Owls will linger in your memory long after the final page.

The cover, the title and the blurb all combined to make this an absolute want to read now book, and I was thrilled to be sent a copy through Netgalley. I'm enjoying reading more YA contemporary fiction now than I ever have before, and there seem to be a few books hitting the shelves this year that feature graffiti artists, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they compare and how graffiti is being brought into YA fiction.

Darkmere by Helen Maslin
Release Date: August 6th 2015A castle. A curse. A dangerous summer. Leo has invited Kate and a few friends to spend the summer at his inheritance, Darkmere Castle: as wild and remote as it is beautiful. Kate thinks it will be the perfect place for her and Leo to get together - but instead, she's drawn into the dark story of a young nineteenth-century bride who haunts the tunnels and towers of the house. And whose curse now hangs over them all. 

Chicken House are having a book blogger brunch to kickstart the YALC celebrations and Helen Maslin is going to be there! Which is awesome news because this novel is one I'm really excited to get stuck into. I also can't wait to meet Helen and hear her talk about the novel, next weekend cannot come fast enough! Huge thanks to Chicken House for sending me a copy!

Crow Mountain by Lucy Inglis
Release Date: September 3rd 2015
While on holiday in Montana, Hope meets local boy Cal Crow, a ranch hand. Caught in a freak accident, the two of them take shelter in a mountain cabin where Hope makes a strange discovery. More than a hundred years earlier, another English girl met a similar fate. Her rescuer: a horse-trader called Nate.
In this wild place, both girls learn what it means to survive and to fall in love, neither knowing that their fates are intimately entwined. 

Lucy is also going to be at the Chicken House book blogger brunch, so this is another wonderful piece of book post from Chicken House with the added excitement of hearing Lucy talk about Crow Mountain and meeting her next weekend. Plus the book sounds like it's going to be awesome and I'm a little bit in love with that cover...

Paperweight by Meg Haston

Release Date: July 7th 2015Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. In her body. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert.
Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at mealtime, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she’s worked so hard to avoid.
Her dad has signed her up for sixty days of treatment. But what no one knows is that Stevie doesn't plan to stay that long. There are only twenty-seven days until the anniversary of her brother Josh’s death—the death she caused. And if Stevie gets her way, there are only twenty-seven days until she too will end her life.
In this emotionally haunting and beautifully written young adult debut, Meg Haston delves into the devastating impact of trauma and loss, while posing the question: Why are some consumed by their illness while others embark on a path toward recovery?

I love the cover for this one. It cropped up a few times through other book bloggers and so when Hot Key Books offered me a chance to read and review it, I jumped at it. It sounds like it's going to be a tough book to read but an interesting one as it deals with eating disorders among other things and I'm always trying to find more books that deal with tough, rarely discussed issues, well.

The Lost & the Found by Cat Clarke
Release Date: July 2nd 2015
LOST. 
When six-year-old Laurel Logan was abducted, the only witness was her younger sister. Faith’s childhood was dominated by Laurel’s disappearance – from her parents’ broken marriage and the constant media attention to dealing with so-called friends who only ever wanted to talk about her sister. 
FOUND.
Thirteen years later, a young woman is found in the garden of the Logans’ old house, disorientated and clutching the teddy bear Laurel was last seen with. Laurel is home at last, safe and sound. Faith always dreamed of getting her sister back, without ever truly believing it would happen. But a disturbing series of events leaves Faith increasingly isolated and paranoid, and before long she begins to wonder if everything that’s lost can be found again…

Bookish Brits are reading this one together, and Quercus have very kindly provided each of us with copies to review. I've loved Cat's other books. Dark, brilliantly written and full of topics that you don't normally seen handled in YA fiction, I'm really excited to get stuck into this one. It's also going to be the second book about kidnap victims returning home that I've read in the last few weeks, although I don't think it's going to have the lightness that was present in 'Emmy & Oliver'!

A Thousand Nights by E K Johnston
Release Date: October 20th 2015Lo-Melkhin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next.
And so she is taken in her sister’s place, and she believes death will soon follow. Lo-Melkhiin’s court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments. She sees everything as if for the last time. But the first sun rises and sets, and she is not dead. Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to her and listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went wrong.
Far away, in their village, her sister is mourning. Through her pain, she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air.
Back at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin every night are given a strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. With each tale she spins, her power grows. Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of a monster.

There seems to be a trend that several books tackling the same fairytale or retelling come along at once! We've already had 'The Wrath & the Dawn' this year, but I love this story so much that I'm just excited to have another author take on the 1001 nights tale! Huge thanks to Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of this beautiful book!

The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan
Release Date: April 7th 2015
"I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they'll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next." 
American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.
Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become.
Which is how she gets into trouble.
Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

It's summer and the blurb appeals hugely. Add to that the good things I've heard from people so far about this one and I' looking forward to reading and finding a bit of escapism for a few hours. Plus, that cover! I've held out for as long as I can, but I couldn't resist treating myself to this one!

There you have the last ten books I got my sticky mitts on, now it's over to you! Link me to your lists and tell me about the last ten books that you got your hands on in the comments below!