#TopTenTuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
There are moments I’ve curated lists rooted in the official topics of this meme as shared by the host whereas at other times, I’ve gone a bit rogue like other book bloggers wherein we curate our own topics to respond to during the weekly share of #TopTenTuesday. I’ve also re-spun this meme to participate in blog tours and/or featured events within the blogosphere which are as follows:
- Top Ten Reasons Why “Pride and Prejudice”
never fails to win a reader’s heart even as its respun by Elizabeth Adams- Top Ten Secrets Behind the Tobacconist’s Wife by AnneMarie Brear
- Top Ten Secrets of Surviving in the Verin Empire by William Ray
- A Hauntingly Brilliant #TopTenTuesday during #SpooktasticReads! by A. Lawrence
- The Top Ten Dragon Favourites of Jackie Gamber
- Jorie’s #TopTenTuesday DiverseLit stories
Jorie felt deeply connected to whilst reading!? (*bookdrive for a library)- The Top Ten #INSPY #HistRom & #RomSusp Jorie definitely wants to read in [2020]
- Jorie’s #TopTenTuesday Stories
which I’ve loved reading involving ghosts, spirits and souls- Jorie’s Favourite #newtomeauthors of 2019!
Bending Time and becoming a time traveller
during the 10 years of #SciFiMonth or outside of it | Hostess List
A bit about why I love reading stories of Time Travel,
Time Shift & Time Bent narratives in Science Fiction
or across genres of interest where writers fuse
time into the backbone of their stories:
I originally tackled this topic during #SciFiMonth when I shared this post about why I love travelling through time and what it is about time travel narratives in all their incarnations which locks me into their vortexes as a reader. That was written during the first year of @SciFiMonth in [2013] and I have expanded on my JOY of this section of Speculative Literature in the ten years since I wrote it. This post will explore those stories I’ve discovered and those writers who have continued to give me wicked good reads whilst travelling through time and bending my bookish heart into evocative stories which celebrate and champion our pursuit of travelling outside of our own lifetimes through fictional encounters of time winders and benders.
As aside from reading time bending narratives, I’ve also hosted an array of guest features and posts by writers who write these stories as well. In case you wanted to hop through my archives to find out which stories and authors were featured – here is a quick guide:
- Guest Post: A Suffragette in Time by Connie Lacy
- Guest Post: The Angel of Time series by E. Graziani
- Interview: The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson
- Interview: Daughters of the Silk Road by Debbie Rix
- Interview: The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley by Susan Ornbratt
- Interview: about the Reincarnionist series by MJ Rose
- Guest Post: On Time Slips by Christina Courtenay
- Interview: About writing “To Live Forever” by Andra Watkins
I read a considerable selection of Time Travelling & Time Bending stories – all of which were wickedly delightful and devoured:
- Some Veil Did Fall by Kirsty Ferry
- The Girl in the Painting by Kirsty Ferry
- Where Dragonflies Hover by AnneMarie Brear
- The Silent Touch of Shadows by Christina Courtenay
- The Secret Kiss of Darkness by Christina Courtenay
- The Collector of Dying Breaths by MJ Rose
- Lemongrass Hope by Amy Impellizzeri
- To Live Forever by Andra Watkins
- A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner
- The House Girl by Tara Conklin
- Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole
- The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Whilst I’ve also featured a few of them as well ahead of reading:
- Lacewood by Jessica James
- Someone in Time (anthology) – also featured during 10th @SciFiMonth
- The Other Times of Caroline Tangent by Ivan D. Wainewright
- Thunder on the Moor by Andrea Matthews
- The Paris Dressmaker by Kirsty Cambron
- Set the Stars Alight by Amanda Dykes (*audiobook)
- The Guernsey Novels by Anne Allen
As much as there were a few which left me conflicted after reading them:
- Time and Again by Deborah Heal *elected not to read the rest of the trilogy
- There’s Always A Tomorrow by Anna Belfrage *preferred A Rip in the Veil
- The Land of Look Behind by Aaron Blaylock *preferred The Unsaid
- Letters from a Patchwork Quilt by Clare Flynn
- Unravelled by M.K. Tod
- To Tuscany with Love by Gail Mencini
- Being A Witch And Other Things I Didn’t Ask For by Sara Pascoe
And, there was one story that felt like a slip in time but wasn’t a traditional time slip novel:
You might also take stock of the fact I happen to read a heap of time narratives within the context and construct of Historical Fiction moreso than I actually do in Science Fiction. Although I would lament that ALL time narratives are part of Science Fiction on some level because of the ways in which time affects and intervenes on behalf of the characters and their journeys within those stories. However, I do hope I can start to read and seek out more time bent, time shift and time travelling stories within the main sphere of Science Fiction a bit more moving forward as I do have the tendency to become smitten and charmed by the writers of Historical Fiction who are giving me wicked good time adventures!
Top tens for our tenth year
We loved having weekly Favourite Fives for Wyrd & Wonder’s fifth birthday, so it’s only right to go full Top Tens for SciFiMonth’s tenth! But what are those weekly topics?
- Previously, On SciFiMonth: SFnal books / films / shows / games you enjoyed or were introduced to during SciFiMonth in the past
- Turn Back Time: feature tales about time travel or shout about classic SF titles
- To Boldly Go: contribute to RunalongWomble’s excellent #SmallPressBigStories initiative with a top ten focusing on stories published by independent and small presses
- One Small Step: sure we love a sprawling space opera, but this week is for celebrating short stories, novellas and novelettes
- Can’t Stop The Signal: SciFiMonth is all about the community – share your favourite SF blogs we should follow
as it was disclosed via Imyril @ There’s Always Room for One More
As you can tell, I read an incredible amount of time bending stories as a book blogger & as a reader who appreciates seeing how writers elect to bend time within their story and world. It is an interesting concept and everyone has a different spin on enticing us into their time slip, time bent or time travelling narrative. Narrowing this list down to a Top Ten List was most difficult because some of the stories I’ve championed in the past I decided to let shine in the background this time round and chose instead to feature other stories I’ve discovered in more recent years that are equally ringing true to me as being top favourite reads in this particular genre of interest.
You’ll also notice a bit of a trend – whereas I am sure others who are participating in this post challenge might be focused more on Science Fiction time bending stories — I’ve taken a bit of a different route of exploration! Mostly because a LOT of my travels in time are through the Historical Fiction realms moreso than Science Fiction! I’ve chosen to link to other reviews in the top half of this post in case you wanted to see which stories I’ve read which also parlay into this subject of interest and perhaps expand your own TBR as well. I decided to include guest features in case you wanted to see which authors responded to my topics and/or of whom conversed with me on different subjects interlinked to their stories.
A very hard list to compile this week – not to mention the fact it was doubly hard with a severe migraine which pushed me offline and kept postponing this to be shared! It was one of those sledgehammer migraines which affects me for days and takes more days to recover from — even by Saturday (the 12th) as I was working on the edits for this and backposting it to Tuesday when I originally wanted to have it featured — my head was throbbing and driving me bonkers! Yet, it proved to be a distraction I needed, and I took several breaks to give my head a break from the computer in order to get this finalised.
I look forward to visiting with others who have responded to this prompt, and I hope they will spend a bit of time on this response as well and let me know if any of the stories I’m featuring might become #nextreads of their own!
No. 1 | Christmas Once Again by Jina Bacarr : Historical Time Travel
→ selected quotations are from my review of this novel
There are moments in our readerly lives where we discover a story and a writer who change our perception of how a story can both be told and experienced. I learnt a lot about this novel ahead of reading it but when my library purchased it for me in [2019] it was truly the gift I needed as a reader because I knew I didn’t have the ability to purchase the novel myself at that time. I still haven’t had the chance to gather a copy of this novel for myself — something I both regret and realise just couldn’t have happened at the time of its original release. It is definitely a book I want to gather as soon as I can however since I’ve read it and had such a strong connection to it as a reader – the title of the novel has changed to Her Lost Love.
And, yes, I suppose that makes sense – both in title and in the fact, I had a feeling it was done for marketing reasons as sometimes holiday specific titles are overlooked by certain readers (or so I’ve been told, this doesn’t apply to me personally!) but for me, the original title is truly at the heart of the story and what pulled me into the realms of the story itself. Sometimes I wish stories can just remain as they were and be celebrated as they are rather than having to become re-packaged. It is my goal to find a copy of this novel in its original state and hopefully one day it will be on my personal library shelves.
Timekeeper