Top 5 (books with the 5 W’s in the title) Tuesday

Thank goodness Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads added what the W’s were because I had a moment of “what even IS a W” there 😂 So let’s go and see all the W’s I can find!

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What Stays Buried by Suzanne Young (GR/SG) –

In her first book for middle grade readers, New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young brings together a thrilling ghost story, a heartfelt coming of age journey, and a poignant reminder that those we’ve loved and lost are never far away—perfect for fans of Bone Hollow and The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street.

It’s up to Calista, the only one who can see The Tall Lady, to stop her. If she doesn’t, Calista won’t just lose her powers… she’ll lose everyone she has left.

When Calista meets The Tall Lady—an angry spirit with a grudge against Calista, her family, and the entire town—she knows she’s found the ghost responsible for the disappearances.

Twelve-year-old Calista Wynn will lose her ability to speak with the dead on her thirteenth birthday. And with only a few weeks left, children have started going missing.

I’ve finished another book, In Nightfall, by her and I really liked it and this looks interesting!

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah (GR/SG) –

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two things: recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women—missing women. So when Delilah, Jude, Whitney and Bo’s mothers go missing, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is shut and the girls are left with a dusty old house and the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much delayed memorial.

Delilah just wants to move on. She’s been looking after them all since their mothers went missing with the help of her boyfriend, Bennett. They just have one tiny problem: every time Bennett touches her she feels an unbearable pain searing through her.

Whitney would like for the women in her life to stop disappearing. Or dying. First, she lost her mother. Then, she lost her girlfriend, Eleanor. She finds some relief when she visits an old weathervane from the time the town was founded where she can hear Eleanor’s voice asking her for more. But more what?

Jude, Whitney’s twin sister, would rather stay home and ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret, too: her summer fling with Bennett, Delilah’s boyfriend, that feels like more than just a fling.

Bo wants answers, and she wants them now. She’s convinced something happened to their mothers and that the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it. That’s why she pushed them to do a memorial for their mothers.

Bishop has always been a strange place. But what the girls don’t know is that this old town founded on blood is also deadly—and when it’s through with them, no one might survive.

Creepy and beautiful cover! Hoping I can get to this sometime this year.

 

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall (GR/SG) –

They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison. They were heroes…but they were liars.

Kate Alice Marshall’s What Lies in the Woods is a thrilling novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal, and lies – and having the courage to face the past.

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.

“Clever and deliciously dark.” —Alice Feeney, bestselling author of Rock Paper Scissors

“Shines an incisive light on the secrets of a small-town
 community…Great writing and boldly drawn characters bring a terrifying tale to all-too-vivid life.” —Kirkus, starred review

I love anything Kate Alice Marshall writes so I know I’ll love this too!

 

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (GR/SG) –

A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are. The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.

Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.

Once again. super super wanting to read it as soon as it came out… and then whoops haven’t read it yet 😂 As with so many other books – you know how it goes!

 

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (GR/SG) –

She Who Became the Sun reimagines the rise to power of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor.

To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything.

“I refuse to be nothing…”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.

Both of the first book’s covers (US and UK) are super pretty but I do prefer the US cover so I picked it.

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So many times I saw a title and thought “Oh I could use this” before realising that how is not one of the W’s 😂 You would think after the first like 3 times I would remember but nope! This took me longer than I thought it would! Guess the W’s aren’t so prevalent in fantasies like I thought they would be. What W’s did you use for this prompt? Have any of these books in common with me? Chat to me down below!

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