Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog!
Today’s TTT theme is – you guessed it – books with colours in their titles! I decided Klune’s Cerulean Sea would be too easy, what with it getting all the love this year, but I still found ten to share!
Representation: Mental illness, Bisexual MCs (not revealed until much later in the series)
Goodreads
Urban fantasy takes a walk on the wild side with Rhiannon Held's remarkable debut.
Andrew Dare is a werewolf. He's the enforcer for the Roanoke pack, and responsible for capturing or killing any Were intruders in Roanoke's territory. But the lone Were he's tracking doesn't smell or act like anyone he's ever encountered. And when he catches her, it doesn't get any better. She's beautiful, she's crazy, and someone has tortured her by injecting silver into her veins. She says her name is Silver, and that she's lost her wild self and can't shift any more.
The packs in North America have a live-and-let-live attitude and try not to overlap with each other. But Silver represents a terrible threat to every Were on the continent.
Andrew and Silver will join forces to track down this menace while discovering their own power…and passion for each other.
I’m not usually that interested in werewolves, but I remember getting excited for Silver because the book announcement emphasised that Held is an anthropologist – and an author interview before the release date talked about how she brought that to her worldbuilding! And she absolutely does – I love this series so much.
Published on: 19th January 2017
Goodreads
The Halcyon Fairy Book is a delightful collection of wry and insightful comments on traditional fairy tales, originally presented in her blog, along with her first collection of fairy-tale inspired original work, Toad Words.
The Halcyon Fairy Book is really two books in one – a bunch of Grimm Brothers’ fairytales, annotated by T. Kingfisher, plus Kingfisher’s own collection of short stories, Toad Words. Both are absolutely wonderful, and I was muffling giggles into my pillow at 2am while reading the annotations! A lovely book to curl up with if you want something lighthearted with the first half, and some damn good stories in the second.
Goodreads
A gripping adventure, a seaborne romance, and a twist on the tale of Scheherazade—with the best food ever served aboard a pirate’s ship.
The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail.
To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.
But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.
Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a swashbuckling epicure’s adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story—with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.
Cinnamon and Gunpowder is historical fiction, not fantasy, but it’s pirates and good food! What’s not to love? I went into this book because of the whimsical premise, but ended up falling head over heels in love with it.
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Bisexual Secondary Characters
Goodreads
After seventeen-year-old Felicita’s dearest friend, Ilven, kills herself to escape an arranged marriage, Felicita chooses freedom over privilege. She fakes her own death and leaves her sheltered life as one of Pelimburg’s magical elite behind. Living in the slums, scrubbing dishes for a living, she falls for charismatic Dash while also becoming fascinated with vampire Jannik. Then something shocking washes up on the beach: Ilven's death has called out of the sea a dangerous, wild magic. Felicita must decide whether her loyalties lie with the family she abandoned . . . or with those who would twist this dark power to destroy Pelimburg's caste system, and the whole city along with it.
When the Sea is Rising Red is the first book of what’s alternatively known as either the Hobverse or the Books of Oreyn. Whatever you call it, it’s an excellent secondary-world fantasy series that’s not quite like anything else I’ve ever read. It’s darkly beautiful and Hellisen is an incredible wordsmith who deserves far more acclaim!
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Secondary Queer Characters
Goodreads
Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all.
Adelina Amouteru’s heart has suffered at the hands of both family and friends, turning her down the bitter path of revenge. Now known and feared as the White Wolf, she flees Kenettra with her sister to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army of allies. Her goal: to strike down the Inquisition Axis, the white-cloaked soldiers who nearly killed her.
But Adelina is no heroine. Her powers, fed only by fear and hate, have started to grow beyond her control. She does not trust her newfound Elite friends. Teren Santoro, leader of the Inquisition, wants her dead. And her former friends, Raffaele and the Dagger Society, want to stop her thirst for vengeance. Adelina struggles to cling to the good within her. But how can someone be good when her very existence depends on darkness?
Bestselling author Marie Lu delivers another heart-pounding adventure in this exhilarating sequel to The Young Elites.
I still haven’t gotten to sit down and read this! How??? Sigh. I really want to know how this trilogy plays out – somehow I’ve managed to avoid all spoilers, so I have no idea if Adelina eventually comes back to The Light or…doesn’t.
I need a time-turner to get to everything on my tbr pile, okay? It’s a problem.
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads
Dev is a smuggler with the perfect cover. He's in high demand as a guide for the caravans that carry legitimate goods from the city of Ninavel into the country of Alathia. The route through the Whitefire Mountains is treacherous, and Dev is one of the few climbers who knows how to cross them safely. With his skill and connections, it's easy enough to slip contraband charms from Ninavel - where any magic is fair game, no matter how dark - into Alathia, where most magic is outlawed.
But smuggling a few charms is one thing; smuggling a person through the warded Alathian border is near suicidal. Having made a promise to a dying friend, Dev is forced to take on a singularly dangerous cargo: Kiran. A young apprentice on the run from one of the most powerful mages in Ninavel, Kiran is desperate enough to pay a fortune to sneak into a country where discovery means certain execution - and he'll do whatever it takes to prevent Dev from finding out the terrible truth behind his getaway.
Yet Kiran isn't the only one harboring a deadly secret. Caught up in a web of subterfuge and dark magic, Dev and Kiran must find a way to trust each other - or face not only their own destruction, but that of the entire city of Ninavel.
The Shattered Sigil trilogy is one of my all-time faves – the worldbuilding is amazing and the characters are to die for. It’s also the first series I ever read that doesn’t queerbait – the queerness is very real and gets followed through on in the best way!
Goodreads
Subterranean Press is thrilled to present a major new collection from one of the most dazzling, distinctive voices in the literary world. Catherynne M. Valente, the New York Times bestselling and multiple-award-winning author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and other acclaimed novels, now brings readers fifteen stories unlike any others.
In the title story, Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning novelette “The Future Is Blue,” an outcast girl named Tetley lives on floating Garbagetown, in a world that dreams of the long lost land. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is explored and reinvented in style in “Down and Out in R’lyeh.” In the novelette “The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery,” Perpetua masquerades as a man in order to continue her father’s business as a glassblower and must fashion a special eye for a queen. And in “The Beasts Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End and Further Still,” the wyvern A-Through-L, the warrior Green Wind and his giant cat the Leopard of Little Breezes cope with their broken-hearted disappointment over politicks as the evil Marquess ascends to rule.
Of her previous collection, The Bread We Eat in Dreams, the New York Times said, “Valente’s writing DNA is full of fable, fairy tale and myth drawn from deep wells worldwide.” With The Future Is Blue she continues to build and invent unforgettable worlds and characters with lyrical abandon, creating stories that feel old and new at once.
The Future Is Blue also includes three never-before-printed stories, for almost 30,000 words of work exclusive to this collection: “Major Tom,” “Two and Two Is Seven,” and the long novelette “Flame, Pearl, Mother, Autumn, Virgin, Sword, Kiss, Blood, Heart, and Grave.”
‘Stories like no others’ sums up The Future is Blue pretty perfectly, honestly.
It’s Valente, she defies description. If you’re not reading everything she’s ever written, you’re not living your best life.
Representation: Biracial MC, M/M or mlm, Characters of Colour, queer secondary characters
Published on: 14th May 2019
Goodreads
A big-hearted romantic comedy in which the First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends...
First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?
I couldn’t resist, okay? It’s three colours in one title!!! Besides, this is one of my favourite books in the world, and it deserves all the love.
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer cast
Goodreads
Sixteen-year-old Beckan and her friends are the only fairies brave enough to stay in Ferrum when war breaks out. Now there is tension between the immortal fairies, the subterranean gnomes, and the mysterious tightropers who arrived to liberate the fairies.
But when Beckan's clan is forced to venture into the gnome underworld to survive, they find themselves tentatively forming unlikely friendships and making sacrifices they couldn't have imagined. As danger mounts, Beckan finds herself caught between her loyalty to her friends, her desire for peace, and a love she never expected.
This stunning, lyrical fantasy is a powerful exploration of what makes a family, what justifies a war, and what it means to truly love.
Listen, there was a distinct period of time when baby!Sia answered the question ‘What is your favourite colour?’ with, simply, ‘Glitter.’ I didn’t justify it then and I’m not going to justify it now, but A History of Glitter and Blood is a strange, beautiful book that stays with you long after you’ve finished it.
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Goodreads
Seven hundred years ago, a Black Widow witch saw an ancient prophecy come to life in her web of dreams and visions.
Now the Dark Kingdom readies itself for the arrival of its Queen, a Witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But she is still young, still open to influence--and corruption.
Whoever controls the Queen controls the darkness. Three men--sworn enemies--know this. And they know the power that hides behind the blue eyes of an innocent young girl. And so begins a ruthless game of politics and intrigue, magic and betrayal, where the weapons are hate and love--and the prize could be terrible beyond imagining...
Yes, I know none of the books in this series have black in their titles – but this here is an omnibus, and an actual book you can hold in your hands, and it has black in the title. Okay? Okay! Totally counts.
The Black Jewels series is set in a world made up of three just-barely-connected dimensions, each ruled by the Blood – members of their respective races who wield magic through the mysterious Jewels. The Blood have their own, matriarchal society, with strict protocols that govern their violent instincts; and they honour the Darkness – though not in the way you’re probably thinking.
The first book in particular is very, very dark – trigger warnings for slavery, woman-on-man rape, child abuse, and child molestation/rape, among other things – although most of it is kept non-graphic/off the page. And the series as a whole is very rigidly heteronormative, with no room for genderqueerness whatsoever. But I can’t help it; I love these books, and have since I was far too young to have read them. With careful caveats, I recommend the hell out of them.
That’s my list! What’s your favourite book with a colour in the title?
Great list! The Shatter Sigil trilogy sounds interesting, I’ll have to check it out.
You really should, it’s fantastic!
Ooh Cinnamon and Gunpowder has been on my wishlist forever because what’s not to like about pirates and baking?
Literally nothing!