Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Hello! I hope everyone is having a nice start to the week! Today we are discussing our most anticipated releases for the second half of 2020! A couple of weeks ago I posted Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Summer 2020 TBR which involved quite a few of my most anticipated releases so I’ve deliberately chosen ten different books for today’s list to avoid repetition! Publication dates are the UK dates. So without further ado…

1. The Honey and the Sting by E.C. Fremantle

Publication Date: 6th August 2020

Summary:

Three sisters.
Three secrets.
Three ways to fall . . .

England, 1628.

Forcibly seduced by the powerful George Villiers, doctor’s daughter Hester is cast aside to raise her son alone and in secret. She hopes never to see Villiers again.

Melis’s visions cause disquiet and talk. She sees what others can’t – and what has yet to be. She’d be denounced as a witch if Hester wasn’t so carefully protective.

Young Hope’s beauty marks her out, drawing unwelcome attention to the family. Yet she cannot always resist others’ advances. And her sisters cannot always be on their guard.

When Villiers decides to claim his son against Hester’s wishes, the sisters find themselves almost friendless and at his mercy.

But the women hold a grave secret – will it be their undoing or their salvation?

Because in the right hands, a secret is the deadliest weapon of all . . .

2. A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville

Publication Date: 6th August 2020

Summary:

It is 1788. Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth is hungry for life but, as the ward of a Devon clergyman, knows she has few prospects. When proud, scarred soldier John Macarthur promises her the earth one midsummer’s night, she believes him.

But Elizabeth soon realises she has made a terrible mistake. Her new husband is reckless, tormented, driven by some dark rage at the world. He tells her he is to take up a position as Lieutenant in a New South Wales penal colony and she has no choice but to go. Sailing for six months to the far side of the globe with a child growing inside her, she arrives to find Sydney Town a brutal, dusty, hungry place of makeshift shelters, failing crops, scheming and rumours.

All her life she has learned to be obliging, to fold herself up small. Now, in the vast landscapes of an unknown continent, Elizabeth has to discover a strength she never imagined, and passions she could never express.

Inspired by the real life of a remarkable woman, this is an extraordinarily rich, beautifully wrought novel of resilience, courage and the mystery of human desire.

3. Hell in the Heartland by Jax Miller

Publication Date: 16th July 2020

Summary:

On December 30th, 1999, in rural Oklahoma, 16-year-old Ashley Freeman and her best friend, Lauria Bible, were having a sleepover. The next morning, the Freeman family trailer was in flames and both girls were missing.

While rumours of drug debts, revenge killings, and police corruption abounded in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved and the girls were never found.

In 2016, crime writer Jax Miller travelled to Oklahoma to discover what really happened. What she unearthed was shocking. These forgotten towns were wild, lawless, and home to some very dark secrets.

Finally, in April 2018, the first arrests were made… could justice finally be in sight for the girls and their families?

4. The Search Party by Simon Lelic

Publication Date: 20th August 2020

Summary:

16-year-old Sadie Saunders is missing.

Five friends set out into the woods to find her.

But they’re not just friends…

THEY’RE SUSPECTS.

You see, this was never a search party.

It’s a witch hunt.

And not everyone will make it home alive…

5. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Publication Date: 3rd September 2020

Summary:

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.

But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?

6. The Harpy by Megan Hunter

Publication Date: 3rd September 2020

Summary:

Lucy and Jake live in a house by a field where the sun burns like a ball of fire. Lucy works from home but devotes her life to the children, to their finely tuned routine, and to the house itself, which comforts her like an old, sly friend. But then a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband, he wants her to know.

The revelation marks a turning point: Lucy and Jake decide to stay together, but in a special arrangement designed to even the score and save their marriage, she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, nor what form it will take.

As the couple submit to a delicate game of crime and punishment, Lucy herself begins to change, surrendering to a transformation of both mind and body from which there is no return.

7. A Girl Made of Air by Nydia Hetherington

Publication Date: 3rd September 2020

Summary:

This is the story of The Greatest Funambulist Who Ever Lived…

Born into a post-war circus family, our nameless star was unwanted and forgotten, abandoned in the shadows of the big top. Until the bright light of Serendipity Wilson threw her into focus.

Now an adult, haunted by an incident in which a child was lost from the circus, our narrator, a tightrope artiste, weaves together her spellbinding tales of circus legends, earthy magic and folklore, all in the hope of finding the child… But will her story be enough to bring the pair together again?

8. The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Publication Date: 1st October 2020

Summary:

Smart, headstrong Kirabo is raised by her grandparents in rural Uganda. But as she enters her teens, she starts to feel overshadowed by the absence of the mother she has never known.

At once epic and deeply personal, The First Woman is the bold and piercing story of one young girl’s discovery of what it means to be a woman in a family, a community and a country that seem determined to silence her. Steeped in the rich folklore of Uganda but with an eye firmly on the future, Jennifer Makumbi has written a sweeping, effervescent tale of longing, femininity, and courage.

9. Consensual Hex by Amanda Harlowe

Publication Date: 8th October 2020

Summary:

When Lee, a first-year college student, is sexually assaulted by a frat boy on a neighbouring campus, she’s quickly disillusioned by the lack of recourse. Lost, she turns to her Gender Studies professor who, in turn, recruits her to form a coven with three classmates.

Suddenly in possession of very real magic, Lee and her coven set out to use their powers to hex the men who are committing, and covering up, sexual assault. However, their exploits rapidly escalate into vigilante justice and Lee’s thirst for revenge on her rapist causes things to spiral out of control, pitting witch against witch and begging the question: how far should you go in order to heal?

10. One by One by Ruth Ware

Publication Date: 12th November 2020

Summary:

Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop, the hottest new music app, gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company. At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold.

The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask – would someone resort to murder, to get what they want?

————————————————————————-

Well that’s it for today! Ten books that I’m really looking forward to in the latter half of this very strange and difficult year. I’d really love to know what you think of my list and what your anticipated releases are so please let’s chat in the comments! And please do leave a link to your own Top Ten Tuesday list!

xxx