Down the TBR Hole #19

Down the TBR Hole is a meme created by Lia @ Lost in a Story. The idea is to review the books on your TBR to decide if you still want to read them. The rules are as follows: –

  • Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.
  • Order on ascending date added.
  • Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books.
  • Read the synopses of the books
  • Decide: keep it or should it go?

So, without further adieu, let’s review the next five books on my list!

 

Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

Goodreads – Memoirs of a Geisha

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan’s most celebrated geisha.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl’s virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction – at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful – and completely unforgettable.

 

I added this to my TBR after reading some really good reviews of it. I must admit, looking back at that decision now, that this book will be to my taste. Let’s be honest, romantic and erotic has never been my cup of tea when it comes to literature.

Verdict: Go

 

A Darkness at Sethanon – Raymond E. Feist

Goodreads – A Darkness at Sethanon

A Darkness at Sethanon is the stunning climax to Raymond E. Feist’s brilliant epic fantasy trilogy, the Riftwar Saga.

Here be dragons and sorcery, swordplay, quests, pursuits, intrigues, stratagems, journeys to the darkest realms of the dead and titanic battles between the forces of good and darkest evil.

Here is the final dramatic confrontation between Arutha and Murmandamus – and the perilous quest of Pug the magician and Tomas the warrior for Macros the Black. A Darkness at Sethanon is heroic fantasy of the highest excitement and on the grandest scale, a magnificent conclusion to one of the great fantasy sagas of our time.

 

I took a whole two seconds to decide I was keeping this book on my list! I loved Magician years ago and again when I revisited it recently. The rest of the series is definitely staying on my TBR. It’s a total no-brainer!

Verdict: Keep

 

Wytchfire – Michael Meyerhofer

Goodreads – Wytchfire

In a land haunted by the legacy of dead dragons, Rowen Locke has been many things: orphan, gravedigger, mercenary. All he ever wanted was to become a Knight of Crane and wield a kingsteel sword against the kind of grown horrors his childhood knows all too well.

But that dream crumbled—replaced by a new nightmare.
War is overrunning the realms, an unprecedented duel of desire and revenge, steel and sorcery. And for one disgraced man who would be a knight, in a world where no one is blameless, the time has come to decide which side he’s on.

 

I’m going to be really honest here and say that adding this to the TBR was born from an urge to read more fantasy. When I was younger I used to only read fantasy novels… so much so I got a bit sick of them. I was simultaneously bored with the genre and actively trying to seek out more. Does that make sense? Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, I don’t really have the burning desire to read this anymore.

Verdict: Go

 

Dark Matter – Blake Crouch

Goodreads – Dark Matter

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

From the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

 

I have heard so many excellent things about Dark Matter. I bought the e-book last year because I knew it was a keeper on the TBR. In fact, I thought it sounded SO GOOD I nearly bought a physical copy, months later, forgetting I already had the e-book version. It also fits my bill of trying to read more sci-fi books. Its a win-win situation.

Verdict: Keep

 

Anne Boleyn – Evelyn Anthony

Goodreads – Anne Boleyn

On a lovely midsummer afternoon, Henry Tudor rides to Hever Castle. There, he feasts his eyes on Anne Boleyn, who caught his roving attention at court a few months earlier. Anne is in no mood to receive her king. He has torn from her the one man she loved: Harry Percy, who was forced to marry another. But King Henry VIII is not a man who gives up—the thrill of the chase only excites him more. Yet the woman he desires so passionately is no fool. Educated at the French court, Anne vows that she will not share the fate of her naïve younger sister, Mary, who after bearing Henry a bastard son was cast away and married off to a country squire. No, Anne will settle for nothing less than the crown of England, even if Henry has to break with Rome in order to marry her.

History comes thrillingly alive in a novel that features a teeming canvas of iconic real-life characters: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the enemy Anne vows to destroy; Henry’s first wife, the proud and pious Queen Catherine of Aragon; and Thomas Cromwell, who engineers Anne’s downfall. From the halcyon early days of courtship to her imprisonment in the palace tower for treason, this is a tale of love, ambition, and the tragic destiny of Anne of the Thousand Days.

 

Of all of Henry VIII’s wives, Anne Boleyn’s life story is the one that captures my attention the most. I have a number of books in my TBR dedicated to the woman’s history. The Tudor period is my favourite of all historical subjects. You can see where this is going. It’s an easy decision.

Verdict: Keep

This has to be one of the easiest Down the TBR Hole posts I have ever written. Sometimes I can be a bit wishy-washy, on the fence, but these were all really easy choices for me to make!

At least I know what it is I want to read (and there is variety too)

Have you read any of these books? Do you agree with my choices?