Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish (Yet)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish.

Ten Most Recent Books I Did Not Finish

To be clear, here: The fact that I didn’t finish these YET doesn’t mean I don’t intend to finish most of them eventually! I am a mood reader. Sometimes I put a book down because I’m not in the right mood or the right place to read it. Sometimes I just get distracted by another book, and before you know it, months or a year have gone by and I never got back to it. And that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good book, or wasn’t capable of holding my attention—just that it wasn’t holding my attention or matching my mood at that time. So I don’t consider most of these DNFs, just “hibernating.”

The following are books I set aside over the last year or so, from most recent to oldest.

Heart Legacy, by Robin D. Owens. I have started this book twice, in 2017 and just last week. Both times, I laid it aside before I got even a quarter of the way in. I’m not sure if I set it aside because each time, I had already binge-read my way through the first 13 books and was just tiring of the series at that particular moment, or if I put it down because it makes me so uncomfortable to read about the emotional abuse Lori suffers at the hands of her family. The first time it happened, I thought the former issue was more likely. This time, I’m leaning toward the latter. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book—after all, I do enjoy the other books in the series! But this particular book doesn’t seem to be a good fit for me. (Not because of personal experience, at all; I just find family betrayal, abuse, and neglect very hard to read about.)

They Do It With Mirrors, by Agatha Christie. I started this as the June book for #ReadChristie2023, but it’s one of my least favorite Miss Marple books (though on the whole, I love Miss Marple), and I just kind of lost interest. I had read it before, and I remembered who had done it. I probably won’t go back and finish it right now.

Psyche and Eros, by Luna McNamara. The first few chapters are quite good, and I fully intend to read the book—hopefully soon. When I started it at the end of May, I wasn’t in the right mood for Greek mythology or for a novel with lots of suffering before the happy ending. (I hadn’t gotten to the suffering, but I know the legend pretty well.)

Best Foot Forward, by Celia Lake. I love Celia’s books, but this one involves an attraction/romance between two characters when one of them is married to (and still very much in love with) someone else, and that makes me uncomfortable. Although I trust Celia to handle it well, and I sneaked enough of a peak at the ending to know that all three characters end up comfortable with their various relationships, I’ve been oddly reluctant to read it all the way through. But again, I do intend to read it, probably this summer.

The Lord of Stariel, by A. J. Lancaster. I put this book down temporarily, because I was stressed out and needed to reread some familiar books. And after that, I got caught up in ARCs and other books, and didn’t get back to it. But I definitely want to read this… hopefully this summer.

The Matrimonial Advertisement, by Mimi Matthews. Honestly, I could repeat the explanation for putting down The Lord of Stariel, and be telling the exact truth—the stress in this case being an injury to a beloved family member. I was about halfway through the book, and I just couldn’t deal with the main characters’ lack of communication and their own worries when I was worrying enough in real life. But I will finish it, because I really love Matthews’s books.

The Mabinogion, translated by Sioned Davies. I am reading The Mabinogion for background research for my own writing, and when I got kind of overwhelmed and stopped writing for a while, I put down the research as well. It’s definitely time to pick it up again!

Ship Wrecked, by Olivia Dade. I put this one down because… well, I’m not even sure why. I really liked the first two books in the series, though there’s a bit more swearing and blunt language than I’m comfortable with. I’ll probably give this one another try; if I don’t finish it the second time, at least I’ll have a better idea why. But hopefully, whatever caused me to put it down had little to do with the book itself.

A Dreadful Splendor, by B. R. Myers. This Gothic first-person mystery/romance was actually rather fun, but it also challenged my anxiety (which was up a bit when I was reading the book), because I kept anticipating one disaster after another… some of which occurred. I’d definitely like to try again, at a time when I’m not already feeling anxious.

Murphy’s Law, by Rhys Bowen. Like A Dreadful Splendor, my anxiety level caused me to set this book aside. I have enjoyed other (later) books in the series, which I read out of order; this is the first book, and I definitely intend to finish it.

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