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Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019

Posted June 4, 2019 by Kaity in Bookish Memes, Top Ten Tuesday / 6 Comments

Happy Tuesday!

Top Ten Tuesday is a Bookish Meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s theme is Top Ten Favorite Books From My Favorite Genre!

At first I thought I was going to do YA books, but 1) YA is an age group, not a genre and 2) I actually came up with a theme where the books aren’t the exact same as they were last week! (Although there are many repeats) So without any further ado, here are my TOP TEN FAVORITE ALTERNATE HISTORY BOOKS:

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019And I Darken by Kiersten White
Published on June 28, 2016 by Delacorte Press
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 475
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No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows
Series: The Lady Janies #1
Published on June 7, 2016 by HarperTeen
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 491
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Edward (long live the king) is the King of England. He’s also dying, which is inconvenient, as he’s only sixteen and he’d much rather be planning for his first kiss than considering who will inherit his crown…

Jane (reads too many books) is Edward’s cousin, and far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately for Jane, Edward has arranged to marry her off to secure the line of succession. And there’s something a little odd about her intended…

Gifford (call him G) is a horse. That is, he’s an Eðian (eth-y-un, for the uninitiated). Every day at dawn he becomes a noble chestnut steed—but then he wakes at dusk with a mouthful of hay. It’s all very undignified.

The plot thickens as Edward, Jane, and G are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, our heroes will have to engage in some conspiring of their own. But can they pull off their plan before it’s off with their heads?

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Series: Dread Nation #1
Published on April 3, 2018 by Balzer + Bray
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 455
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Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Series: Gemma Doyle #1
Published on December 9, 2003 by Simon and Schuster
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 403
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It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019Iron Cast by Destiny Soria
Published on October 11, 2016 by Harry N. Abrams
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 384
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram

In 1919, Ada Navarra—the intrepid daughter of immigrants—and Corinne Wells—a spunky, devil-may-care heiress—make an unlikely pair. But at the Cast Iron nightclub in Boston, anything and everything is possible. At night, on stage together, the two best friends, whose “afflicted” blood gives them the ability to create illusions through art, weave magic under the employ of Johnny Dervish, the club’s owner and a notorious gangster. By day, Ada and Corinne use these same skills to con the city’s elite in an attempt to keep the club afloat.

When a “job” goes awry and Ada is imprisoned, she realizes they’re on the precipice of danger. Only Corinne—her partner in crime—can break her out of Haversham Asylum. But once Ada is out, they face betrayal at every turn.

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang
Series: The Hybrid Chronicles #1
Published on September 18, 2012 by HarperCollins
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 343
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I should not exist. But I do.

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa M. Klein
Published on October 13, 2009 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 291
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The daughter Macbeth might have had, if Shakespeare had thought to create her

Albia has grown up with no knowledge of her mother or her father, the powerful Macbeth. Instead she knows the dark lure of the Wychelm Wood and the moors, where she's been raised by three strange sisters. It's only when the ambitious Macbeth seeks out the sisters to foretell his fate that Albia's life becomes tangled with the man who leaves nothing but bloodshed in his wake. She even falls in love with Fleance, Macbeth's rival for the throne. Yet when Albia learns that she has the second sight, she must decide whether to ignore the terrible future she foresees or to change it. Will she be able to save the man she loves from her murderous father? And can she forgive her parents their wrongs, or must she destroy them to save Scotland from tyranny?

In her highly anticipated follow-up to Ophelia, Lisa Klein delivers a powerful reimagining of Shakespeare's Macbeth, featuring a young woman so seamlessly drawn it seems impossible she was not part of the Bard's original play.

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Series: Last Survivors #1
Published on October 1, 2006 by HMH Books for Young Readers
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 337
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Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019Timebound by Rysa Walker
Series: The Chronos Files #1
Published on January 1, 2014 by Skyscape
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 366
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube

When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.

Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and Kate’s genetic ability to time-travel makes her the only one who can stop him. Risking everything, she travels to the Chicago World’s Fair to try to prevent the killing and the chain of events that follows.

Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost, however—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does she have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?

Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
Series: The Great Library #1
Published on July 7, 2015 by NAL
Genres: YA, Alternate History
Pages: 352
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Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. Alchemy allows the Library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly—but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden.

Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the Library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family, who are involved in the thriving black market. Jess has been sent to be his family’s spy, but his loyalties are tested in the final months of his training to enter the Library’s service.

When his friend inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life—and soon both heretics and books will burn…

So that’s it! Do you enjoy reading alternate history books? What’s your favorite genre to read? Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to have a splendiferous week!

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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6 responses to “Top Ten Tuesday | June 4, 2019

  1. Oh, I really like your take on the genre! Alternate history books can be really fun. I haven’t read many of these. Life As We Knew It sounds like a really interesting one! I loved Ink and Bone (though, I confess that I still have to finish the series, and since there’s a new one coming out this year, I’ll probably binge read the rest then!). I’m looking forward to reading Dread Nation, too. 🙂 Great choices!

    Here’s my TTT post.
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