My to be read pile (ok, stacks), could be said by some to be on the verge of hoarding. It obviously doesn’t stop me from adding to it regularly or visiting the library for a temporary rehoming of books.

I will admit though that I occasionally forget which books are waiting (im)patiently to be read. So I thought I’d start having a rifle through and see what jumped out at me. Sadly for you, inspiration struck and I thought a good way of highlighting them would be looking at older books, newer books and borrowed ones. So the obvious extension was to through in something blue.

So, in each post I will showcase a book that has been on my TBR for some time, a new one, be it one I’ve recently bought or a book with a future publication date, a book I have borrowed and one with a blue cover.

So for something old we have The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer, published by Faber and Faber on 16 February 2017.

My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They’re not my real parents, but they tell me what to do, and what to say. I’m supposed to say that the bruises on my arms and the black eye came from falling down the stairs.

But there are things I won’t say. I won’t tell them I’m going to hunt for my real parents. I don’t say a word about Shadow, who sits on the stairs, or the Wasp Lady I saw on the way to bed.

I did tell Mick that I saw the woman in the buttercup dress, hanging upside down from her seat belt deep in the forest at the back of our house. I told him I saw death crawl out of her. He said he’d give me a medal for lying.

I wasn’t lying. I’m a hunter for lost souls and I’m going to be with my real family. And I’m not going to let Mick stop me.

The new book this time is It Would Be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo, published by Harper Via on 15 October 2019.

In Caracas, Venezuela, Adelaida Falcon stands over an open grave. Alone, except for harried undertakers, she buries her mother – the only family Adelaida has ever known.

Numb with grief, Adelaida returns to the apartment they shared. Outside her window tear gas rains down on protesters in the streets. When looters masquerading as revolutionaries take over her apartment, Adelaida resists and is beaten up. This marks the beginning of a fight for survival in a country that has disintegrated into violence and anarchy, where citizens are increasingly pitted against each other.

Borrowed from the libary, The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen, published by Borough Press on 13 June 2019.

Augusta Hope has never felt like she fits in.

At six, she’s memorising the dictionary. At seven, she’s correcting her teachers. At eight, she spins the globe and picks her favourite country on the sound of its name: Burundi.
 
And now that she’s an adult, Augusta has no interest in the goings-on of the small town where she lives with her parents and her beloved twin sister, Julia.

When an unspeakable tragedy upends everything in Augusta’s life, she’s propelled headfirst into the unknown. She’s determined to find where she belongs – but what if her true home, and heart, are half a world away?

And finally the book with a blue cover this time is The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson, published by Century on 17 May 2018.

Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman and when no one comes to claim her, she becomes known as the Brighton Mermaid. Nell is still struggling to move on when, three weeks later, Jude disappears.

Twenty-five years on, Nell is forced to quit her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid really was – and what happened to her best friend that summer.

But as Nell edges closer to the truth, dangerous things start to happen. Someone seems to be watching her every move, and soon she starts to wonder who in her life she can actually trust…

So there we are, four different books just waiting to be read. Have you read any of them? Do you have your own list of old, new, borrowed and blue? Do let me know.