Top Five Tuesday – Unputdownable Reads

A new Top Five Tuesday, the prompts are created by Bionic Book Worm. I’m not usually one to rush a book, I’ve never read a book in one sitting. I prefer taking a step back and thinking about the story and what’s going on with the characters. But there are books that I’m always itching to pick back up even if I’ve just put them down!

1. The Millennium series by Stieg Larsson & David Lagercrantz

I couldn’t choose just one of these books, they are all addictive. Each book has a mystery to be solved, quite often it’s connected to Lisbeth Salander our resident badass. The journalists at Millennium magazine are usually hunting down a story as well. There’s always a lot going on and they’re just fantastic.

2. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

One of my favourite books of all time, it’s set in the early 2000s, the 80s and early 1900s. Cassandra’s grandmother Nell has recently passed away. Nell has left all of her property to Cassandra, including a cottage in rural England. Cassandra is confused, they live in Australia and as far as she knew Nell never had any interest in England or it’s countryside. She goes to investigate why her grandmother would have brought the rundown cottage. She follows in Nell’s footsteps. We also meet Eliza, a young poor child living in London with her brother, their parents are dead and they have to work all hours of the day to afford food and shelter. I remember when I first read this I just desperately wanted to know what happened to Eliza and how Nell and Cassandra were connected to her. It’s such a beautiful book and all Kate Morton’s have the same gripping nature.

3. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

Will a week go by when I don’t mention this series in one of my posts?! No because I love it that much! With all the twists and turns in this story, the shady characters and unexpected deaths, I never want to step away from these books. Ever…you’ll have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands! (I’m feeling very dramatic today) Also the way George writes it from different points of view, if you get to the end of a character’s chapter and want to find out what happens next, you’ve got to read another few chapters to get back to them, genius if not slightly cruel.

4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

This is my favourite Hunger Games book and it is so intense. It’s split in two the first half is Katniss and Peeta on their victory tour of Panem and training for the Quarter Quell. The second half is in the Capital, the tributes training, fighting, making allies and finally entering the arena. The arena part is so fast paced, I could hardly tear myself away.

5. The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan

This book is set in England and split between the 1890s and the early 1930s. In the 30s the house hasn’t been lived in properly for years, there’s still a housekeeper and gardener in case the owners need it but they hardly ever return. Alice has fallen pregnant after having an affair with a married man. Her mother is appalled and sends her to Fiercombe Manor where she used to work and still knows the housekeeper who works there. Alice soon discovers the foundations of another house in the grounds but no one will tell her why it was destroyed. She finds diaries dated from 1890, a young woman, pregnant like her, but married. We see glimpses into Elizabeth’s life as well. I couldn’t stop thinking about this book while I was reading it and wondering what could have happened to Elizabeth. It’s clever and a really emotional read.

What are some of your favourite unputdownable reads?