Hello and a very warm welcome to damppebbles. It’s Tuesday which means it’s time for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post. I’ve decided to take part in That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday meme to mix things up a little here at damppebbles. Add a little bit of variety to our bookish weeks.

The meme was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish but has lived with Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl since January 2018. It was created to encompass a love of books, of lists and to bring readers together. If you would also like to take part then you’re very welcome: the more, the merrier. Just make sure you link back to Jana’s post every week. If you don’t have a blog then no problem, just add your list to the comments below.

This week’s theme is Satisfying Book Series, which, once again, I feel I covered fairly recently in Ten Police Procedural Series I LOVE. Yes, there are other genres but police procedurals are my all-time favourite so it wouldn’t be right 🤭 Instead I am delving into the TTT archives and going with Books I’d Wrestle a Lion to Get Early (the original post was ‘slay’ but I’ve gone with ‘wrestle’ instead. Seems less cruel, to both me and the lion!. Let’s face it, I’m unlikely to come out of either situation particularly well, or in one piece!). Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the creation of this list.

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1. Last One Out by Jane Harper
He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust. And he had been alone.

In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his twenty-first birthday.

Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out.

Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam’s disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts.

But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?

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2. Dead in the Water by John Marrs
When Damon survives a near-drowning, his life flashes before his eyes. Every memory is crystal clear―except one. A dead boy. A face he can’t place. A moment he doesn’t remember living. At first he tells himself it’s a trick of the mind. But everything else he saw was real. So why not this?

With his waking life stalked by the disturbing scene, confusion quickly turns to obsession. Desperate for answers, Damon digs into his fractured past, and becomes convinced that the only way to remember…is to die again. And again. And again. When he meets a perfect stranger who’s all too willing to help, the stage is set for his dice with death.

But if this is what it takes to uncover the truth, maybe some memories are better left buried…

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3. The Hollow Boys by Tariq Ashkanani
Two children lost. The wrong one found.

It was a warm evening in September when twelve-year-old Danny Yates came back from the dead. He walked into town half-starved and silent, ten months after he and his best friend Will Keefe were presumed drowned. And when Danny does finally speak, he swears that he’s not Danny. He’s Will.

Danny’s mother is convinced that her only son has come back wrong, that he is a monster wearing the face of her child. Chief of Police John Deacon is more interested in how the abduction of two boys could have been written off as a tragic accident, and who was responsible. What happened to Danny to make him take on his friend’s name, his personality? And does Danny’s return mean there’s a chance that Will is still alive?

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4. Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston
Everyone at Chantilly’s Bar noticed out-of-towner Camille Bayliss. Red lips, designer heels, sipping a Negroni. But that woman wasn’t Camille Bayliss. It was Aubrey Price.

Camille Bayliss appears to have the picture-perfect life; she’s married to hotshot lawyer Ben and is the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana family. Only nothing is as it seems: Camille believes Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, but she can’t find proof because he tracks her every move.

Aubrey Price has been haunted by the terrible night that changed her life a decade ago, and she’s convinced Benjamin Bayliss knows something about it. Living in a house full of criminals, Aubrey understands there’s more than one way to get to the truth – and she may have found the best way in.

Aubrey and Camille hatch a plan. It sounds simple: For twelve hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Camille will spy on Ben, and the two women will get the answers they desperately seek.

Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered. Both women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it. And one false step is all it takes for everything to come undone.

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5. The Hive by Ronald Malfi
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are changing…

In the aftermath of a violent storm, a collective obsession is rapidly developing among the people of this quaint suburban neighborhood. Random, everyday items left scattered upon the lawns, the streets, and the shoreline all seem to call out to them. There is an item for almost everyone, and each item has a certain hold over the person who finds it—a hold that soon turns into unwavering infatuation. They hide their items from each other, obsess over them, and they will do anything—anything—to protect them.

The collective hum of bees’ wings…

A young boy finds himself the possessor of a strange and inexplicable power. Is the arrival of this power linked to the increasingly odd and dangerous behavior of the residents of Mariner’s Cove? Has he been granted this power in order to thwart whatever is about to happen in this small, bayside community, or is there a more sinister purpose?

All hail the Dragon…

All eyes are on him now.

The residents of Mariner’s Cove are watching.

They move as one, like a solitary organism, and will do anything to succeed in their single-minded purpose.

They will not be stopped.

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6. The Killer in Room Five by Sam Holland
A terrible confession

In Room 5 of Hollowpines, an old English psychiatric hospital, Joe Sinclair is confessing to a string of violent killings.

An impossible crime

Locked away, Joe couldn’t have committed the crimes, but how else can he know so many of the horrifying details?

A detective at her limits

Suspended after a colleague was stabbed on her watch, DC Abby Fox has only just returned to work. But at Hollowpines, she must find out what really happened and how exactly Joe is involved.

Is he the killer, or the only one who can stop him?

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7. Vanish by Shelley Burr
People go to the isolated Karpathy farm looking for a new life. Is it a commune? Is it a cult? Or something far more dangerous?

Lane Holland’s crime-solving career ended the day he went to prison. Yet one unsolved case continues to haunt him: the disappearance of Matilda Carver two decades ago.

Against the odds, Lane finds a lead – a mysterious farm community where Matilda lived briefly, led by the enigmatic Samuel Karpathy. The farm attracts lost souls. People looking for answers. People hiding from their pasts. People who have nowhere else to go.

But some of those who go to the farm seem to vanish without a trace.

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8. I Did A Bad Thing by Louise Jensen
When Mia Finch begins documenting her daughter’s battle with a rare blood disorder, she never expected to become a popular social media influencer. And she never expected that fame to turn into a nightmare …

One year later, a true crime documentary airs looking into the case of the Finch family tragedy. As the documentary uncovers more about what really happened to the Finches, public interest in the case reaches fever pitch. In a world where everyone is watching, how can you keep your darkest secrets hidden?

I Did a Bad Thing is a one-more-chapter psychological thriller exploring how even the most well-intentioned lies can spiral into catastrophe – and murder …

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9. C.J. Tudor’s next book
I have scoured all the usual sources for future book releases and found very little about C.J. Tudor’s new book. However, there is one website which lists the title and the blurb. BUT I haven’t seen it anywhere else. So, in case it’s incorrect, or not officially public knowledge, I’m not going to include either the title or the blurb here. What I’ve seen though sounds FANTASTIC!!!

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10. Cherry by Rose Wilding
1999

Gifty is a woman adrift in the wake of her wife’s death. She’s living in stasis, unable to bring herself to enter the bedroom where Helen died after a long illness. Her therapist tells her to confront her grief, but instead she wanders the streets looking for someone from her past.

Fallen nineties pop star Isobel has done everything she can to reinvent herself. Gone is the girlish make-up and provocative manner. When she lands a job working for a middle-class family, she decides to embody the perfect nanny.

Ally has always prided herself on running a successful business and being a good parent to her two children. But when her husband announces that he is leaving them to work in Indonesia for six months, and hires Isobel without consulting her, she is left angry and struggling with her chronic illness.

The women soon become tangled in a dangerous web of obsession and infatuation. Someone is going to die, the question is: who?

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I am so excited about all of the books listed above. Some come out at the start of 2026, some towards the end. I already know that I am going to have a fabulous bookish 2026 with so much to look forward to. 

What book would you wrestle a lion to get early? Are there any on my  list that have piqued your interest? Are you taking part in Top Ten Tuesday this week? Let me know in the comments.

So there we have it! If you fancy joining in next week then head on over to That Artsy Reader Girl’s blog to find out what the next topic is!

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