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 Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future (submitted by Veros @ Dark Shelf of Wonders). An excellent idea for a theme and one I will be returning to in the future (or I could just cut to the chase and say every book written by Chris Whitaker, ever! 🤭) But I’ve had a couple of weeks away from TTT, and the blog in general, and I missed a brilliant theme during that time so that’s what I’m going with this week: The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf. 

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1. The Whisperer’s Game by Donato Carrisi
The phone call to the police arrives at dusk from an isolated farmhouse. A terrified woman’s voice pleads for help. But a violent storm rages in the area and the first available patrol only succeeds in reaching her hours later. It is too late. Something terrible has happened, something which leaves the investigators groping for clues.

Just one person is able to reveal the message hidden behind this act of evil, but she left her work as a missing persons investigator to live a life of isolation; her daughter Alice her only companion. Even so, when she is called upon to help with this case, Mila Vasquez cannot shirk her duty. The investigation involves her even more closely than she realises.

It is a game and it has only just started. Because he is always a step ahead

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2. Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
Going home is always hard.

For Vera, going home means returning to the notorious Crowder House where her serial killer father murdered his victims and buried their bodies beneath.

Then notes start to appear in Vera’s father’s handwriting – but they can’t be from him. He has been dead for years.

Vera thought that the house had given up all its secrets but now she must uncover how deep the rot goes.

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3. The Trap by Melanie Raabe
I know you killed my sister.
I wrote this novel for you.

Twelve years ago, Linda’s sister Anna was murdered. Her killer was never caught, but Linda saw him. Now, all these years on, she’s just seen him again. On TV.

He has since become a well-known reporter, and Linda – a famous novelist and infamous recluse – knows no one will believe her if she accuses him, so she does the only thing she can think of: she writes a thriller about a woman who is murdered, her killer never caught. When the book is published, she agrees to give just one media interview. At home. To the one person who knows more about the case than she does.

He knows what happened that night and she wrote a book about it but, when the doorbell rings, neither of them can be sure how the story will end.

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4. Blood Sisters by Jane Corry
Kitty lives in a care home. She can’t speak properly, and she has no memory of the accident that put her here.

At least that’s the story she’s sticking to.

Art teacher Alison looks fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up she decides to take it – this is her chance to finally make things right.

But someone is watching Kitty and Alison.

Someone who wants revenge for what happened that sunny morning in May.

And only another life will do . . .

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5. Her Last Request by Mari Hannah
A Hidden Clue

A victim leaves a note for the SIO who will investigate her death. This not what DCI Kate Daniels expects to find concealed at a crime scene.

A Desperate Plea

The note contains a last request: ‘Find Aaron’. But is Kate searching for a potential second victim, or a killer?

The Countdown is on…

Following the clues, Kate becomes the obsession of her adversary who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Will she find Aaron before he does?

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6. The Witch Hunter by Max Seeck
WHEN THE STORY ENDS, THE HUNT BEGINS . . .

Detective Jessica Niemi is drawn into a high-profile investigation after the wife of a famous author, Roger Koponen, appears to have been killed in a bizarre ritual.

As more twisted murders occur in the coming days, it becomes obvious that Jessica is hunting a serial killer – one that is taking brutal inspiration from Koponen’s bestselling trilogy . . .

Has a devoted fan lost their mind, or is this case more personal?

Nobody is safe in this rollercoaster thriller from award-winning author Max Seeck.

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7. The Facts of Life and Death by Belinda Bauer
Every killer has to start somewhere . . .

On the beaches and cliffs of North Devon, young women have become victims in a terrifying game where only one player knows the rules. And when those rules change, the new game is Murder.

But a madman on the loose feels very far from the crumbling, seaside home of ten-year-old Ruby Trick. Instead she lives in constant fear of school bullies, the dark forest, and the threat of her parents’ divorce.

Helping her father to catch the killer seems like the only way to keep him close.

As long as the killer doesn’t catch her first.

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8. The Burning Air by Erin Kelly
Of course it was love for my children, love for my son, that caused me to act as I did. It was a lapse of judgement. If I could have foreseen the rippling aftershocks that followed I would have acted differently, but by the time I realised the extent of the consequences, it was too late.

The MacBrides have always gone to Far Barn in Devon for Bonfire Night, but this year everything is different. Lydia, the matriarch, is dead; Sophie, the eldest daughter, is desperately trying to repair a crumbling marriage; and Felix, the youngest of the family, has brought a girlfriend with him for the first time.

The girl, Kerry, seems odd in a way nobody can quite put their finger on – but when they leave her looking after Sophie’s baby daughter, and return to find both Kerry and the baby gone, they are forced to ask themselves if they have allowed a cuckoo into their nest . . .

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9. Then She Vanishes by Claire Douglas
Jess and Heather were once best friends – until the night Heather’s sister Flora vanished. The night that lies tore their friendship apart.

But years later, when a brutal double murder shakes their childhood town, Jess returns home.

Because the suspect is Heather.

What happened to the girl you used to know?

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10. Always the First to Die by R.J. Jacobs
After her husband’s death, Lexi has refused to return to the Pinecrest Estate on the Florida Keys, too many hard memories on that strip of land. Memories of meeting her husband on the set of an iconic horror movie. Of being cast as an extra, of watching herself get killed on screen. And of scoffing at the rumors of the Pinecrest Estate “curse,” until she witnessed a cast member die that very summer. But when her daughter sneaks away to visit her grandfather, legendary horror movie director Rick Plummer, Lexi is forced to face her past. That’s when a Category Four hurricane changes course, and hits the southern coast.

Unable to get through to her daughter, Lexi drives to the Keys in the wake of the storm. What she finds is an island without cell service, without power, and with limited police presence. A desolate bit of land, with only a few remaining behind: the horror director, the starlet once cast as the final girl, the young teenager searching for clues of her father, the mother determined to get off the island, and…the person picking them off one-by-one.

Soon enough Lexi’s life begins to resemble Rick’s most famous horror film, and she must risk her life to save her daughter before someone, or something, destroys them all.

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Ten randomly selected books (physical books!) from my TBR in all their glorious glory. What beauties. Have you read any of the books above? Are there any you would you recommend I bump up the TBR? 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!