Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and now being hosted at Meeghan reads.
This Week’s Topic is:
Top 5 anticipated reads for Q3 2025
The Nightblood Prince by. Molly X. Chang
Two princes. One prophecy. A fate she cannot outrun.
The night Fei was born, a prophecy was made: she would one day become the Empress of All Empresses.
Torn from her family as a child and raised in the palace to one day marry the Crown Prince of the most powerful empire in the land, Fei has only ever known loneliness. When the opportunity arises to seize her own destiny for the first time in her life, Fei sets out to hunt a legendary tiger, knowing it might cost her everything. What she doesn’t expect is to fall under the mercy of Yexue, the beautiful runaway prince from a rival kingdom. Blessed by the night, harboring a dangerous magic, and capable of commanding an army of deadly vampires, Yexue could be the key to Fei gaining more than just her freedom.
But to outrun destiny, Fei must spark a wave of events that will change the world as she knows it. Torn between two princes and plagued by nightmares of bloodshed, she finds that the stars might be more inescapable—and more irresistible—than she ever considered before. . . .
***
A Theory of Dreaming by. Ava Reid
Return to the immersive, lush, and dreamlike world of the instantly bestselling dark academia fantasy A Study in Drowning as the aftermath of their first discovery pulls Effy and Preston on a final adventure and brings their haunting love story to its end in this stunning sequel and final book in the duology.
All stories come to an end.
Effy learned that when she defeated the Fairy King. Even though she may never know exactly what happened at Hiraeth, she is free of her nightmares and is able to pen a thesis with Preston on the beloved national fairy tale Angharad. She has finally earned a spot at the literature college, making her the first woman in history to enroll.
But some dreams are dangerous, especially when they come true. The entire university—and soon the entire nation—is waiting for her to fail. With the Fairy King defeated and Myrddin’s legacy exposed, Effy can no longer escape into fantasy. Who is she without her stories?
With Effy under threat, Preston is surprised to discover a rage simmering inside him, ringing in his ears like bells. He begins to dream of a palace under the sea, a world where he is king—visions that start to follow him even in waking.
As the war between Llyr and Argant explodes, Effy and Preston find themselves caught in the crossfire: Effy losing her dreams and Preston losing himself in his.
Are dreams ever truly just dreams?
***
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by. Brigitte Knightley
Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, is in dire need of healing. Naturally – such is the grim comedy of fate – the only healer who can help is Aurienne Fairhrim, preeminent scientist, bastion of moral good, and member of an enemy Order.
Aurienne is desperate for funding to heal the sick – so desperate that, when Osric bribes her to help him, she accepts, even if she detests him and everything he stands for.
A forced collaboration ensues: the brilliant Woman in STEM is coerced into working with the PhD in Murders, much to Aurienne’s disgust. As Osric and Aurienne work together to heal his illness and investigate the mysterious reoccurrence of a deadly pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the heat between them.
Romance tropes
Enemies to lovers
High interaction slow burn
Hypercompetent idiots
He falls first and harder
Evisceration as a love language
***********
The Scarlet Alchemist Duology by. Kylie Lee Baker
Since Zilan entered the world of royal alchemists, she has learned that alchemy comes at a price. She has lost loved ones in her search for broader justice against the evil Empress and all she wants now is to find some way to bring them back. Resurrection is her specialty, after all.
In search of the myth of Penglai Island, where it’s rumored life can be fully restored, Zilan starts a new adventure. But when old threats come back to haunt her and the path to Penglai Island means facing down unpredictable, sometimes dangerous, alchemists, she wonders just how high of a price she may be willing to pay.
[This was such a great duology, I love this author so if this was a trilogy I wouldn’t have been mad at it!]
*********
The Nightshade God by. Hannah Whitten
The Nightshade Crown is in the hands of a ruthless god. Lore will stop at nothing to defeat him and save the troubled prince and tortured priest ensnared in his wicked plot, in this final installment of this lush, romantic, New York Times bestselling fantasy series from breakout star Hannah Whitten.
Lore has failed. She couldn’t save King Bastian from the rotten god speaking voices in his mind. She couldn’t save her allies from being scattered across the continent—their own lesser gods whispering to them in their dreams. She couldn’t save her beautiful, corrupt city from the dark power beneath the catacombs. And she couldn’t save herself.
Banished to the Burnt Isles, Lore must use every skill she earned on the streets of Dellaire to survive the prison colony and figure out a way to defeat the power that’s captured everything and everyone she holds dear. When a surprise ally joins her on the Burnt Isles she realizes the way forward may lie on the island itself. Somehow, her friends must help her collect the far-scattered pieces of the broken Fount—the source of all the god’s powers—and bring them back together on the Burnt Isles, returning all magic to its source and destroying, once and for all, the gods corrupting the land.
But as Lore gets closer to her goal, her magic grows stronger… and to a woman who’s always had to fight for survival, that kind of power may be hard to give up.
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 
That cover of The Executioners Three is stunning!
I love it too!