TTT: Books That Are Linked to Specific Moments In My Life

This week is a freebie week on Top Ten Tuesday and I've decided to use a previous topic that I've never answered: Books That Are Linked to Specific Moments In My Life.

I thought this would be a really hard one - and it is if I push for 10 - but it actually isn't for there are a  moments that I'll always remember because of the mark they left on my soul (for want of a better way to word it) and the book I was reading at the time - or associate most with that time - is imprinted along with all the other details. 

Some are happy, some are sad. All evoke feelings...

Come Together

This is a book linked to a very specific memory.

It's strange because I remember next to nothing about the book but I remember this was the book I was reading when I got the call to go to the hospital to say goodbye to my grandfather as he wasn't going to make it through the night. 

My grandfather was the only father figure I ever had, he raised me alongside my mum and my grandmother, and that phone call aged twenty changed everything in my life. 

I remember picking the book back up on the lead up to his funeral hoping for distraction (as I had been enjoying it) but it suddenly felt so shallow and meaningless that I couldn't enjoy it anymore. I put that book down and never picked it up again. 

Last Sacrifice

Another one linked to a specific memory.

I was six months pregnant when this book released and I remember getting the bus into town on my day off work to get it despite the fact I worked in town and could have just waited an additional day to pick it up, saving me the extra trip!
It was freezing cold and icy and when I finally got home I bundled up in PJs, got a hot drink and snacks and then curled up to binge read undisturbed.
I was quite a few chapters in when my tiny, timid, cat who completely shied away from human affection crept out from wherever she was hiding and climbed into my lap.
She sat there purring and getting stroked until she fell asleep and I sat there happily for hours with my book and my cat feeling absolutely privileged and unbelievably content.
Although this marked a change in her (she'd snooze in the same room you were in, let you stroke her etc), she only ever sat on me one other time in her life and the other time I was reading The Summer of Jake by Rachel Bailey. 

Dead Until Dark 

This one (and the series, I guess) is linked to a specific period in my life.

We moved down to England after we graduated from university as my husband got a job here. 

It meant he started work on the Monday after we arrived (we arrived the Friday before) and I was left with no job and nothing to do (around job hunting) after unpacking the house. 

So, I joined the library and discovered the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. 

This series - not just book one - kept me sane that first month as I applied for job after job and generally felt low because I wasn't working, money was tight and I'd left my family and friends behind and moved to the other end of the country... In a weird quirk of fate, I got a job offer the day after finishing the last available book in the series (which was book eight). 😊

Kiss of The Night

This one is linked to a moment of realisation. 

This was the book that introduced me to Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunters but it was more than that. It was the book I read while recovering from the flu the last Christmas I was home after starting university. It was while reading this book I realised how much everything had changed... How much I'd changed. I was home and in my bedroom but I was struck with the feeling that it wasn't really home. Home was the city. Home was with my other half. I wasn't a kid anymore and I knew that that Christmas would be the last I'd spend at home without him.

I wasn't wrong. Every Christmas has been spent together since. 

Tabby McTat

This one is forever linked to my son.

This was one of the little dude's most favourite books when he was little. I cannot count the number of times I've read it nor the number of times I've sat smiling while the professor read it. I'm incapable of seeing the cover or hearing someone speak of it - or, you know, thinking about it - without thinking of how he was when he was younger and how we always used to read bedtime stories and he'd cuddle up and be full of sleepy giggles and loveliness. 

We never had any problems with bedtimes when he was young. He had his stories and off he went with no dramas... And he slept all night. (I know how rare that is, believe me.)

🌻

Do you have any books forever linked to specific moments in your life?