
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
This week’s topic is a freebie, but there’s a lot of awesome topics coming up in the next couple weeks, about favorite reads of 2019, or most anticipated reads of 2020, so I decided to take a look at the backlog. About 60% of my reading comes from new-to-me authors- so here are a few of the ones I enjoyed this year and would like to read more of.
Kameron Hurley: God’s War (Bel Dame Apocrypha #1) and The Light Brigade – I know The Mirror Empire was a miss for a few of my blogging buddies, and I do understand, but ultimately I enjoyed it enough that I’d like to read more of Hurley. The Light Brigade is her highest rated book on GoodReads, and God’s War came recommended by a frequent buddy reader.

Sylvain Neuvel: Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) – Neuvel’s novella The Test was one of my favorites this year. While I wait for him to write something else wonderful and so perfectly relevant, I plan to give Sleeping Giants (and hopefully the rest of the trilogy) a try.

Hugh Howey: The Wool Omnibus – I flew through Howey’s Half Way Home earlier this year. It was perfect for me, quick pacing, straightforward writing, and plenty of suspense. Wool comes highly recommended, and I can’t wait to check it out!
Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Time, Redemption’s Blade and The Expert System’s Brother – As prolific as Tchaikovsky is, it’s kind of hard to believe I’ve only ever read Walking to Aldebaran, but it’s true. I did start Children of Time once, and through no fault of the book (reading slump!) never finished. I’m looking forward to jumping back into that and checking out a few of these others!

Emily St. John Mandel: The Singer’s Gun – I didn’t review it, but I listened to Station Eleven a few months ago and adored it. It was a very surface level post-apocalyptic / sci-fi story, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. While looking at what else of her’s I might want to check out, I found the Captain’s review of The Singer’s Gun and immediately added it to my TBR.

Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) – I first heard about the Eyre Affair a few years ago, when I started becoming more active on GoodReads. I put it off for a long time because while the blurb was very amusing, it wasn’t obviously my kind of humor right away. Early Riser was a book club read for me earlier this year, and it made me laugh quite a bit, so I’m feeling ready to finally tackle this.
David Wellington: Chimera (Jim Chapel #1) and Monster Island – Wellington wrote The Last Astronaut, which I read over the summer and mostly enjoyed. Until I started writing this post I actually didn’t even realize he had older titles! Both of these sound like one of my favorite genre mashups: sci-fi meets horror!

Ruta Sepetys: Out of the Easy – It seems like everything Sepetys writes turns into a best seller, which is why I was surprised to find this hiding on her booklist. I got as far as “It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets” before I added this to my list. Knowing what she’s capable of after having read The Fountains of Silence, I might not even wait until next year.

Yoko Ogawa: Revenge – I had never heard of Yoko Ogawa until I read The Memory Police earlier this year. It was surreal and dreamlike and admittedly weird, but somehow I couldn’t put it down. So of course I had to look up which other works have been translated, and I knew right from the title I had to read this. It’s a collection of short fiction revenge stories- and who doesn’t like those?
Stephen Graham Jones: All the things. I meant to read Mapping the Interior in November for Native American Heritage Month, and it sort of slipped through my fingers amidst some clunkers and the too many buddy reads I’d committed to. I did finally sit down and read it yesterday, and fell in love with Jones’s voice. The ending is super disturbing, but I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be in a horror novel, right? Anyway. I want to read all of his stuff, but here are a few of the titles that jumped out at me: After the People Lights Have Gone Off, Demon Theory, The Last Final Girl, and The Least of my Scars (whose one stars reviewers have admitted to giving it one star because it’s that disturbing).
Have you discovered any favorite new-to-you authors this year? Who were they?