Top Ten Tuesday topic for this week, my first week of 2020 posting, is a bookish discovery from last year. I'm choosing to highlight the new authors I discovered, and they all happen to be women. Some were so good I read more than one of their books.
For more topics, and links to other posts, see That Artsy Reader Girl, who hosts this weekly meme.
1. Sherry Thomas
Author of the Charlotte Holmes mystery series, I really, really enjoyed this series. The first book, A Study in Scarlet Women, read the delightful Kate Reading, was a good start, and I had fun seeing how Thomas would feminize all the roles from the classic Sherlock Holmes series. By the time I got to the second and third books, I did the unusual for me - I listened to them back to back. I never do that with series! But A Conspiracy in Belgravia ended on a cliff hanger, and I was enjoying my walks with Charlotte, so I immediately downloaded the third book, The Hollow of Fear, and it picked up exactly where the other book ended. I walked a lot that day! This series is funny, exquisitely plotted, and has a large cast of delightful characters. I've already started my year by listening to the fourth edition, The Art of Theft.
2. Dervla McTiernan
Cormac Reilly is my favourite new Irish detective. The tone feels a bit like Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad, and Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike. I read both of McTiernan's books, The Ruin and The Scholar, and both were excellent. Waiting for the next book...
3. Sally Rooney
I became aware of Normal People when it was on the Bailey's Prize for Fiction longlist and ended up reading this as an ebook from Netgalley. I quite liked Normal People, enough to listen to Conversations With Friends as an audiobook. Both books didn't have the nicest people, but I liked the Irish vibe.
4. Elly Griffiths
I heard about the Ruth Galloway archeologist series all around Librarything, and once I decided to read the first one, The Crossing Place, I proceeded to read another three. The personal life of Ruth is far more interesting than the mysteries she gets called in to consult on. Her relationship with the police DCI, Harry Nelson is the best part of the series, along with everyone's favourite druid, Cathbad. For some reason, books five, six and seven are missing from the libraries - both book and online, that I use. I'll have to find them somewhere.
5. Jacqueline Woodson
I listened to this blank verse memoir read by the author. It was engrossing, and lyrical, and excellent. A little girl growing up in South Carolina and New York, during the 60s and 70s, with the Civil Rights movement in the background. Just so well done.
I'm already on the waiting list for her latest book, Red at the Bone.
6. Lisa Genova
I would definitely read another book by Genova, even if they all seem to be a disease of the week type books. I think she is more famous for Still Alice, about Alzheimer's that many people have recommended to me. Inside the O'Briens is about a Boston father who is diagnosed with Huntington's disease, a horrible hereditary disease. How the grown children and his wife, and he himself react and deal with their new reality is realistic and heartbreaking. I'll look for one of her other books for sure - Still Alice, Left Neglected, Every Note Played.
7. Melanie Benjamin
Benjamin seems to take real people and writes about their lives, but writes them as fictional, which makes a great narrative. The Swans of Fifth Avenue is about Truman Capote (and I'm reading Furious Hours right now, about Harper Lee, and Capote comes up). I loved the crazy 1970s setting of New York City and the decadent lifestyle of Capote. Some of her other books cover people like Tom Thumb, Alice Liddell (Alice in Wonderland), Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Mary Pickford and Frances Marion.
8. Susan Orlean
I love finding a new nonfiction author that tells a great story. Like everyone else, I liked the Library Book in how it covered many connected topics - the fire at the LA library, the history of libraries and librarians, all the good book stuff. I have her book Rin Tin Tin to read, the biography of the famous dog, and her more famous book, The Orchid Thief.
9. Jasmine Guilllory
I'm not really much of a romance reader, but listening to The Proposal just before Christmas was the perfect book to listen during the craziness of December. The Proposal is actually the second book in this loosely connected series. The first book, The Wedding Date, has characters who are friends withe the main characters in The Proposal. The story was light, and you obviously hope they will get together, but my ultimate takeaway was how glad I'm not in the dating scene.
10. Rachel Kushner
The Mars Room was a well done story about women in prison, and while it wasn't an uplifting story, it was well written, and I liked how all the strands came together. Kushner has another book, The Flamethrowers, that I'd like to read.
Lots of great new authors with many more books to look forward to by them. Sigh, So Many Book, So Little Time.
