#AMonthofFaves: Favourite New to Me Authors

I'm sort of jumping in and out of #amonthoffaves, hosted by Tanya, Andi and Tamara. I love the idea and am really enjoying writing the odd post but for some of the topics I don't have enough to say to try to squeeze in the time to write a post about it! I am enjoying everyone else's though!

Today's prompt was too good to pass up though. Unlike seemingly everyone else I 'know' in the blogosphere, 2015 has been a pretty brilliant year for me, reading wise. Although the prompt is for five I know already that I have waaaay more than five! Also this year was my year of great YA, so lots are in that genre. Here goes!

(in no particular order)

Sarah J. Maas

I am so late to the Sarah J. Maas party, and I am judging her entirely on the Throne of Glass series (I have A Court of Thorns and Roses thanks to my wonderful OTSPSecretSister, Iris, but haven't read it yet) but oh my god. If you haven't read this series yet, what are you waiting for?? Stop whatever you're doing and just go read it. It'll take you a few days and then you can come back and thank me. I love everything about it, and it just keeps getting better. Also she makes me think I won't like something and then she makes it happen and I'm OK with it, so there's that. Thanks to Ninja Swap for making me buy these books (for someone I thought needed replacements who ended up not needing them) and to Hanna for encouraging me to read them (it makes up for Moby Dick).

Michael Christie 

So I know I won't shut up about If I Fall, If I Die but that's because I was expecting absolutely zero from it and it was so good. For some reason I have yet to put his short story collection on my wishlist, but his style is great as are his characters and point of view. Just awesome. I will read everything he writes.

Libba Bray 

Everyone else has been talking about Libba Bray for years and various of her books (Beauty Queens springs to mind)  have been on and off my wishlist for ages, but this year I finally picked up The Diviners from the library and my mind was blown. I honestly don't read creepy books ever, but I couldn't stop reading it. I did return the sequel, Lair of Dreams to the library unfinished but only because I had a lot going on at that point and the whole only being able to read it before midday so I had enough time to read less creepy stuff so I didn't have nightmares thing was getting in the way. But so good. I want to read all her other books right now.

Patrick Ness

Again, judging this on the one book. During my A Way into YA series I asked twitter which of a stack of books I should read and Sarah (among others) told me to read The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I'd owned for literally years. I sort of wasn't expecting to like it but then I absolutely adored it and I haven't read the second one yet for I don't know what reason because they have it in the library (not my library, but a library not too far away. My ex library in fact). Also he did this and now I'm fully on board with reading everything he writes. There's been so much author bad behaviour this year that it's just lovely to see someone doing something like this. 

Kirsty Logan

If anyone's reading this and wants to buy me books, please buy me Kirsty Logan's books that aren't The Gracekeepers. It was magical, mysterious and steeped in the kind of water - based fantasy that I love. I loved and adored it so much and her writing is just so incredibly beautiful that I absolutely must read all of her other books. The closest I've got to loving something as much as The Night Circus since The Night Circus. 

Eleanor Catton

I wanted to read The Luminaries back when it was first out and there was all the hype but I was put off by the hype, so I put The Rehearsal, her much shorter novel, on my wishlist and somebody got it for me (I'm sorry I don't remember who. A Ninja Swap I think?). I picked it up earlier this year expecting not a lot, but it really surprised me. Stylistically I loved it. It was a little confusing at first but a really original way to tell a story and told in such a way that I wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't throughout. It made me want to brave the doorstopper that is The Luminaries. A very clever writer.

David Levithan 

This is kind of a cheat, because I'd read Dash and Lily's Book of Dares and Will Grayson, Will Grayson prior to this year, but this year was the first time I'd read anything he'd written on his own (Every Day) and I loved it so much. His Will Grayson was my favourite and I find his writing really absorbing while also having a kind of calming quality? His characters are really reassuringly quirky if that makes sense? Like, quirkily relatable. Brilliant.

So that's me. My reading remains as random and unquantifiable as ever, but if there are any new to you authors on this list I really recommend picking up something by them!