Top Ten New-to-me Authors in 2023

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2023. 

Some of the authors on this list write crime fiction or spy fiction, but a good number of them write books in genres I read less of (fantasy, general fiction, science fiction). All of them were good discoveries, and I plan to read more books by every one of the authors on this list. 

My list is in no particular order.

Kotaro Isaka

Bullet Train is the first book I read by this Japanese author. I like Japanese books, but have read more mysteries and thrillers than other genres. It looks like this book was the 2nd in a series of three books that have been translated into English.

Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb is a  pseudonym used by Megan Lindholm. Assassin's Apprentice is the first book in a fantasy series, The Farseer Trilogy. I plan to read the 2nd book in the series this year. I discovered this book and author via Cath at Read-Warbler when she reviewed The Mad Ship, part of a different series.

Deanna Raybourn

Killers of a Certain Age is a story about four older women who have worked for years as assassins. The organization that hired and trained them is called the Museum, and now the Museum has turned against them and ordered their deaths. It is not exactly spy fiction, but it reads much like a spy thriller, so it was perfect for me. Deanna Raybourn has written several series in the historical fiction genre. 

Carson McCullers 

Carson McCullers was a well-known American author whose novels were mainly set in the Deep South. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the first book I read by this author.

Helene Hanff

This author is best known for 84, Charing Cross Road, a book comprised of the letters between Hanff and Frank Doel, who worked at a book store on Charing Cross Road in London. The correspondence began in October 1949 and continued for the next 20 years.

Jesse Q. Sutanto

This author has written young adult fiction and some adult mysteries. The book I read was Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.

Michael Christie  

Christie is a Canadian author. I read his second novel, Greenwood, set in Canada, from 1908 through 2038. It is a multigenerational family story with a focus on nature and ecology, especially trees. 

Becky Chambers  

This author writes science fiction, and my first experience with her writing was The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, a space opera. 

Rosamunde Pilcher

Pilcher was a very well known British author of romances and family sagas. Many of her books are set in Cornwall, but the one I read, Winter Solstice, is primarily set in Scotland in the two months leading up to Christmas. Luckily, I purchased The Shell Seekers at the book sale last year, so I have another to read sometime this year. 

Bob Cook

This was a new spy fiction author for me. Paper Chase is a humorous book about four old spies who retired years ago, and only get together at the funerals of other old friends who were intelligence agents. They are forbidden to publish their memoirs, but they decide to do it anyway. Felony & Mayhem reprinted Paper Chase and Disorderly Elements, but I am going to try to track down other books by this author.

My reading in May and June 2023

In May and June, I read a total of 17 books. Two were nonfiction, and two were general fiction, both from my Classics Club list.

The other 13 books were crime fiction. Two of those were short story books that I was finishing up from previous months. 

In June I started on my 20 Books of Summer list and read 6 from that list. I have even posted my thoughts on four of those. 

So here are the books I read.

Nonfiction / Health

Hello, Sleep (2023) by Jade Wu

The focus of this book is insomnia. The subtitle is "The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications." The book offers a self-guided program that helps change a person's sleeping patterns and behavior using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). The book was extremely interesting to me and I learned a lot from it.

Nonfiction / Books about Books

Book Lust to Go (2010) by Nancy Pearl

My third read of this book, and I enjoyed it every time I read it. This time I read it specifically for the Bookish Books Reading Challenge and to look for some books for the Wanderlust Challenge at FictionFan's Book Reviews, which I am planning to start working on (after 20 Books of Summer).

Fiction

The Optimist's Daughter (1972) by Eudora Welty

I read this book for the Classics Club Spin #33. The book is very short, 180 pages in the edition I read. It was published in 1972 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973. Welty was a well-known author of Southern fiction but she only wrote five novels, between 1946 and 1972. See my thoughts here.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers

I read this book for the Classics Club Spin #34 and it is also on my 20 Books of Summer list. How lucky was that? I liked the book a lot, and will be reviewing it in July.

Crime Fiction

Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles (2021) ed. by Martin Edwards

Murder by the Book is a short story anthology edited by Martin Edwards. It is a part of the British Library Crime Classics series, published in the US by Poisoned Pen Press. I reviewed some of the stories in this book here and here.

Paper Chase (1989) by Bob Cook

This is a humorous book about four old spies who retired years ago, and only get together at the funerals of other old friends who were intelligence agents. They are forbidden to publish their memoirs, and they decide to deal with this by writing and publishing a fictional story based on their memoirs. I enjoyed the book, it was short and fun but serious enough. And I love the cover.

Slough House (2021) and

Bad Actors (2022) by Mick Herron

Books 7 and 8 in the Slow Horses series. Mick Herron is an author that has never disappointed me. The "slow horses" are MI5 agents who have been demoted due to some disgrace or screw up in their jobs, and are now working under Jackson Lamb. Amazingly, this is one series I have kept current with. I love the writing, the characters, and the plots get better and better.

Murder is Easy (1939) by Agatha Christie

This is one of Christie's standalone mysteries, published in 1939. It isn't one of her best, but most books by Christie are worth reading, and this one was fun and entertaining. Luke Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman, returns to England after several years in the East. He is on a train when he meets Miss Fullerton, an elderly woman on her way to Scotland Yard to report some murders in her village. Later, when he finds that Miss Fullerton was killed in a hit-and-run accident in London, and that the man that she thought was going to be the next murder victim had also died recently, he goes to her village to investigate. 

Killers of a Certain Age (2022) by Deanna Raybourn

This story is about four older women who have worked for years as assassins. The organization that hired and trained them is the Museum, and now the Museum has turned against them and ordered their deaths. At first I was reluctant to read this book because I have had problems with books centered around hitmen, but I had heard so much about this one, I had to try it. I loved this book, and I regret that I did not have time to review it. 

Dolphin Junction: Stories (2021) by Mick Herron

This collection was published in 2021 and features 11 short stories previously published between 2006 and 2019. There are four stories about the Oxford wife-and-husband detective team of Zoë Boehm and Joe Silvermann, characters from Herron's Oxford Investigations series, plus a story about Jackson Lamb, top agent in the Slow Horses series, which goes back to a time in the past when he had an assignment in Berlin. There are also six short stories with no connection to any of his novels. I reviewed some of the stories in this book here and here.

Clark and Division (2021) by Naomi Hirahama

This is the first book I have read that gave me any insight into the internment of Japanese Americans into "relocation camps" during World War II. In this novel, the Ito family are sent to Manzanar shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Later they are resettled in Chicago, far from their original home Southern California. The oldest daughter was sent to Chicago first, and when the rest of the family arrives, they find that she has committed suicide. This was a good read, and it inspires me to read more about the subject. The second book in this series, Evergreen, will be published on August 1, 2023. In that book, the Ito family has been allowed to return home to California.

The Mitford Murders (2017) by Jessica Fellowes

The first book in a series set among the Mitford family, in 1920.  My review here.

Mindful of Murder (2022) by Susan Juby

Helen Thorpe returns to the Yatra Institute, a spiritual retreat where she used to work, after the owner of the institute dies. The author is Canadian and the setting is one of British Columbia’s gulf islands. My review here.

Our Man in Camelot (1975) by Anthony Price

This is the 6th book in the David Audley series, a Cold War espionage series usually set in the UK. See my thoughts here.

A Dying Fall (2012) by Elly Griffiths

This was the fifth book in the popular Ruth Galloway series, which features a forensic archaeologist living in Norfolk in an isolated cottage on the saltmarsh. Since both this book and Our Man in Camelot centered around the Arthurian legend, I combined my reviews in one post.

Sworn to Silence (2009) by Linda Castillo

I had been putting off reading this 1st book in the Kate Burkholder series, another very popular mystery series, set in an Amish town in Ohio. Kate Burkholder is the police chief of the town. One of her deputies finds the body of a dead girl who has been raped and mutilated. I thought this book would have too much graphic violence and tension. It was not too tense (for me) and I loved the characters. The violence was a bit too much for me, but I will be reading more of this series. 

Walks

The images at the top and bottom of the post were taken in May, when we visited Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, a small park in Santa Barbara. It covers only one city block, but has lots of paths to walk around on, and is a favorite for dog walkers. For three years when our son was very young, we lived across the street on Garden Street. It was the only time we have lived in the city rather than an unincorporated area.

My husband took the photos. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.