Top Ten Tuesday: New (to me) Authors I Read in 2014

Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2014 …

Steph

1. Cory Doctorow – I read Little Brother which was awesome and a little mind bending. I might go for Homeland…
2. Meg Rosoff – I read How I Live Now and I’m intrigued, there are more books by Rosoff and I really enjoyed the nuance of her POV and how sunken into the character’s world I became. I want to try some more.
3. Julia Donaldson – Ok, I realize this is a travesty for a Master of Children’s Literature – I had never read The Gruffalo before! NEVER! Donaldson is a longtime picturebook author and The Gruffalo and also The Stickman are basically classics. She is still writing new books, they are still hilarious, I’ve almost read them all.  
4. Charles de Lint – who is actually local to me now! I read The Cats of Tanglewood forest, given to me by the lovely Megan Harrison (a contributor here on The Book Wars and fellow MACL), and it was pure magic. I loved it, it was a little bit of Anne of Green Gables and Tom Sawyer all wrapped into a magical bundle and I truly enjoyed it. There are lots of other de Lint titles to read, and I think I’ll do so.
5. Deborah Ellis – I know, I know. Ellis, for those of you who don’t know, is a Canadian gem, highly praised for her writing and in particular the book The Breadwinner. I was asked to read her The Moon at Nine for a review and I found myself truly enjoying her writing. She writes about historical places of unrest and young people from those places, sometimes there’s a little magic and sometimes now. The Moon at Nine was fascinating, unforgiving and just a darn good story.

Yash

1. Patrick Ness: Mostly because of Steph and Megan, both of whom tried to get me to read The Chaos Walking trilogy. I ended up reading A Monster Calls and More Than This, but the trilogy is still on my TBR list. I might get the audiobooks …
2. Rin Chupeco: New favourite horror writer. ‘Nuff said.
3. Gene Luen Yang: A brilliant storyteller and a fantastic artist. Can’t believe it took me so long to read him.
4. Tanuja Desai Hidier: No one captures hyphenated identities like her. I really must get to reading Bombay Blues.
5. Kristin Cashore: Basically everyone recommended Fire to me. Cashore is a real gem of a fantasy writer.
6. Jenny Han: She writes the best romance! *whispers* Without actually having to write romance! So great! (I’m speaking specifically about To All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved.)
7. G. Willow Wilson: UGH JUST GIMME THE NEXT VOLUME OF MS. MARVEL ALREADY! *dying whale sounds*
8. Maggie de Vries: She was talking about Rabbit Ears while she was teaching our class. I got it as soon as I could – and, unsurprisingly, it was incredible.
9. Ellen Oh: I wish she’d team up with the guys who make the Avatar cartoon series, because her fantasy world strongly reminds me of it. Serious, funny, and completely enchanting. Can’t wait to read Warrior and King.
10. Jandy Nelson: I think I’ll Give You the Sun is actually my favourite book of the year. So excited to see what she does next!

Nafiza

Apologies in advance because there are A LOT of new authors I have read this year.

1. Patrick Weekes. He wrote this fabulous steampunk-ish high fantasy with a POC female protagonist and her crew who were SO awesome. I don’t know why I haven’t read the sequel already.
2. J. Kathleen Cheney. She authored a high fantasy series featuring a version of mermaids set in Portugal. Fantastic stuff.
3. Martha Wells. Her high fantasy Ile-Rien trilogy will forever be my favourite.
4. Guadalpe Garcia McCall. Her verse novel Under the Mesquite. All the feels. All of them.
5. Rachel Bach. Her science-fantasy series Paradox was pretty darned awesome.
6. Jen Wang. Artisit. She did Cory Doctorow’s book and Koko be Good. I love her style.
7. Frances Hardinge. A Face Like Glass. Enough said.
8. Kate de Goldi. Wrote the fabulous The ACB with Honora Lee. 
9. Helen Oyeyemi. I have four of her books but have only read Mr. Fox which was amazing.
10. Julie Morstad. My new favourite picturebook artist and author.
11. Rebecca Chaperson. Her Eerie Dearies is beautifully morbid.
12. Yangsze Choo. The Ghost Bride was very interesting and colourful.
13. Ambellin Kwaymullina. Can’t wait for the sequel to The Ashala Wolf.
14. Scarlett Thomas. The End of Mr. Y was a mindbender in a very good way.
15. Jenn Swann Downey. I loved the world of The Ninja Librarians.
16. Katherine Addison. The Goblin Emperor was SO GOOD.
17. Emily Croy Barker. She wrote The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic for me. Yep, only for me.
18. Rin Chupeco. It’s not easy to make me shiver but she did it.
19. Ananda Braxton-Smith. Her style is so lovely.

Janet

I ought to dedicate this TTT to Yash, who introduced me to the works of Noelle Stevenson, Maureen Johnson, and to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which got me into the works of Gene Luen Yang.

1. Charles Todd: the pseudonym of a mother-and-son writing team, who writes murder mysteries set in England during (the Bess Crawford series) and after (the Ian Rutledge series) the First World War. I am currently enamoured by the Bess Crawford books, especially for the atmosphere of the end of the fin-de-siecle era Britain and the social and personal relationships. Also, I now really wish I was fluent in another language. Like Urdu. Or Hindi. (I may have read these in 2013. I don’t remember. But I’m reading them all again now, and now is what counts.)
2. Penelope Farmer: a contemporary of Diana Wynne Jones whose books I should have discovered before. Time to make up for my previous loss – her writing is fantastic.
3. Noelle Stevenson: the creator of Nimona and co-creator of the Lumberjanes comics. Friendship to the max!
4. Ruth Park: her Playing Beatie Bow is just. so. different: eerie (in a good way) and deep.
5. Maureen Johnson: seriously addictive storytelling in her Shades of London series.
6. Patrice Kindl: actually, I may have read The Woman in the Wall in elementary school, but I clearly did not appreciate Kindl’s humour or I would have read Owl in Love and Keeping the Castle much sooner.
7. I read Elizabeth E. Wein’s The Sunbird in high school. Her World War Two books are breath-taking; so is the lesser-known A Coalition of Lions, which I did not discover until this year. (My excuse for including Wein in this list is that I did not appreciate her writing fully until this year. Or possibly last year; I don’t remember.)
8. Rachel Hartman: while I’m fairly certain I read Seraphina in 2013, it was definitely in 2014 that she spoke to Maggie de Vries’ creative writing class and gave those who were interested a copy of Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming, which cemented my adoration of her Goreddi universe and of her imagination (and kindness).
9. Gene Luen Yang: Yash says it all.
10. John Peacock: costumier and historian.
11. Terry Lynn Johnson: Ice Dogs is a believable survival story set in modern Alaska.
12. Susan Cain: whose Quiet acknowledges that society is designed against introverts, and insists that needing stimuli to remain within certain limits is normal and acceptable.