New (To Me) Authors – The Best (so far!)

Hello, world! How are you? I hope you are safe, and I hope things are going well for you! So far I think this is the post with the most parenthesis in the title, sorry about that!
I was quite undecided between this kind of post and the Mid Year Freak Out Tag, because I love that tag (it is useful and fun. And usually I always find some new and interesting books to add on my TBR while I am reading this tag around the blogosphere!) and after thinking about it for a lot of time I decided to do the tag… and then promptly changed my mind because this year I have read a ton of authors that were new to me. And some of them are indie authors, too. So I decided to give them a little bit more of space around, and here we are!

Best Books:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is the best traditional published book. I don’t really now if it is the best of the year, but as sure as hell is the best written by an author I discovered this year! I loved this book with all my heart! It was just so sweet, compelling and magical, in its own ways, that I loved it to pieces. And you can read a kind of review for it, here. Tavern by Deston J. Munden was the best indie/self-published one. This book was so full of good things! Amazing characters, great plot and so many colors! This was and adventure that I enjoyed wholeheartedly! And if you want to know more, you can read myreview, too!

The Other Amazing books (in no particular order):

Sometimes I am a tad unsure about which author is a selfpub or indie and which on is traditional published, so I hope to have been right here. If not… sorry!!! These four books are the best indie one so far, and I have managed to write a review for 3 out of 4. To me this is a record! So, if there is a review, you would just have to click on the title. And let’s see a bit more about this books. I have read three of them thanks to the Bingo on reddit. Sufficiently Advanced Magic was on my TBR, that’s true, but without the Bingo it would have waited there for ages! I am so glad to have managed to read it, because it is original and interesting. Fun and fast paced, with a ton of things going on. Snowspelled was around the book community a lot, some time ago, and I was just so curious! But again, without the push by the Bingo I don’t think I would have read it. And what a shame it would have been! Krista D. Ball was a new discovery, thanks to the f/reddit community. And now I really have to thank them, because The Demons We See was so good, and so original that I fell in love with it! I hope to read the sequel really soon, and I have this author on my TBR, because I want to read all of her books! The First of Shadows was send to me by the author, with its two sequels, and I can’t thank him enough. The originality of this series is that it is made by short novels, really really short, but they are complete and so full of things, that you won’t miss the length!

With these ones we start with the traditional published, or so I think. Two of them are quite peculiar to me, because I loved the books I have read but I don’t know if I would read other books by them. It is strange, right? And I am not sure I am able to explain myself, but I really enjoyed reading Skullsworn and Under Heaven a lot. They both are great, with a magical and complex worldbuilding (even if we don’t have a lot of “magic” here), well developed characters, who are original and unique. And the plots are captivating. We have a lot going on, and I really enjoyed them. I am really glad to have tried out both these authors but… but I don’t think that they books are really for me, even if I appreciated them a lot. Strange, right? And then we have an author who I would follow for sure! Foundryside was such a great and compelling reading, that I need to know more! I want to go back to that world and meet again all the characters! And I want to read the other books by Robert Jackson Bennet, too!

These three books were on my TBR for quite some time, too, or better, two books and an author. I just wanted to try out Scalzi, but I wasn’t sure about which book try out. And then I was approved on NetGalley for the entire The Interdependency trilogy and I was so happy! The Collapsing Empire and the sequels were a lot of fun! I loved from the first line the sense of humour of this author, and I am really glad to have read this fun and fast-paced trilogy! Then we have Brian McClellan. I had Promise of Blood on my shelves for so long! I don’t know why I let it wait so much, but I loved this book. And I am so looking forward to the sequels! The good thing is that during lockdown I managed to read some of the short stories of this series, so the waiting won’t be too cruel. And I started another series by this author too! Generelly I try to not read more than a series for author, even if sometimes the things get a bit mixed up, because maybe I read the last published volume of a series, and pass to another one of the same author, then the time pass, new volumes came out for both series and… oops! Or maybe the two series are companion, and so I try to keep the story on the whole going on, reading both series, but as a rule I try to not start a new and completely unrelated series if I am reading one by the same author. But here I had to made an exception! I read Uncanny Collateral and it was a really enjoyable read! Sue me! And last but not least, Cast in Shadows by Michelle Sagara. This book was one of the first I have added on my GoodRead’s TBR, and wow! I can’t believe I managed to read it. And I have loved it, too! And what is even better is that I have managed to read the second book of this series too! I am so looking forward to the sequels!

So, as you can see it would have been a shame to not speak about all of that. Those are not all the new authors I discovered this year, but they are the best so far! And they all are simply amazing!
And while I was writing this post I discovered that this year I managed to read more books from the same authors, and even if this can seem quite a logical thing (I mean, you find a book you love or really enjoy, you keep going with the series or author, if you can) it is not so for me. Usually I let at least six months/a year (and shame on me, sometimes even more) before returning to something I have started. I think that maybe there is hope for me, too! Yay!

So far, reading-wise, 2020 is going great! Did you know these authors? What do you think about these books? And which are the best new to you authors you discovered so far??? Let me know!!!

Happy reading!
S.