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.