Top Ten Tuesday: New to me authors

This is a post for Top Ten Tuesday, hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. You can find out more and follow along there!

2013 was a good year for authors I hadn’t tried before. These are all authors who have been publishing for a few years but who I hadn’t read before this year.

1.  If you’re looking for readable, well-researched historical fiction, Gillian Bradshaw is one to try.  Especially if you’re a Rosemary Sutcliff fan. I wasn’t as in love with her Arthurian trilogy, but The Beacon at Alexandria is going to be one of my favorite books this year.

2. I feel like I’m the last person to read Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series (even though I know this isn’t true), but I’m so glad I finally tried them this year! Flavia is a marvelous, precocious detective and I have really enjoyed these books.

3. It’s hard to believe that I only discovered Laura Florand and her Amor et Chocolat books this year, but it’s true! She’s quickly become my favorite romance writer, and I can’t wait to read whatever she publishes in 2014.

4. C.J. Cherryh has been writing for a long time, and considering there are 14 books in the Foreigner series alone, it’ll take me awhile to get through her backlist. But I’ve loved almost every book I’ve read (Rusalka being the excemption), and I hear there are some good ones I haven’t even tried yet.

5. Strictly speaking, Terry Pratchett shouldn’t be on this list. I have read some of his books before 2013. But this was the year I discovered the City Watch books and now all I want to do is read and reread them.

6. I haven’t read very much of Guy Gavriel Kay, and I haven’t loved everything I’ve tried. (Fionavar? Yeah, no.) But he definitely goes on this list for Under Heaven and Sailing to Sarantium/Lord of Emperors.

7. I’ve really enjoyed discovering Judith Merkle Riley’s Margaret of Ashbury series. They’re a bit hard to explain–historical fiction by way of Margery Kempe, with a touch of mystery and romance? Regardless, I’m looking forward to finishing the series.

8. Partway through the year, I discovered the extremely charming Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, by Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks. At that point, it was a webcomic, but shortly afterward it was published as a book (also extremely charming!).

9. I think I was possibly the last person in the world to read Kirsten Miller’s Kiki Strike books. While I don’t love the last book as much as the first two, I really enjoyed the wild world of Kiki, Ananka, and their friends.

10. I got Doris Egan’s Ivory series out as an omnibus edition and proceeded to read them ALL over the course of two days, or something ridiculous. Truly enjoyable science fiction (science fantasy?) with a great female protagonist and a lovely sense of culture and worldbuilding.