You know how much I love to share this list with you! And mine just keeps on growing 🙂
But let’s not talk about the fact that I still haven’t finished The Historian, The Seventh Son, or Heart-Shaped Box. I’ll get back to them at some point, I swear!
August 18: Top Ten Of Your Auto-buy Authors
I actually very rarely go out and buy books right when they come out, mostly because they are expensive and I am still a poor college student. I utilize the library as often as possible and usually just buy books that I love. However, in an ideal world these would be my auto-buy authors in no particular order:
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Rick Riordan
Patricia Briggs
Cinda Williams Chima
Kimberly McCreight
Gillian Flynn
Sarah J. Maas
Marie Lu
Sara Raasch
Marissa Meyer
Gail Carriger
Anne Bishop
Bonus: C.S. Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jane Austen, if they were still alive and writing.
August 11: Top Ten Authors I’ve Read The Most Books From
Well this is probably going to pretty much the same as the one for authors that I own the most books for but here it goes, author and number of books:
Sherrilyn Kenyon – 21
Patricia Briggs – 13
Rick Riordan – 12
Charlaine Harris – 10
L.J. Smith – 9
Nora Roberts – 9
Laurel K. Hamilton – 8
Cassandra Clare- 8
Gail Carriger – 8
Anne Bishop – 7
Cinda Williams Chima – 7
P.C. Cast- 7
William Shakespeare – 7
J.K. Rowling – 7
C.S. Lewis – 7
Definitely a couple of surprises as I was going through my Goodreads. I forgot how much I used to be into really long vampire book series! So this is a top 9 followed by 6 authors tied for the 10th spot. Although that was just based on a quick browse, there might be more in the 7-8 book range.
I am going back a couple of weeks to play catch up with the Top Ten Tuesdays because they are one of my favorite things to do, thank you so much The Broke and the Bookish!!
From August 4: Top Ten Fairytales and Fairytale Retellings. I’m going to do this one a little bit differently than my normal list, bear with me! There are a lot of books now going off of this theme and I am excited to experience them as many as possible.
Top of the list definitely goes to the entire Lunar Chronicles series. From Cinder to the as yet unpublished Winter, I cannot get enough of Marissa Meyer’s style, writing, finesse, world building, and character crossings. The whole series is beautifully done and I am anxiously awaiting the final piece. With sci-fi elements, it never sounded like my typical read until I picked it up and could not put it down.
Stiching Snow by R.C. Lewis was also very well done. Also sci-fi and not my usual game but presented in such a way that really intrigued me and sucked me in. The plot was solid, the characters and relationships were interesting, and the overall product made me smile, laugh, and cry.
Cruel Beauty from Rosamund Hodge was definitely an interesting twist on Beauty & the Beast. I listened to the audiobook while driving home for Christmas and some of it was a little hard to follow and little far fetched for my taste but the mystery of the plot and interaction of Beauty and her Beast was worth it. Although the ending left me feeling unsatisfied.
A Court of Thorns and Roses, another book by Sarah J. Maas, put a fae spin on the classic Beauty & the Beast in a way that wasn’t obvious. There was magic and secrets, shape-shifting, torture, testing of the limits, love, beauty, fear; written in the typical and wonderful style of the author, it drew me in and captivated me. Highly recommend, can’t wait to see what happens next!
The Stepsister Scheme tells the story of what happens after the magical happily ever after. Jim C. Hines gives us new representations of Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty as he weaves a tale of jealous stepsister, fae terrors, and princesses who are more warriors than ladies. An unique read, something to distract on a lazy day.
Sisters Red is actually part of a series called Fairytale Retellings by Jackson Pearce but unfortunately didn’t interest me enough to continue reading. While I found the new take on Little Red Riding Hood to be interesting, it was a little too much horror and grit to be appealing in the long term. Not a bad read, just not really for me.
The final book that I read that is worth mentioning is for children but sometimes I can’t help but enjoy those. The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley is about two young sisters who have been shuffled from home to home only to finally be taken in by a grandmother they didn’t think existed. Along the way, fairy tales come to life in a small town and it’s up to the girls to solve the mysteries of what is happening.
Kat Webber 