Top Ten Tuesday: New-To-Me Favorite Authors of 2018

This is my favorite of all Top Ten Tuesday posts.  To the point that you can find favorite new-to-me authors posts going back past when I actually started participating in Top Ten Tuesdays.  Some blog prompts are so great you have to go back in time to maximize their potential.  (Check out my prior posts for 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014.)  I must admit that it was kind of a tough year for me, reading-wise, but I still managed to find some great authors.  Even if I did have to count both members of a writing couple to get to ten.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

A picture of my Kindle because I read most of the books below in electronic fashion

 

Rae DelBianco (Rough Animals)

DelBianco gave me a delightful debut—well, delightful isn’t quite the right word…it isn’t bloody enough—that zigged when I expected it to zag, and I am very excited to see what she gives us next.  Review of Rough Animals here.

 

H. Rider Haggard (She)

Haggard was enormously influential on a number of authors who are themselves massively influential (ever heard of Robert E. Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien?), but I wasn’t terribly motivated to pick up an omnibus I picked up at the used bookstore on a lark. Howard’s The Moon of Skulls provided the motivation I needed, and, boy, am I glad I did!  Check out my comparison of The Moon in the Skulls and She here.

 

David Joy (The Line That Held Us)

I had some issues with this book, but it was brimming with potential and I am fired up to dig into the rest of Joy’s books.  Review of The Line That Held Us here.

 

Rob Kroese (The Dream of the Iron Dragon)

I had high hopes for The Dream of the Iron Dragon, and it exceeded my expectations in every way.  It works as hard science fiction, as alternate history, and as an adventure story.  I need to pick up the remaining two books in the series yesterday.  Review of The Dream of the Iron Dragon here.

 

James A. McLaughlin (Bearskin)

Another debut right in the Hillbilly Highways wheelhouse, though you will have to wait ’til closer to the paperback release date for my review.  McLaughlin is also right there on the can’t-wait-to-see-what-they-do-next list.

 

David Pedreira (Gunpowder Moon)

Another debut, another entry on the can’t-wait-to-see-what-they-do-next list.  Only this debut is hard science fiction.  It’s still about murder though.  Just on the Moon.  Review of Gunpowder Moon.

 

Amity Schlaes (Coolidge)

Inclusion on this rightly (if not universally) implies a desire on my part to pick up more books by the writer in question.  That is emphatically the case with Schlaes.  I am as excited to pick up her The Forgotten Man as I was to pick up her biography of Calvin Coolidge.

 

Adam Lane Smith (Making Peace)

I remain pretty impressed by the indie fiction I’m reading, but Smith is the only indie writer to make it this year.  And how can’t I be excited for what’s next when I hear tell of a Burrito John Wick book?  Review of Making Peace.

 

Philip and Carol Zaleski (The Fellowship)

I don’t know that I will dig into their earlier work, but The Fellowship is too good to leave them off this list.  Review of The Fellowship.