Top 10 of 2019: New or New-to-Me Authors

Top 10 of 2019 is hosted once again by Kimberly Faye Reads, and this year she has a co-host Ginger @greadsbooks.   This second topic, new or new-to-me authors, is so hard!  Between the new authors I read as part of the whole launch of SmartyPants Romance, or the ARCs of debut authors I get, it's so hard to choose!  So some of these may be a little bit of a cheat and have more than one author.  In fact, I think I'll do like last year and at least even narrow down into romance and YA authors, 10? of each.

Romance:

1. 

First is Julia Kent.  Now, while I'd actually read one of her books under her other writing name, Meli Raine, as a free e-book a few years ago, Fluffy was the first I read under the name Julia Kent.  And it cracked me up so much!  I've loved all the books in that series so far.  I actually just finished listening to the 4th book in the Shopping for a Billionaire series yesterday, and I love it too!  Most of that series is part of the Audible Escape package, so that's how I'm enjoying them. 

My review of Fluffy is HERE.


2.

I read this one by Monica Murphy this year.  It was good, and I look forward to more in the future!

My review is HERE.



3.

I think all the rest of the authors I'll share under romance will be from SmartyPants Romance, like this one from Piper Sheldon. 

My review is HERE.

4.

When I saw this sitting on one of the tables at Book Bonanza this past August, I had to buy it since I'm a librarian, so I did get to meet the author, L.B. Dunbar, and then I was also introduced to her writing!

My review is HERE.

5.

I had to read all the books in the library series, so this one I got to read as part of a blog tour, and loved it as well!  It was probably my favorite of all of them.  Sabrina's shyness, the funny nerdy quotes, like "for the love of Dumbledore!".  Nora Everly is going to be someone I read a lot of in the future I hope! 

My review is HERE.

6.

I think this was my favorite in the Donner Bakery series from the SmartyPants Romance launch.  I think it is the author, Ellie Kay's, only book so far, but again, I look forward to more! 

My review is HERE.

7.

And another in the library series.  Normally I am not a big fan of the motorcycle club books, but this one was okay because of how awesome the librarian stuff was.  Cathy Yardley did a great job! 

My review is HERE.

8.

So much in this one that I liked as well, and I'm interested in reading more by Jiffy Kate.  It made me want to pack up and move myself to a place like Green Valley, I wished there was a real Green Valley!  It also kind of got me thinking maybe I want to work one of my stories into a way it could fit into the Green Valley world and possibly be part of the SmartyPants Romance group! 

My review is HERE.

9.

I loved this book.  All the stuff about being overweight and dealing with that was true.  How people look right through you, etc.  M.E. Carter responded to tweets I posted and Instagram posts as well.  Definitely looking forward to more by this author as well! 

My review is HERE.

10.

So, I actually read this earlier this year from a partner I found on a website called Critique Match when I was looking for someone to help me critique my short story.  I didn't actually know if she was published or not, hadn't heard of her, but read and loved her story to help her.  I wondered as I read if she was, because the story was so good! Then I found it posted as a book coming out this month, and I jumped on the blog tour to help promote it.  I'm currently "re-reading" the finished copy to post a full review here tomorrow!


YA Authors:
1.

I recently read and loved this book by Cookie O'Gorman.  I need to read more by this author now!  

My review is HERE.

2.

My first Hannah Moskowitz book was a hit!  

My review is HERE.

3.

So, I was supposed to read The Replacement Crush by Lisa Brown Roberts when it came out, but I didn't get to it. I signed up to do a blog tour for this one, and now I have to go back and read that one!  

My review is HERE.

4.

A good debut for Charlotte Nicole Davis, although the ending wasn't the best for me.  

My review is HERE.

5.

Yet another debut author, Brittney Morris, and I can't wait to see more from her in the future!  

My review is HERE.

6.

Natasha Diaz is another debut author I'm highly recommending!  

My review is HERE.

7.

While this is Chelsea Bobulski's second novel, it is the first one I've read, and I really liked how original she was with her ghost story and the way to see through it.  

My review is HERE.

8.

Another debut author I read this year was Autumn Krause, and it was a kind of original slant on a story that is similar to others I've read.  

My review is HERE.

9.

Another awesome 2019 debut author, I look forward to the sequel to this unique fantasy novel by Kalyn Josephson.  

My review is HERE.

10.

A great cult type of story that I really liked, Shannon Schuren will be on my watch list for future titles.  

My review is HERE.


Tell me, are any of these authors new to you?  Or are any old favorites?  What new or new-to-you authors did you read this year?

If you're interested in joining in to the Top 10 of 2019, you can go to the links at the top for the hosting blogs.  Here are the other topics you'll see coming up:

Also, while you're here, make sure you go enter into my weekly Cleaning Up My TBR Giveaway HERE.  It's open till Friday night at midnight!

ARC Review: Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

Book info:

Title:  Sick Kids in Love
Author:  Hannah Moskowitz
Genre: YA Contemporary
Release Date:  November 5th, 2019

Publisher:  Entangled Teen
Source: Physical ARC received from publisher which did not influence my opinion
My rating:  5 stars

Synopsis: 
Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It's easier--
It's safer--
It's better--
--for the other person.
She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis.
But then she meets another sick kid.
He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father who's a doctor.
He's gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her.
Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It's complicated--
It's dangerous--
It's never felt better--
--to consider breaking that rule for him.


My Review:
I don't know exactly where to start with this one, except to say how much I adored it!  It was such a sweet and cute story, but with a lot of moments that were still emotionally intense or else really made you think.  Since I am not a sick person, there's a lot I don't understand first hand. But, I think this story did a great job at sharing things that people who do have chronic illnesses feel and hear from "healthy" people all the time.  The story really made me think a lot about how I feel or think when I hear about people who are sick and what they have to deal with on a daily basis.  It definitely brought to mind all the times in the past that I may have even said something about a person not looking like they were sick or disabled whenever they pulled into a handicapped parking spot or something similar.  Things in recent years after meeting more people who don't look sick, but are, I've quit even thinking that way myself, and now it does stand out when I hear other people around me say those things.  I really liked that the author was able to write a story where as the tagline says, they don't die in this one, but there were still some emotionally tense situations in the book.  

It wasn't just the part about being sick kids that was so good in the book either though.  There were normal teen situations, absentee parents, not  knowing how good some friends really were, and then of course feeling attractive to the opposite sex.  It was so great to be able to see a toxic friendship ended, but the character still wondering if she was doing the right thing.

And oh the humor!  I loved Sasha's sarcasm in so many situations, as well as his hilarious answers to Isabel's questions.  While the dead girl answers weren't completely clear to me for what they actually did for the story, it was a unique and different idea to be included. 

A great story, I can't wait to get this for the kids in my school library to read! 

Lisa's Looking Forward To #37 - November 5th, 2019

Back to joining up with the Waiting on Wednesday Posts, and the Can't Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  The amount of good looking books coming out is back up this month it looks like.

From my ARC list for November 5th, 2019:

I've got an ARC of this one, but as I keep mentioning, I'm so far behind on reading, that I've not got to it yet. But I can't wait to!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From the acclaimed author of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns comes a fantastical new tale of darkness and love, in which magical bonds are stronger than blood.

Will love break the spell? After cruelly rejecting Bao, the poor physician's apprentice who loves her, Lan, a wealthy nobleman's daughter, regrets her actions. So when she finds Bao's prized flute floating in his boat near her house, she takes it into her care, not knowing that his soul has been trapped inside it by an evil witch, who cursed Bao, telling him that only love will set him free. Though Bao now despises her, Lan vows to make amends and help break the spell.

Together, the two travel across the continent, finding themselves in the presence of greatness in the forms of the Great Forest's Empress Jade and Commander Wei. They journey with Wei, getting tangled in the webs of war, blood magic, and romance along the way. Will Lan and Bao begin to break the spell that's been placed upon them? Or will they be doomed to live out their lives with black magic running through their veins?

In this fantastical tale of darkness and love, some magical bonds are stronger than blood.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

Another beautiful cover, and this is an author that is local to where I live. 

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
 
Ever since her mother walked out, Trix McCabe has been determined to make it on her own. And with her near-magical gift for pulling valuables off unsuspecting strangers, Trix is confident she has what it takes to survive. Until she’s caught and given a choice: jail time, or go live with her long-lost family in the tiny town of Rocksaw, Kansas.

Trix doesn’t plan to stick around Rocksaw long, but there’s something special about her McCabe relatives that she is drawn to. Her aunt, Mia, bakes pies that seem to cure all ills. Her cousin, Ember, can tell a person’s deepest secret with the touch of a hand. And Trix’s great-aunt takes one look at Trix’s palm and tells her that if she doesn’t put down roots somewhere, she won’t have a future anywhere.

Before long, Trix feels like she might finally belong with this special group of women in this tiny town in Kansas. But when her past comes back to haunt her, she’ll have to decide whether to take a chance on this new life . . . or keep running from the one she’s always known.

With lovable and flawed characters, an evocative setting, and friendships to treasure, A Constellation of Roses is the perfect companion to Miranda Asebedo’s debut novel The Deepest Roots.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

Sounds like an interesting historical fiction read.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The last thing eighteen-year-old Wilhelmina “Willa” MacCarthy wants is to be a nun. It’s 1936, and as the only daughter amongst four sons, her Irish–Catholic family is counting on her to take her vows—but Willa’s found another calling. Each day she sneaks away to help Doctor Katherine Winston in her medical clinic in San Francisco’s Richmond District.

Keeping secrets from her family only becomes more complicated when Willa agrees to help the doctor at a field hospital near the new bridge being built over the Golden Gate. Willa thinks she can handle her new chaotic life, but as she draws closer to a dashing young ironworker and risks grow at the bridge, she discovers that hiding from what she truly wants may be her biggest lie of all.


Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

Besides the adorkable title, it sounds like a fun and hilarious read!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Talia Hibbert, one of contemporary romance’s brightest new stars, delivers a witty, hilarious romantic comedy about a woman who’s tired of being “boring” and recruits her mysterious, sexy neighbor to help her experience new things—perfect for fans of Sally Thorne, Jasmine Guillory, and Helen Hoang.

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamourous family’s mansion. The next items?


Enjoy a drunken night out.
Ride a motorcycle.
Go camping.
Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
And... do something bad.
But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I've really got to get around to reading something by this author!  And that cover is gorgeous!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From the acclaimed author of Defy, Sara B. Larson, Sisters of Shadow and Light is a timeless and fantastical tale of sisterly love and powerful magic

The night my sister was born, the stars died and were reborn in her eyes….

Zuhra and Inara have grown up in the Citadel of the Paladins, an abandoned fortress where legendary, magical warriors once lived before disappearing from the world—including their Paladin father the night Inara was born.

On that same night, a massive, magical hedge grew and imprisoned them within the citadel. Inara inherited their father’s Paladin power; her eyes glow blue and she is able to make plants grow at unbelievable rates, but she has been trapped in her own mind because of a “roar” that drowns everything else out—leaving Zuhra virtually alone with their emotionally broken human mother.

For fifteen years they have lived, trapped in the citadel, with little contact from the outside world…until the day a stranger passes through the hedge, and everything changes.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

Another beautiful cover from another author I still need to get around to reading!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep comes a haunting romance set deep in the magical snow-covered forest, where the appearance of a mysterious boy unearths secrets that awakens the enchanted, but angry, woods.

Be careful of the dark, dark wood . . .

Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.

Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.

But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

I still haven't read my ARC of the first book yet!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

No one can save her.

In order to protect Prince Lucien d’Malvane’s heart, Zera had to betray him. Now, he hates the sight of her. Trapped in Cavanos as a prisoner of the king, she awaits the inevitable moment her witch severs their magical connection and finally ends her life.

But fate isn't ready to give her up just yet.

With freedom coming from the most unlikely of sources, Zera is given a second chance at life as a Heartless. But it comes with a terrible price. As the king mobilizes his army to march against the witches, Zera must tame an elusive and deadly valkerax trapped in the tunnels underneath the city if she wants to regain her humanity.

Winning over a bloodthirsty valkerax? Hard. Winning back her friends before war breaks out? A little harder.

But a Heartless winning back Prince Lucien’s heart?

The hardest thing she’s ever done.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I got an awesome package with swag and a copy of this book recently.  I should be posting my review on Sunday, so come back and check it out!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It's easier--
It's safer--
It's better--
--for the other person.
She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis.
But then she meets another sick kid.
He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father who's a doctor.
He's gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her.
Isabel has one rule: no dating.
It's complicated--
It's dangerous--
It's never felt better--
--to consider breaking that rule for him.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

I gave in and requested the e-galley on Netgalley when I couldn't seem to get my hands on a physical ARC.  :-(. I don't know if I'll get to this before the 5th, but I already downloaded the e-galley to my Kindle, so it should last for a bit after the date and I hope to get it read and reviewed in the next week or two.  If you happen to have an ARC of it that you are willing to part with because you're not going to save it like I would, since I collect all things to do with this author because I love her so much, let me know! 

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes a new fantasy series reimagining the Arthurian legend, set in the magical world of Camelot.

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution--send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere's real name--and her true identity--is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old--including Arthur's own family--demand things continue as they have been, and the new--those drawn by the dream of Camelot--fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur's knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.

Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?

*THE FIRST BOOK IN THE CAMELOT RISING TRILOGY*

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

The summary that says The Outsiders meets The Iliad makes me extremely curious on this one!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Shannon Price's A Thousand Fires is a breakout contemporary debut―think The Outsiders meets The Iliad―that's perfect for fans of Courtney Summers and Veronica Roth.

10 Years. 3 Gangs. 1 Girl’s Epic Quest…

Valerie Simons knows the city's gang wars are dangerous—her own brother was killed by the Boars two years ago. But nothing will sway her from joining the elite and beautiful Herons to avenge his death—a death she feels responsible for.

But when Valerie is recruited by the mysterious Stags, their charismatic and volatile leader Jax promises to help her get revenge. Torn between old love and new loyalty, Valerie fights to stay alive as she races across the streets of San Francisco to finish the mission that got her into the gangs.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

So I read the first one, Little White Lies, and really enjoyed it.  Since I no longer have my contact at Disney thought, I didn't get an ARC of this one, so we'll see if I get to it.  Not sure how I feel about the change in cover style, but I do like the cover.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

"Think of the White Gloves like the Junior League-by way of Skull and Bones?"

Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret. When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group's ranks may have the answers she's looking for. Things are looking up... until Sawyer and the White Gloves make a disturbing discover near the family's summer home--and uncover a twisted secret, decades in the making.

No one is quite who they seem to be. 

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

Final Thoughts:
Looks like they're trying to get a lot of new books out for us to read during the winter as that cold weather comes along and makes us want to stay inside.  Have you read any of these yet?  Are they on your TBR?  And hey, while you're here, you should go try to win some of my ARCs from Cleaning Up My TBR Post HERE.  The US only giveaway is open till Friday at midnight, there are even some 2019 ARCs that can be one of your two choices.