Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I've only read one book from but need to read more

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week they post a new topic that the participants come up with a top ten list for.


This week's topic are authors that we've only read one book of so far, but loved so much that we NEED to read more by them! My top ten are in no particular order.


Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus
I don't think she's written (or at least published) anything since, but I'd sure love to read it!

Kimberly Derting - The Pledge
I've got The Essence on my shelf but haven't picked it up yet. I think I'll re-read The Pledge first. I really loved the world building and I'd rather avoid this period of confusion at the beginning of the second book when you don't really remember the 'rules' of the world.

Libba Bray - A Great and Terrible Beauty
I really need to read the sequels, as well as The Diviners. Beautiful writing, and I like her feminist stance.


Robin Wasserman - The Book of Blood and Shadow
This was so suspenseful and at times creepy. I really want to read The Waking Dark. It sounds just as ruthless and horror-ish.

Maggie Stiefvater - Lament
I'm reluctant to read the sequel, Ballad, because it switches the point of view. But I really want to pick up The Raven Boys!

Chuck Wendig - Blackbirds
I need the sequels of the series. Really great horror!


Victoria Schwab - The Archived
Such an amazing story!  I want Unbound as soon as the paperback is out. And Vicious. I want villainous narrators.

Jackie Morse Kessler - Hunger
I need to get the rest of the series about the Four Horsemen. I love the concept of this, and how each book picks up on an important social issue.

Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle
I'd definitely read another one of his books written in the same vein, but everything else I see on his goodreads seems to be more children's literature. The Gargoyle though... it was perfect. It made me cry. A lot.


Rosamund Hodge - Cruel Beauty
I loved pretty much everything about this one. Can't wait to read more when they come out!

This was actually more difficult to compile that I thought it'd be, because there aren't that many authors I've only read one book of. Or if I've only read one, there is often a reason for that. Do you spot any favorites on my list? Anyone I need to move up on my TBR pile? And who did you pick?

Stacking the Shelves: Unhinged Goblins Hitchhiking in the Dark

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to showcase all the books we got in the past week. Those can be bought, won, gifted, for review, borrowed, print or ebooks... no matter, just share what you got :)


Hey guys :) Once more I've left out a week of my haul, so this one's a bit bigger. Also, I'm in Belgium at the moment so I will be a bit slow responding to comments. I'll get back to everyone on Monday though! Returning all the comments is part of my blogger resolutions for 2014.


For review from Netgalley

Goblins, by Melanie Tushmore


For review / gifted

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Gretel and the Dark, by Eliza Granville

This is my FIRST EVER ARC that I got in print and wasn't from a giveaway! Thank you soooo much, Penguin UK!! :D

The Hitchhiker's guide was a late Christmas present from a new friend :)

Bought in print

The Essence, by Kimberly Derting

Unhinged, by A.G. Howard

Totenbraut, by Nina Blazon

I've wanted The Essence and Unhinged for about a year now, so I can't wait to get reading! :D Totenbraut was a spontaneous buy, there's this store that is closing so there's a huge sale going on and even though it's a big ass hardcover it was pretty cheap. Plus, I read something by Blazon about ten years ago and remember really liking it. I'ts a historical set in 18th century Serbia and there's vampires. Goodreads doesn't show me an English edition unfortunately but it's available in French and Italian.

Bought as ebooks

The Pirate's Wish, by Cassandra Rose Clarke
When We Collide, by A.L. Jackson

After reading The Assassin's Curse, I had to have the next book immediately! I've already read and enjoyed it :) Kind of sad that the story is over now :(
When We Collide is one I had on my wishlist for a while, and this week it was on sale for 99 cents! Mine has a different cover than the one above though, which unfortunately wasn't on GR.


That's it! What do you guys think? Have you read any of them? And what's new on your shelves?

Top Ten Tuesday: new-to-me authors read in 2013

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week they post a new topic that the participants come up with a top ten list for.

This week is about new-to-us authors read in 2013 that we really grew to love

Many of those had books out before this year, but I just didn't get to them or was to stupid to see just how amazing they were.



Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement / The Space Between
Definitely one of my favorite 'discoveries' of the year! The Replacement really tore me apart. I ached inside while I read this book, and yet I'm desperate for a re-read! Brenna's writing is simply breathtaking and her stories have a new, eerie feel to them. I didn't like The Space Between quite as much as The Replacement, but I'm still determined to read everything she writes.

Michelle Hodkin - The Mara Dyer series
Seriously, how did the cover/description for this ever put me off?! Was I mad? Mara wonders about that question too. She's such an unusual girl protagonist for YA! And then there's Noah. And the agonizing wait for book 3. Sigh. I read book 1 in a day. One year of waiting for one day of reading... the balance is a little insane :P

Kimberly Derting - The Pledge
One of my favorite dystopians. Also, I read it at exactly the right time - I was writing a paper on queenship and how queens exercised their power. The world building was amazing - can't wait for The Essence to come out in paperback next month!

A.G. Howard - Splintered
Wonderland, insanity, art, Morpheus, weird scariness and beautiful writing... what's not to like? I was looking forward to this one so much, and it didn't disappoint!

Brent Weeks - The Night Angel Trilogy
I totally re-discovered my love of epic fantasy this year, and this series... holy hell! It's over 1500 pages and I read it in a WEEK (pun not intended). The savagery, the reluctant heroism, the magic, the vastness and complexity of the world and the characters... just wow. I'm really sad it's over though. I hope Weeks writes another series set in the same world.

Veronica Roth - The Divergent trilogy
I know, another one I'm late to the party for. But Divergent electrified me. It made me feel so incredibly alive, as if I was right there alongside Tris! I know many liked Insurgent and Allegiant less, but I thought they were logical consequences of what happened before, and I have major respect for Veronica Roth ending the series as she did.

Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me
Everyone said this was great, but for some reason I never believed them. I kind of lumped this one in the 'nope' pile together with Mara Dyer. And again I was WRONG. This book is so fantastic! The writing, the imagery and tropes felt new. Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with a simile that hasn't been used a thousand times over?! I've got book 2 on my kindle and I'll probably read book 3 just after it comes out. So glad I won't have to wait forever to read the next one!

Lauren DeStefano - Wither
Again, I was blown away by the writing most of everything. The world building was great too, but it was the writing that really kept me hooked. Sadly, I thought Fever dragged too much, but I still plan to read Sever and see it all through to the end.

Karen Marie Moning - The Fever series
Another series I just breezed through. It took me a book or two to take to Mac as a heroine, but damn does she undergo some development! And then there's Barrons. For book after book, I kept wondering - just what the hell is he?!

Katja Millay - The Sea of Tranquility
I thought I should at least include one non-fantasy/paranormal/dystopian author, and Katja Millay made me cry like a baby. This book straddles the border between YA and NA but it's one of the most real (and thus painful) contemporaries I've read. Utterly absorbing.


Do we have any books in common on this list? What did you think of them? Want to berate me for waiting so long to read them? :P And what awesome new authors did you discover?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I thought I'd like more/less than I did

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week the participants post their top ten to a specific topic.


This week's topic is about books that we liked more or less than we'd expected before reading them. I think I'll give you some of both :)



Books I liked more than I thought I would:

The Replacement, by Brenna Yovanoff
I'd heard great things about her writing but wasn't sure the topic was for me. I should have paid more attention when reading the blurb. Anyhow, I bought this one when the paperback was on sale for 3 euros or so. IT TORE MY HEART OUT. Seriously, I hurt so much when I read it! My chest tightened up. I ached. I put a ton of sticky notes into it! I savored every word! And I resolved to read all the rest of Brenna's books. And of course to re-read this one many times.

Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins
I heard everyone swooning over it, but honestly if I hadn't won a giveaway and the only not-yet-claimed book that appealed to me was this I might have never read it. What a shame that'd have been! It got me more interested in contemporaries again after almost 10 years of reading nearly only fantasy/paranormal books!

The Immortal Rules, by Julie Kagawa
I know! Again, a huge hype. But I just doubted that Julie could do vampires after having read the first two (or was it only 1? Can't remember) of her Iron Fey books. Turns out I couldn't put it down and loved it even more than her Fey books! And that coming from a person who was utterly uninterested in dystopias before.

If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
Again, I seem to mistrust hypes. Here it was mostly the exact subject matter that put me off though. But after reading Just One Day (sounded more appealing) I had to have it immediately. The day after I finished it I bought Where She Went and read it front to back the same day. It was just that good, and that heartbreaking!

The Pledge, by Kimberly Derting
I was actually sure I'd like this one - I'd been waiting for the paperback for forever. But I was still blown away with just how much I loved it! I was writing a paper about queens during the time and this book fit in perfectly. It's basically a manifestation of the idea of the two bodies of the queen (natural/mortal & politic/enduring --> essence).




Books I liked less than I had hoped:

Pretty in Black, by Rae Hachton
*sigh* Yeah, I had really hoped I'd love it. But the writing was choppy, the plot at times erratic, and though I enjoyed some of the world building it all just never really came together properly. And I couldn't get behind the romance in the way I had hoped. I bought all three books as a package so I'll continue the series, but I'm not in a hurry.

Darker Still, by Leanna Renée Hieber
I liked it. I actually liked it quite a lot. But I had somehow expected... more. I also found it rather predictable and didn't click with the setting in quite the way I had hoped. Still debating whether or not I'll buy the sequel...

Beautiful Disaster, by Jamie McGuire
It was among my first NA books and I'd had hight hopes. College characters! A tattooed guy! But yeah, I'd thought he'd be the musician kind of tattooed, not some super-muscled fighter. That was my bad though, and I just had to readjust. But then their whole 'love' and the way the plot was all over the place and I couldn't get a hold of Abby's actual character and how stupid they sometimes were just turned me off. During the last 15% or so I just continually snorted and rolled my eyes, but I somehow felt like I had to finish. Never again though... *prepares for angry mob*

Crescendo, by Becca Fitzpatrick
I really liked Hush, Hush! It wasn't perfect but it kept me intrigued and I adored Patch :) I also got it signed at an author event, so yeah... but Crescendo? Nope. I was really annoyed with Nora and how little she trusted Patch and how she jumped to conclusions. Silence was better. I haven't read Finale yet...

Strange Fates, by Marlene Perez
The world building and general idea were great! But the execution left something to be desired. It started out great but then it couldn't really hold my interest. I couldn't understand what Nyx saw in his sort-of-girlfriend, who'd lied to him more times than I can count. There were aspects I liked and others that were a total let-down. I still have to review it...


So, that's it from me. I'm sure I could have picked other, maybe better-suited books, but I wanted to keep it somewhat recent. Did you have similar/completely opposite thoughts about the books I featured? And what made it onto your lists?

Stacking the Shelves: Fairies & Lucky Finds

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to show off the new books we got in the past week. This can be borrowed or bought, print or ebook, for review, gifted, won... just show your awesome new book friends :)

I had two hauls this past week, one was books I had ordered that finally arrived and one that was a stack I picked up at the second hand bookstore. Sorry for the not so good pics, my lamp started to smoke and stink after one pic and I had to shut it off and move to a different, not-so-great lamp...

Bought:

The Pledge, by Kimberly Derting
The Iron Knight, by Julie Kagawa
The Iron Legends, by Julie Kagawa

After reading The Iron Queen, I just had to have the rest of the series. I've also wanted to read The Pledge for a really long time now, and with The Essence coming out I was reminded of it. And since it's now out in paperback...


From the used book store:

Katzenwinter, by Wolfgang & Heike Hohlbein
Measure for Measure & All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare
Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde
The Devlin Diary, by Christi Phillips
Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie
If I Stay, by Gayle Forman

I read Katzenwinter about 10 years ago and it was one of my first fantasy books! I own more than twenty of Hohlbein's books and I've read even more that I borrowed from the library of the school I was going to at the time. I've been meaning to buy&re-read all his old novels from the 80s and 90s but in the same editions I read them way back when... which aren't easy to find anymore. So this was an awesome surprise and I just had to have it :D It's in good condition and was only 3.50 CHF (maybe like 4$. For new hardbacks you pay the equivalent of 30-40$ here).
The other books were about 2$ each. I've been curious about Midnight's Children for a while because I heard so much about it during my studies... and everyone seems to have read If I Stay!

Also, I got extremely lucky with the Shakespeare because look at this:

I don't know whether you can read it, but this was PRINTED IN 1904!!!!
And I paid not quite 2$ for it!!! It's old and worn and smells great :D The Spine is not readable anymore; I just saw this old book wedged between two random paperbacks and was curious about what it was.... and opened it to find this!! I mean it's more than 100 years old! I don't think it's a valuable edition or anything but I love it anyway because it's now the oldest book I own :)


What do you guys think of my haul? Do you love old books too, or do you think they... stink? What did you get this week?
Oh, and check out the giveaways in my left sidebar while you're here :) I changed the entry options for the I Am Alive giveaway so that you can now enter without commenting...