Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2022

TTT was created by The Broke and Bookish and moved to That Artsy Reader Girl (click here for upcoming TTT topics!).

Today’s Topic is: : New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2022 (If you didn’t read books by 10 new authors, share new-to-you authors whose books you added to your TBR in 2022. Get creative, if needed!)

1.) T.J Klune

       

I’ve read my first TJ Klune book in July and hosted a Readalong named #Klunealong to finally dig my claws into one of his books. Well, in the end I read 2 more books from him and there is no end in sight! I just love his books so much and they are funny, heart-breaking, amazing, suspenseful, wholesome, sad, bitter-sweet, and all the other adjectives you can think of. Just amazing! And thankfully he wrote a ton of books so it will take me a long time to catch up to all of them. YAY! *lol*

2.) Margaret Rogerson

„Sorcery of Thorns“ was my first Margaret Rogerson book but I really like her writing style and I absolutely adored the characters in this book. So I’m looking forward to read her other works and to find out if she might even have a series I can get lost in. This was a standalone and recently she released a sequel novella which I’m definitely going to read too.

3.) L. Philips

I’ve never heard of this author but one day „Sometime After Midnight“ ended up on my goodreads feed and I got curious about the book. Honestly for such an unknown book this story was amazing and I was a sucker for the music element in here. I’m convinced L. Philips is making music herself because the way she described the two MCs making music together?! It was perfect! Such a surprising and awesome book! I loved every second of it! ❤

4.) Victoria Lee

And here comes another author that totally surprised me! „The Fever King“ and Victoria Lee as an author have been on my radar for ages and I wanted to read this book for a very long time. Well, and then one day in spring I found it at one of my libraries and finally picked it up. And wow!! This story, the world and the two MCs got me good! I really can’t wait to read book two because I need to know what’s going to happen to Dara and Noam!!!!

5.) Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik is one of those authors that was always recommended to me but I never read a single one of her books before last year. In 2022 I decided I’d finally try out one of her books and chose „Spinning Silver“, which apparently was a good choice because I enjoyed it a lot. Not gonna lie I loved the fairy-tale aspect of this and the strong female MCs but I was kinda thrown off by the ending. It felt like the book was over but then it wasn’t so I’m kinda careful with the next Novik book I’m going to pick up. *lol*

6.) Tracy Deonn

This book was amazing!!! I never tought I’d enjoy „Legendborn“ as much as I did but wow!! I was such a sucker for this arthurian retelling you have no idea! The entire world, all the diverse characters, the strong female lead character, the grief rep and especially SELWYN KANE!!!! soo persuaded me to pick up the second book. I need more of Sel. Really! And I can’t wait to dig my fingers into „Bloodmarked“!

7.) Karla Nikole

This book was exactly what I needed! An m/m vampire romance with a slow-burn and with one of my new favourite tropes „consent“ on both sides! *lol* I still dunno if you can call „consent“ a trope but for me it is because I love this in my books and I’ll never get enough of it. XD So Karla Nikole totally hit that spot for me and I can’t wait to read the rest of this series. Haru and Nino are two really awesome MCs and they fit together perfectly. I definitely want to see more of them and their world soon!

8.) Mira Grant

Deadly mermaids that will rip your throat out as soon as they see you?! YES! I gobbled this book up like nobody’s business and had a lot of fun while paging through it! *lol* Mira Grant is a master at creating a creepy atmosphere and even though this was also gory af all the science we got in here definitely made up for it. It was just the right mixture of gore, horror, suspense and science and I loved it! ❤ Can’t wait to dive (pun totally intended) into the next of Mira Grant’s books. 😉

9.) Brandon Sanderson

I finally read my first Brandon Sanderson book and I really enjoyed it. Admittedly it took me ages to get into the right mood to read „The Final Empire“ but that’s mostly a „it’s not the book, but me thing“ because I’m such a mood reader and I wasn’t in the right for epic fantasy for a while. *lol* But hey, once I got into the right mood I really loved this. It left me with so many questions though and I really hope that some of them will be answered in „The Well of Ascension“. *fingers crossed*

10.) Libba Bray

I heard a lot about Libba Bray and her Diviners series but I never picked it up until one of my fellow BookTubers asked if someone wanted to read it with her. Well, of course I said yes and I had one of the best buddy reads ever! This was creepy, eerie and gruesome to read but also very entertaining and atmospheric?! I really enjoyed that it played in the 20ies and the characters were super interesting. Very curious where this series is going and I already agreed on a buddy read of book two with Victoria! (who is the aforementioned BookTuber that read the first book with me.)

So what about you? Which authors were new to you in 2022 and which books of them did you read? Do we have any books in common or did you actually read some of them already? And if yes, did you enjoy them?Did you discover different authors than me? And can you recommend books by them?? =)

Talk to me and let me know!

And as always take care and stay healthy and safe! 

*hugs’n’kisses*

The Sassy Library Fox

Review: Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant)

Rating:

”It’s beautiful,” breathed Daniel, and while there were those who would have objected to the reverence in his voice, none of them corrected his statement. It was beautiful, in its own terrible way. So many monsters are.

This book was something else and I have no idea how I survived reading this! XD I’m really such a scaredy fox and all I knew about “Into the Drowning Deep” was that it’s about killer mermaids and an expedition to the Mariana Trench. Well, and that there is an f/f relationship in this book because otherwise it wouldn’t have landed on my #Rainboween list. 😉 So far so good, right? Well, yeah, I suppose?! Nothing of those aforementioned things prepared me for the creepy story I was going to read, though. And boy, let me tell you this was quite something!

”We forgot about them, but they never forgot about us. They always knew that somewhere out there they had competition, strange and soft and walking on two legs and defenseless in the water. Most of all, they never forgot that we were delicious.“

I think I could have lived with gory scenes and bloodthirsty sirens, but what made this a really intriguing and exceptional story was the fact that those mermaids were extremely intelligent and had no qualms to use their knowledge to their advantage. They knew what they were hunting (humans in case you wondered) and how to get to it and in contrast to the humans they just took what they craved. Namely, meat and plenty of it. If you want to say it in a drastic way you could also say that the Melusine was some sort of all-you-can-eat buffet for them and you wouldn’t be wrong, because to be entirely honest those humans were basically put on a platter with a nice bow.

”So you think they’re watching us?” Luis glanced over the rail. The water was very dark and very clear at the same time, like looking through a window into infinity. A cold hand seemed to run along his spine, sending chills all through him.
„Mr Martines, I know they’re watching us. The only question is from how far away.“ Dr Toth smiled thinly.

So we have intelligent and ruthless sirens, scientists that want a piece of the cake without either realizing or caring that they ARE actually the cake and all the makings for a journey that will turn into a bloodbath. Nice! What I really liked about this story was the fact that we didn’t just get gory and bloody but also a lot of science and philosophy. Due to all the scientist on board of the ship there are a lot of tests and experiments happening but I think it was never over the top and woven so effortlessly into the tale that it always felt very natural and didn’t disturb the flow of the story. Also the atmosphere in this book was amazing! It was creepy, eerie and oppressive! And it was so suspenseful that it sometimes quite literally had me at the edge of my seat!

”This was not where she belonged. This had never been where she belonged. Humanity had chosen the land over the sea millennia ago, and sometimes – when she was letting her mind wander, when she was romanticizing what she did and how she did it – she thought the sea still held a grudge. Breakups were never easy, and while humanity was hot and fast and had had plenty of time to get over it, the oceans were deep and slow, and for them all change had happened only yesterday. The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.”

Fun fact I’ve to mention here: I always wanted to become a marine biologist when I was a kid but my asthma and the fact that I live in a landlocked region kind of killed that dream before it even got a chance to grow. Despite all that I was always fascinated with the sea, the Mariana Trench, reefs and everything else that lives in those depths though. And I think this made me enjoy “Into the Drowning Deep” even more because there is this scientific puzzle and every single person on that ship tries to solve it in their own way. Experiencing the story alongside the scientists and watching them while they made new discoveries and tried to understand those creatures that attacked them so relentlessly was extremely intriguing for me. I was probably as fascinated by them as Dr. Toth was and I wanted answers to how they were able to survive too.

”Dr Wilson is correct: the problem with trying to define nature is that nature is bigger than we are, and nature doesn’t care whether we know how to define it. Nature does what nature wants.”

As for the characters: I really liked most of them and actually prayed that they would survive. *lol* But quite honestly not even the ones I didn’t like would have deserved to die the way some of the mermaids victims did. *shudders* I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Some deaths were really gruesome and caused me to take a deep breath in order to be able to read on. Tory – Victoria Stewart – was one of the likable characters and I really liked that she and Olivia got closer during the journey. Tory was definitely a driven character and I really liked her and the way she tried to find answers to her sister’s death. Olive… Olive was amazing and I think it was great to see an on-page character that was autistic and had social anxiety as well. Olivia’s POV and rep added so much depth to the story and I think we need more representations like that in books!

”If one of the mermaids had taken him – one of those deep horrors, with teeth like daggers and the hands designed to catch and keep – then he hadn’t drowned, because he wouldn’t have had time. He would have died before his body hit the water.”

I don’t think I can say a lot about Theo because he represented Imagine and was actually a pretty blank character. His wife Dr. Jillian Toth however, was awesome and I really loved her dry humour and that she went on the journey knowing full well that she was most certainly going to die. Yet that still didn’t stop her because she wanted to see all her life’s work about mermaids put into practice. I’m pretty certain Dr. Toth would have tried to study the sirens even if they would have chewed and feasted on her already. *lol* Yep, that woman was badass and I really liked her, because despite all her fascination for those creatures she was still compassionate and kind. The twins Holly and Heather and their sister Hallie were all pretty interesting characters too. Every single one of them had their own voice and even though they worked in completely different niches (organic chemistry, deep sea diving, linguistics) they were a family and a lively bunch.

“Do I think they found mermaids? Yes. Of course I do. And I think the mermaids ate them all.”

All told, I really enjoyed “Into the Drowning Deep” and the story’s slow decent into tension, havoc and madness. When the book started I wasn’t all too sure if killer sirens would be able to scare me but once the shit hit the fan and the atmosphere got more and more deadly and dire I couldn’t escape the pull of the book anymore. This was horrifying, suspenseful and thrilling and if there was one thing I didn’t like it was the rather abrupt, horror movie like ending. But I guess you can’t have everything so I’ll take it as it is and be glad I never actually met those lethal sirens. 😉