With any luck, the list of authors that I still haven’t read yet will get a little shorter each year. Over the past couple of years, I’ve set myself a goal of reading some of the authors that I’d been meaning to try for a long time but haven’t read yet. I came so close to finishing my whole list last year — I finished 19 out of the 20 authors that I’d picked! This year, I decided to try this goal again with a brand new set of authors, and picked a total of 21 for 2021. Each year, I divided my list between YA authors and adult authors to make sure I had a good balance. To be honest, it was a challenge to come up with my list for this year at least compared to 2020. There were a few author names that really jumped out at me immediately, especially for thrillers, but my YA list was a little more difficult. I ended up picking quite a few authors who only debuted recently, but it’s a great chance for me to stay up to date with some more recent releases!
7 on Sunday is a new weekly project that was started by Grace of G-Swizzel Books, with a weekly topic for videos and/or blog posts! The official Goodreads group with topics can be found here.
1) Samantha Downing – I’ve actively avoided My Lovely Wife for a while because it felt a bit overhyped, and when I finally decided to read it, it was out of stock everywhere! Lucky for me, I managed to find a copy just this week on Book Outlet so that should be coming soon. I’m also very excited to pick up He Started It and especially her upcoming book For Your Own Good this year too! She is one of the few very popular thriller authors that I haven’t tried yet, and I’ve heard such great things about all of her books.
2) Alice Feeney – This is a very similar case, where I avoided reading Sometimes I Lie because of all the hype, but later changed my mind! I’ve been stocking up on all of her books, and have all three of her current releases in my reading challenge plans for the year. I just noticed she has another book called Rock Paper Scissors due out this fall too, so I’m sure that’s something I’ll be picking up eventually too. I might not have a chance to pick it up this year, but if not, it’ll likely make it into my plans for 2022.
3) Rory Power – I was on the fence about Wilder Girls when I first heard about it because I’m generally not such a fan of horror or books that take place in the wilderness, and this one is both. The main reason I added her to my list was actually because of Burn Our Bodies Down, which sounds much more up my alley. I’ve heard really great reviews for both, and decided to give them both a chance this year if I can.
4) Cynthia Hand – Cynthia Hand was one of the last authors added to my list. She’s been vaguely on my radar for several years now, but never strongly enough to motivate me to pick anything up. I decided to add her to my list because I’ve had The Last Time We Say Goodbye on my TBR since 2015 and even own a copy, so I thought it was about time to give it a chance. I also have The How and the Why and The Afterlife of Holly Chase down as options for prompts this year too. I’d loosely considered prioritizing the Lady Janies series but decided I had too many other series that I wanted to read more to make it a goal this time.
5) JP Delaney – JP Delaney is another author that has loosely been on my radar for a long time, especially because I got their first two books, The Girl Before and Believe Me, for free as library discards. For years, I kept putting them off because I always prioritized the books I was borrowing from the library over the ones I owned, but because of the pandemic, that has now changed. I have both of those books in my plans for the year as well as The Perfect Wife and Playing Nice. My goal is to try at least one, but hopefully I can read them all!
6) CJ Tudor – Like JP Delaney, I’ve had this author on my radar for a while because I had a copy of The Chalk Man, which might have also been a library discard too. I’ve been hesitant to pick any of her books up because I’ve seen some very mixed reviews, but finally decided that I needed to try them. I have The Chalk Man, The Other People and The Hiding Place all planned for this year, and even went ahead and bought a copy of her newest book The Burning Girls despite the fact that I haven’t read any of them yet, so hopefully I like her books!
7) David Bell – This author was one of the main reasons why I thought of making myself a list of priority authors to try. I’ve added all of his books to my TBR and even bought several from Book Outlet without ever trying a single one. I finally decided that I needed to pick up at least one, preferably more this year, and so far have included Bring Her Home, The Forgotten Girl, and Somebody I Used to Know in my plans. That still leaves about 7 more of his books on my TBR, but there’s no way to fit them all in this year!
Abyssal Librarian 