Earl Grey Books

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is new-to-me authors of 2020. I thought this topic was going to be a lot harder than what it actually turned out to be, but in the end, it was actually harder to just limit it to ten.

Angie Cruz

I read two books from Angie Cruz this year—Dominicana and Soledad, both of which were incredible and among some of my favourite books of the year. Going into this year, I didn’t even know who Angie Cruz was but then Dominicana was nominated for the Women’s Prize and it happened to be one of the ones I got to. Obviously, I loved it and that’s why she’s on this list. I have one last book from her on my shelf at the moment—Let It Rain Coffee, and then I just have to sit and wait for her to put something else out. I really, really hope she does because she’s definitely become an auto-buy author for me and I’ll be sad when I don’t have anything new from her.

Rebecca Yarros

I totally owe (and simultaneously completely blame) Angel for this one. She picked The Last Letter out for me as part of our best friend picks my TBR challenge last year and it ruined me. And then I just wasn’t feeling ruined enough, so I went on to pick up Full Measures later on the year and what do you know? That completely destroyed me as well. I didn’t get the chance to continue the rest of that series in 2020, but it’s definitely one I’ll be dedicating my time to in 2021. Will I survive it? Probably not.

Sabrina Jeffries

I’ve talked about Sabrina Jeffries probably too much last year, but I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I read her Royal Brotherhood series in 2020, and I’ll be moving onto her School for Heiresses series once I finish off one of the many other romance series I’m in the middle of right now.

Dorothy L Sayers

I’ve never had much luck with mystery books that aren’t by Agatha Christie…until now. I don’t think I’ll ever love Lord Peter Wimsey as much as I do Poirot, but I do genuinely enjoy these books nonetheless. I read the first two in 2020, and I’ll be moving onto the next few in 2021.

Favel Parrett

I’ve been screaming a lot about There Was Still Love lately, but it was just such a great book and not nearly enough people have read it. If you’re new here, I’m going to link you to my top books for 2020 video where I talk about it in detail. Short version: it’s beautiful, you need it.

Carmen Maria Machado

I read In the Dream House as part of the Booktube Prize and was completely blown away by it. I had to wait like three months for it, but my copy of her book, Her Body and Other Parties, finally came into the library for me and I am so excited to read it this month.

Afua Cooper

I had The Hanging of Angelique sitting on my shelves for two years before I finally picked it up in 2020 and loved it. I then picked up, Copper Woman, which is a poetry collection and also loved that. I’m kind of sad because it’s ridiculously hard to find Cooper’s books anywhere.

Brit Bennett

The Vanishing Half is one of the best books I read in 2020—it’s one of the best I’ve ever read. Brit Bennett’s way of telling a story is just so incredible—she really sucks you into the world and the characters feel extremely real. I bought myself The Mothers for Christmas, so I’ll be picking it up ASAP.

Anne Carson

I kind of can’t believe it took me so long to pick up something from Anne Carson, but it did. I read Autobiography of Red in November and decided pretty much immediately that I would need to read everything else of Carson’s that I can get my hands on.

Whitney Chadwick

I found Whitney Chadwick through an assignment I did for one of my art history classes. She’s written a few books about women in art and that’s the area of art history that I’m really interested in specialising in. I have a couple more of her books on my shelf right now, so I’ll definitely be reading more from her in 2021.

And that’s my list for this week. Which authors did you discover in 2020? Who are you hoping to read from in 2021?