Best new-to-me authors in 2012 #2

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise has started a meme in which bloggers are asked to write about their favourite “new to them” authors whose books they have read in each quarter of 2012. If you would like to join the meme, here is the April-June post for your link.

If I’ve counted right, I’ve reviewed 47 books during these three months, of which 18 were by new-to-me authors. The listing is below, including whether or not the book is a debut (to the best of my knowledge). M J McGrath has written non-fiction but White Heat is her first work of fiction. Just over half the books are debuts.

I enjoyed almost all these books; there are only one or two by authors I don’t feel inclined to try again. In fact, in two cases I have already read other books by the author (Gail Bowen and Julia Spencer-Fleming).

Picking out a winner from this list is very hard indeed as I’ve enjoyed almost all of them, and they are a varied bunch of books. I am going to have to go for a tie between Julia Spencer-Fleming, Gail Bowen and Ridley Pearson. Wendy James and Allison Leotta come a very close second. But others are really good, too!

As usual, click on the title of the book to read by review to get a more “nuanced view”, as they say, of each.

Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr (debut, USA)
Amuse Bouche by Anthony Bidulka (debut, Canada)
Deadly Appearances by Gail Bowen (debut, Canada)
The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen (debut, Sweden)
In Her Blood by Annie Hauxwell (debut, Australia, London setting)
The Loyal Servant by Eva Hudson (debut, UK)
The Mistake by Wendy James (Australia)
Defending Jacob by William Landay (USA)
Law of Attraction by Allison Leotta (debut, USA)
The Other Child by Charlotte Link (Germany, England setting)
White Heat by M J McGrath (debut, UK, Canada setting)
The Pied Piper by Ridley Pearson (USA)
Broken Silence by Danielle Ramsay (debut, UK)
Crossbones Yard by Kate Rhodes (debut, UK)
Killer Instinct by Zoe Sharp (debut, UK)
A Dark Redemption by Stav Sherez (UK)
In The Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming (debut, USA)
The Suspect by L R Wright (Canada)

I would like to thank Bernadette, Bill, Karen, Keishon and Sarah, who between them were responsible for my discovery of about half of these authors and their books!

My choice of best new-to-me authors in 2012 #1

Best new-to-me authors in 2012 #1

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise has started a meme in which bloggers are asked to write about their favourite “new to them” authors whose books they have read in the first three months of 2012.

So far this year I have reviewed 18 books by such authors: George Arion (Romania), David Belbin (UK), Reed Farrel Coleman (USA), Maurizio di Giovanni (Italy), William Deverell (Canada), Y A Erskine (Australia), Keigo Higashino (Japan), Ewart Hutton (UK), Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson (Iceland), Anya Lipska (UK), Jassy Mackenzie (South Africa), Peter May (UK), Claire McGowan (UK), Ron McMillan (UK), Jenny Roberts (UK), Gillian Slovo (South Africa), S J Watson (UK) and Betty Webb (USA). Of these 18 books, I think that 11 are debuts and the remaining 7 are by authors who have written other books previously that I hadn’t read. My 2012 book review listing is one click away from my reviews of books by each of these authors.

My “new to me” authors award for the first quarter of 2102 is a tie: Y A (Yvette) Erskine for The Brotherhood and Anya Lipska for Where the Devil Can’t Go. Both of these are in one sense police procedurals, but both add a distinctive twist to the genre and both provide a great sense of place and atmosphere. Both these authors are debut novelists: of the books I read by established authors who are new to me, I’d choose Peter May for The Blackhouse and The Lewis Man, both of which I read this quarter. Honourable mentions to The Flatey Enigma by Ingolfsson, Bone and Cane by Belbin, Desert Wives by Webb, Good People by Hutton and Trial of Passion by Deverell. Among the rest, there are only a couple I really didn’t like, so I’m encouraged to keep trying new (to me) authors’ books.

See my post on new-to-me authors read in 2011.

See Mysteries in Paradise for other book bloggers’ choices.