Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovelies over at The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme: Best New-to-Me Authors of the year. Not surprisingly several of the authors mentioned hail from the UK.
1. Jenn Ashworth. The Friday Gospels is Ashworth’s third book, and yet I had never heard of her. It would appear that her talent hasn’t reached North America in any big way yet, but I can assure you that she is worth checking out.
2. Amber Dermont. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Need i say more? The Starboard Sea is her first novel, though she has published numerous short stories.
3. Jennifer duBois. I can’t tell you how shocked I was to find out that Cartwheel was not her first novel, and that her previous work has met with much acclaim. This is a writer I should have known and should have read. And you probably should have as well.
4. Kristopher Jansma. His debut novel The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards blew my mind. Jansma is someone I’m going to be keeping my eye on.
5. Lisa O’Donnell. Closed Doors is this Scottish writer’s second novel, and I have her first, The Death of Bees, sitting on my desk as we speak. O’Donnell is a captivating storyteller.
6. Sathnam Sanghera. He was picked as one of the Waterstone’s Eleven this year and I can understand why. Marriage Material may have been one of my favorite books of the year. People in the UK are talking about Sanghera, but I don’t think he is so well known in North America.
7. Maria Semple. She seems to be on everyone’s list. Where’d You Go Bernadette is a funny and heart felt novel that was almost impossible to put down.
8. Graeme Simsion. Simsion, and his novel The Rosie Project, have taken the world by storm. If there is one book this year that I’d recommend to just about anyone is it The Rosie Project. A perfect ray of sunshine from Australia.
9. Abigail Tarttelin. The Golden Boy was A.MAZ.ING. Tarttelin is an all around artist. This comes through in her writing as well. Unlike many of the other UK writers I’ve mentioned, Tarttelin is finding a fair amount of success on the other side of the ocean as well.
10. Mindy Quigley. An American writer with considerable ties to the UK. Her debut novel, A Murder in Mount Moriah, is highly entertaining. Light, humorous and insightful. And I guess I should mention that she is a good friend.
52 books or bust 
Pingback: Top Ten Tuesday: Best New-to-Me Authors of 2013 | Minty Fresh Mysteries
I’ve only read 2 of these, probably the 2 most well known (#7&8). The Golden Boy has been on my radar for a while though, and The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards sounds good too!
I’ve ony read Bernadette which I loved! I’ll have to check out books by some of the other authors on your list.
Great list! I finally broke down and bought Where’d You Go Bernadette? this past week. We’ll see how it goes!
oh dear I haven’t even bought any of these let alone read them. I;ve been blown away by some of the African authors I’ve read this year
I was really trying to broaden my horizons with African writers this year. There is a lot of really good stuff being published! Also I was planning a trip to South Africa, which was subsequently cancelled. Oh well, got some good reading done anyways.
Weird that I’ve not read any of these authors, except Graeme Simsion (I didn’t like The Rosie Project).
You didn’t like The Rosie Project? Not even a little? I imagine it has been getting a lot of attention in Australia. I read it before the hype came over here and that may have helped. Someone gave it to me, I knew nothing about it and i fell in love with it.
I was really glad to have read a book by Jennifer DuBois, too, because now I want to go back and read her first novel. And I totally agree about Golden Boy!
Interesting list! I enjoyed Semple, Ashworth and Simsion, but haven’t tried the others. I have a copy of Marriage Material here and will try to get to it in the next week or two. Hope I enjoy it as much as you did.
You must read Marriage Material. I loved it, but was also shocked by it. I knew that the 80s were not necessarily a time of great racial harmony in the UK, but this book really brought it home for me. Enoch Powell’s words truly shocked the Canadian in me.