Top 5… Authors: K-O

Good evening bookworms!

Late again, but this week it’s my fault…

Today’s Top 5 Tuesday is authors from K-O, which is a continuation from last week’s topic! As I mentioned before, I’m also going to try and not do the obvious choices for letters (there won’t be any Jay Kristoff’s or Holly Black’s on my list) so long as I can find someone else (although you can bet that Maggie Stiefvater will be in the S spot)!

Top 5 Tuesday is hosted by the super lovely Shanah over at the Bionic Bookworm. You can visit her here, and join in for Top 5 Tuesday by checking out all the amazing topics that are coming up!

Brigid Kemmerer

Kemmerer is fast becoming one of my new favourite authors. I love her fantasy and her contemporary novels – seriously she can do no wrong!! A Curse So Dark and Lonely was the first Kemmerer book I ever read (and a review copy at that), as I am down with ALL of the Beauty and the Beast retellings!! (No, seriously, I have read a lot of these…) Following that I read a review copy of Call It What You Want and loved it too. Then I got a review copy of A Heart So Fierce and Broken at the end of last year and it made my top books of 2020. In fact, I think all three books made my top books of 2020…?

I’m still yet to dive into her older books, Letters to the Lost and More Than We Can Tell, but based on the fact that everyone I know who has read them basically screams about them continuously, they really can’t be too bad!!

Mackenzi Lee

insert screaming gif Ahh, Mackenzi Lee is such a breath of fresh air in the historical fiction genre. I mean, it’s not strictly historical fiction… It’s kind of a mash up of queer contemporary, historical fiction, romance, and a splash of fantasy. Anyway, whatever it is, The Gentleman’s Guide of Vice and Virtue is a super fun read!! And, there’s a novella of Monte and Percy if you want some more called The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky. Of course, following this is The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, and late this year is The Nobleman’s Guide to Shipwrecks and Scandal which just sounds like so much fun!!

And totally separate to this, Mackenzi also wrote a Marvel YA novel for one of my favourite characters!! Loki: Where Mischief Lies. I need a baby Tom Hiddleston to come and play this one out in a movie… And, other books of hers I haven’t gotten to yet are This Monstrous Thing and later this year will also be This Madness Blooms – two more historical fictions!!

Melina Marchetta

If you ever read a book when you were 14 and thought ‘wow, this author really gets me’, then you would understand how I felt reading Melina Marchetta’s novel Looking For Alibrandi. I would have read that book I don’t even know how many times. Ten? Twenty? They’re just numbers at this stage. That book was a piece of my soul when I was a teenager. And the story itself is still relevant today. If you want a contemporary that will rip your heart out, scream about the injustices of the world, and make you bawl your eyes out – this is the one you’ve been looking for.

So imagine my absolute delight when I found that she published other contemporary novels AND a fantasy trilogy?! I’ve read The Piper’s Son, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road. I have The Lumatere Chronicles (starting with Finnikin of the Rock) on my must-read list for 2020!! (Cheers for an Aussie author here too!!)

Garth Nix

Garth Nix’s characters owned my heart when I was growing up. The Old Kingdom (former trilogy, now series) was a fast favourite. On one hand, I love Sabriel to death and I wanted so many more stories of hers to read. On the other hand, I also love Lirael so am happy we get a bunch of her stories. (But really, Garth, buddy, can I get some more Sabriel adventures please?) ALSO, I have a lot of love for Mogget. For those of you who don’t know what Mogget is, I’ll try and describe him in terms of other characters… You know in ACOTAR (ACOWAR I think) there was the bone collector who was like a demon trapped in the body of a guy (I think it was the Bone Collector… or one of the other ones), well Mogget is kind of like him, mixed with Mister Kindly (so much sass, honestly), except instead of being a shadow cat, he’s like a big fluffy white cat, and he has a little collar with a NECROMANCY BELL hanging on it. So good.

Also, Garth has written a bunch of other books, including Angel Mage that came out last year. (More cheers because he’s an Aussie too!!)

Alice Oseman

Alice is, of course, the author of the much beloved Heartstopper comics. However, I’ve been reading Alice’s books since Solitaire came out in 2014. I loved this super unconventional contemporary book that is NOT a love story. In fact, it’s a story about growing up and life and social media and the internet and now all of that combined can change who you are and how you see yourself. But also, it’s about Tori Spring, who is Nick (from Heartstopper) Spring’s sister.

Also, there’s the lovingly heart-breaking story of Aled (Nick’s friend) and his neighbour Frances in Radio Silence. Actual soul-crushing material. And then the content you’ve all been waiting for – the amazingly gorgeous story of Nick and Charlie in Heartstopper (web comic AND Vol 1-3). I also have I Was Born For This, but I haven’t read it yet…

Tell me some of your favourite authors, or have you read any books by these ones?