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This is a Good Book Thursday: Under the Radar

So here’s a question:

What authors do you think haven’t gotten enough attention for how good they are?  New authors or those who have been writing for a while, who do you think are writing under the radar?

I ask because all of my recommendations are pretty well known–Jodi Taylor, Mhari McFarlane, Martha Wells, Ben Aaronovitch, T. Kingfisher, and so on–and it’s always good to find new people who write great books.

Also, what did you read that was good this week?

211 Responses

  1. I think on this blog we recommend a lot of pretty niche authors.

    I have been reading a lot of DE Stevenson this week. There is so much heart in her books. They are much better than most people give them credit for. There are always little gems of wisdom nestled in her writing.

    1. I’ve been meaning to read DE Stevenson for ages because Jo Walton keeps recommending her. Where would you start, if you were new to her books?

        1. Thank you! I was just reading the blurb for that one last night, so it’s clearly fated.

  2. I’ve just been rereading. I have books I’m really looking forward to, though.

    All new books by Jenny & Bob.

    Sarah Addison Allens new book Paper Ghosts coming out in September.

    Also there is a song I love by a new to me singer Alice Phoebe Lou. I will put a link in the comments. I think her words will appeal to a lot of arghers.

      1. This was hard to understand, sometimes. The subtitles were also not very helpful. Alice is cute!

    2. THANK YOU, Judy/CC! I LOVE Sarah AA. I didn’t know she has a new book coming out. I rushed right to my library and got in the Hold line. I’m excited!!

    3. Oooh! This is exciting, although I confess I never finished Other Birds. I should try that again.

      1. I didn’t like Other Birds either, but I liked her other novels. So of course, I put a hold on her upcoming book at the library.

  3. Like LN said, it’s great to find authors here that are not regurgitated on all the tsunami-of-attention creating sites.
    I’ve got to meditate a bot about my recs, bit while typing this in the U-Bahn pn my way to the city, EJ Russell comes to mind. For those like me who prefer to read MM nowadays, it’s an author who maybe falls between the genre cracks: no sports/hockey themed books, not smutty (ppen door and nicely done), with lkind characters who are NPT billionaires nor mafia bad boys, nor college characters. No moreg either despite nost of them being mythical/paranormals.
    I’ve re-listened to msny of the titles I binged on last winter and they hold up well.
    Yes, they are rather cozy, but to keep me sane these days, they’re just perfect.

    1. (Re-)Read this week;
      What a surprise… EJ Russell’s Witch under Wraps, not quite a standalone. Loved it.
      Finally finisgmged: Hannah Henry’s Buzzey on You (hockey romance: player and pub owner, age gap, lovely). Similarities to a Bowen book that came out at the same time (my kind of guy) and like most here, I liked this one better than the Bowen. Far more character growth, very 3D if that makes sense. No reason why it took me so long, maybe because one MC has to close the door on one chapter of his life which is never easy. Maybe I just wanted to keep the guys around longer?
      Now reading: the last title in Nora Phoenix’s Princes Pact, The Prince and the Bodyguard. Very micmxed reactions to this series: loved narrator 1 so much I overlooked that a lot didn’t work for me in book 1, didn’tlike it much on reread. Liked book 2 far better in spite ogmf missing the Norwegian accent of book 1 a lot. Book 3 (attempt at a hockey romance) didn’t work at all for me (unrealistic and the Swedish prince being such a door mat??? No, thanks).
      Book 4 now seems really nice. One of the British royals coming out as a big scandal? Not so sure unless he’d also be involved in something as nasty as Randy Andy, but I could be wrong.
      Audio: currently listening to Textbook Defence by Kane/James. I wasn’t sucked in lije with book 1-4 of the series, but I like the narrator, so it could turn out well. Not far enough in yet.

      1. I had the same reaction, Dodo, to the Hannah Henry and Sarina Bowen books that both came out at the same time, had surprisingly similar tropes and preferred the former by far to the latter.

        1. Yeah, I remember your and Christina’s (iirc) reaction. It might have made me approach the Buzzed book with a (positive) bias. I really loved how down to earth and focused on the every day life Henry’s books are. Not flashy, no billionaires with their fancy cars (her books make it very clear that players in the AHL have a different life; that’s something Bowen also didn’t sugar coat). I guess it took me so long to finish the book because it felt as if those were real people and I had the chance to drop in every other day and see how they were faring.
          And funnily enough, the face of a real-life NHLer just continued to pop into my imagination for Skylar the longer I read on. This usually DOES NOT happen to me…

    1. Oh, oh, oh –YES!!! Absolutely. Her Sir Robert Carey series in particular. Fabulous. Such historical knowledge, but worn lightly.

  6. I like Sandra Antonelli’s At Your Service novels. Her previous ones didn’t really do it for me, I don’t know why not. This series could be called James Bond/ Daniel Craig fan fiction, but really in the best sense. They’re quite violent but also humorous and tender; zany and a bit mad (Not unlike the romance novels we *particularly* love! ) The Bond character is up against the Mob with his slightly older butler/ landlady. Their banter is fun, the settings interesting. It’s not top of my romance list by any means, but I do feel they deserve more attention.

  7. Angela Thirkell is an English author whom I have mentioned here before, in the mode of DE Stevenson, EF Benson, EM Delafield, Jane Austen, Barbara Pym, PG Wodehouse, etc. Thirkell is a very witty novelist of manners, such that although not much happens in the books (slight plots with coupling at the end à la Jane Austen), the humorous observations re human behavior and foibles are very funny. Thirkell was Book of the Month Club here in the states several times before WWII (and her books written during the war are much-admired social history). The books of the 1930s and 40s are considered much better than those of the 1950s (also interesting social history but not quite as amusing). If you like her work, you would be happy to know there are 28 books in the Barsetshire series, set in Anthony Trollope’s imaginary county.

  8. I think Taylor Fitzpatrick is overlooked, likely because she is writing MM hockey and she isn’t Rachel Reid or Sarina Bowen. But she’s actually the best out there. I can’t think of too many writers who can capture a point of view and stick with it for an entire book like Taylor. I’ve been rereading at a leisurely pace her Impaired Judgement; it’s long, beautiful, smart, funny and totally free on A03.

    I listened to Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, which won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was named by the NYT as one of the top 100 books of the 21st Century. It’s translated from the original Polish. An older woman obsessed with astrology and William Blake (hence the title) and her unusual group of friends gets involved in a murder mystery. It was incredibly dreary and by the end I wanted someone to drive a plow over my bones.

    To go along with a poor reading week, I also read/skimmed The Boy Bride by AJ Demas. What a hot mess of a book. The two MC’s don’t even speak to each over until the 40% mark. There’s a whole bunch of characters none of whom I cared about, a lot of flashbacks and I think it was supposed to be funny. But it wasn’t.

    I finished the second book in Rachel Neumeier’s Invictus Duology. The first was much better, but it was still satisfying to read the second and see all the threads of the plot come together.

    Travis Baldree has a short story out called Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk that I can only describe as peculiar.

    1. I posted my comments before reading yours — snap! Taylor Fitzpatrick definitely tops the list for me too.

    2. I loved ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ by Olga Tokarczuk, I thought it was a lot of fun and interesting.

    3. Agree about Taylor Fitzpatrick, She is really good and has a lot available on AO3 as well as the published ones which are fab.

    4. Tammy, I cannot find Impaired Judgement by Taylor Fitzpatrick on AO3. You’ve got me really keen to read it. Could you give me a link? Or is it the one published under the name youcouldmakealife?

    6. Tammy, where did you find the Baldree short, if you don’t mind my asking. Thanks!

  9. I grabbed a book off the New Releases shelf at the library called Harmless Women by Rebecca Sharpe; she seems to be new.
    It’s a thriller with three POVs (so far): a woman who steals from women, one of her victims who isn’t what she thought, and an older woman–I don’t know how she fits in yet.
    I’m only a few short chapters in, and so far I’m annoyed that I have to do things like work, chores, and talk to people instead of reading it.
    My weekend will be spent avoiding all those things, and I’ll update when I’m done, but I’ll still recommend it at this point.

    1. Also, ewlewis, I replied to your planner question, finally, on the Good Sunday post, but days afterward.

  10. I’m apparently so far out of the mainstream in what I write and read, and in particular so unenthused about so many subgenres of fiction, I’m not a great person to ask for recommendations. 🙂 I’m currently focused on a genre I’m calling Gay By Gay which I know doesn’t appeal to many here. Though it pains me to say so, the recommendation engine at AMZ is my best source of new books.

    And on that note, this week’s reading:

    1. [re-read] my own novel ‘The Ghost of Carlos Gardel,’ the one about my community of LA dancers & actors bringing together an indie film about … Carlos Gardel. Stars Andy & Victor, co-stars a lot of others. I think it works as a standalone, but there are a lot of characters and more than the two POVs. No regrets. This was a book I needed to write.

    2. ‘Canceled for Christmas’ by Oliver Takely, which is probably the last of his US-set books I’ll try. This is my third read from him; the one set in England was much better. I am just not about insta-lust, gratuitous sex taking the place of talking, insta-love via personality transplant, etc.

    3. ‘Essays of E.B. White’ from Perennial Classics. A great book full of great writing.

    4. ‘The Stoker Connection’ by Jackson Marsh. A person who’s favorably reviewed several of my books has been raving about this author, but most of Marsh’s books are MM historical mystery/thriller and in series, so I haven’t yet dived. However, this one is MM contemporary standalone. I liked it VERY much. The MCs are 18 yrs old, both in their last year of school pre university, having both independently developed theories about the truth underlying Bram Stoker’s Dracula. They join forces (eventually also bringing in each of their BFFs). Humor, teenage realism, sweetness. It’s a quest, coming-of-age, thriller, *and* romance novel.

    5. ‘Augustin Station’ by Justin Greak. Liked this one a whole lot, too. It’s a coming-out novel starring a 34 yr old American teacher working in Sweden … alongside his wife. On a solo holiday in Romania, he meets a professor, leading to a long encounter during which many boxes are opened. It’s supportive, compassionate, affectionate, and honest, though they are not destined to meet again. The book concludes as POV guy is several years into a new, open life. Some lovely writing, apparently drawn from the other’s own life.

    2. I love EB White’s essays.
      Somewhere I also have his letters which are also well worth reading.
      I remember the phrase in a letter to a paper
      “I can only assume that the editorial writer in a hurry to get home for Thanksgiving, tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.”
      I need to reread those.

  11. For romance – Kayley Loring. Especially in audiobook, because she has an amazing ear for dialogue and comedy. I especially recommend her book “The Love Interest” to anyone who also writes or has written. It’s fantastic.

  12. This week I reread a couple of Sandra Hill books, Tall, Dark, and Cajun and also Snow on the Bayou. Didn’t like them as much as I did the first time around. And I bought a new book from an author I really like and could only get through 50 pages before giving up.

    I confess I rarely like the “hot new must read!” books. Several members in my book club only want to read those. My d-i-l is also an avid reader (and aspiring writer) and she will sometimes try reading the book club book for me. LOL! She gave up on a couple of them too. She skipped to the end on one and said it ended as stupidly as she’d predicted.

    My favorite recent finds are the Retired Assassin’s Guide books. Thanks to everyone here who recommended them.

    1. Have you seen the new Amazon Prime series, “Ride or Die”? The two women leads are best friends in a book club, and one of them always reads and annotates the book, while the other one doesn’t read them at all and just guesses about the contents. (Well, then they go on an adventure spree since the obsessively prepared one is an assassin and someone’s out to get the other one.)

  13. As I get older and pickier (so picky), I find that most of my favorite authors are pretty niche. Mainstream work is boring and heavy handed. It’s overly simplified and overly dramatized. And don’t I sound like a snob? But there we are.

    Pretty much all of my auto-buy authors are on the fringes, although some of them are gaining traction. In no particular order:

    Jennifer Crusie
    Alexis Hall
    KJ Charles
    CM Nascosta
    Peter S Beagle
    Charles De Lint
    Charlie Adhara
    CS Poe
    Sherwood Smith
    Carolyn Stevermer and Patricia C Wrede
    Meljean Brook/Milla Vane
    Franny Billingsly
    Katherine Addison
    Sarah Addison Allen
    Forthright
    Alexandra Rowland
    Tamara Pierce

    There are probably more, but the list is already too long. These are all authors who have permanently altered my brain chemistry in some way or other, whose books live in my brain and make me think about things. I will read pretty much any genre (except westerns and Christian lit) and most of these sit on the outside. Some of them feel forgotten by time.

    Unrelated, but I have been seeing articles lately about AI companies buying up old physical books to scan and then shred and my inner book dragon has once again been awakened. I have been working so hard to have less things, but now I feel like I am in the middle of Fahrenheit 451. It’s not irresponsible to buy more books, it’s a gift to the future. I need more bookshelves.

    1. Have you bumped into any of Patricia McKillip’s books? Most were printed in the 1980s but they hold up remarkably well, and fit into your timeline with Tamora Pierce and Charles DeLint. She’s generally on the edge of SFF writing, closer to fantasy. the Riddle Master of Hed made a permanent crease in my thinking at a young age!

      1. I love Patricia McKillip. Her storytelling inspired how I wrote my Baba Yaga books (although she’s much better than I am). I’ve read everything she’s every written, and there’s not a bad one in the bunch.

      2. Oh yes. Od Magic was amazing to me when I found her in college. She does tread on the edge of too dark for me sometimes (Forgotten Beasts of Eld) , but her books are also so beautiful.

    4. The three I’m not familiar with here: Charles De Lint, Carolyn Stevermer and Patricia C Wrede and Franny Billingsly – can you say more about what they write?

      1. I used to love Charles de Lint so much. I must go back to rereading him. There was that book about a young woman who is a fantasy writer. I can’t remember the title but I absolutely loved it back in the day.

          1. I have had a look at his books on Amazon and I think it might be Yarrow but I am not 100% sure. I’ll have to read it and report next week.

            As Lupe says, they are a bit on the dark side but I really liked this idea of another reality just a step away that is quite dangerous but also beautiful.

            There are a lot of connected stories and recurrent characters and there’s a mix of celtic and native american traditions which at the time was very unusual.

          2. I’ll put it on my list. Am trying to stop doing compulsive behaviours like buying books that I don’t immediately read and instead reread tried and true favourites. Sigh.

      2. Charles De Lint is somewhere between urban fantasy and magical realism. His stories are on the dark side, but beautiful. Heavier than I usually read now, but this was college when I was lighter. The Onion Girl is where I started but I don’t know if that is the best place? His characters and timelines seem like they intertwine a lot.

        Stevermer and Wrede are both mostly YA fantasy. I found a book they wrote together, a tattered paperback, on my mother’s shelf when I was young. Sorcery and Cecilia. It’s an alt historical magical romp and kind of wonky in style, all conducted as letters between the two authors/characters, but I find it charming. Both have stand-alone work, mostly YA. Stevermer isn’t afraid of a less-than-happy ending but Wrede is light and fun.

        Billingsly has a new one out that I haven’t read yet. She is also YA fantasy, mostly folk lore based, with a dark-ish edge, twisty, but things mostly turn out ok. I really liked both Chime and The Folk Keeper, which is more of a novella length.

        I don’t read this genre much now, and haven’t visited them in years so they may not hold up, but they all made a dent in my young and youngish psyche and I still have paper copies, I think.

        1. Patricia Wrede is one of my favorites (lots of humor, great female characters), and I love that set of books she did with Stevermer (2 or maybe 3, they were historical fantasy, and just charming).

        2. Although I enjoy everything I’ve read by either Stevermer or Wrede, separately or together, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Wrede are absolutely wonderful – as good as books written by Diana Wynne Jones. Highly recommended, especially for young girls.

      3. Franny Billingsley is wonderful. Her children’s novel (also works for adults) A Murmuration of Starlings, pubbed in North America as The Robber Girl, is one of my all time favourite books. Stunning characterisation and a very unreliable narrator.

        1. That’s what I call a recommendation. Have immediately ordered a copy. I have read The Folk Keeper but not run across this one before.

      4. Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer co-wrote a quite delightful Regency fantasy triology, starting with Sorcery and Cecilia, and Patricia Wrede also wrote Maireleon the Magician/Magician’s Ward set in the same universe. Caroline Stevermer’s output is a bit up and down, but I really wish she had continued The Serpenth’s Egg. These books are definitely worth trying if you like funny fantasy in a historical setting.

    5. I forgot to Tamors Pierce on my list because she hasn’t come out with anything in so long. But I own everything she’s written. I also forgot ALYSSA Cole, Beverley Jenkins

      1. Tamora Pierce is wonderful. Tammy has had a lot of health issues, and divorced her husband, and moved, and hasn’t been writing much. I know she was working on a massive novel about the early life of her wizard character, but I’m not sure if it ever got finished. She’s mostly been putting out new versions of her older books (they’re even working on graphic novels), but I’m not sure if we’ll ever get anything new, alas. She’s a sweetheart.

        1. (She’s a friend, which is why I know this stuff, in case you were wondering. You can also follow her on her Patreon, if you’re a fan.)

  14. My regular reading report first. It may take time and coffee to come up with underappreciated authors.

    •Neil deGrasse Tyson, Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter, 2026.  Audiobook capably read by the author. (I also consulted the 2026 print version.)

    The following is what Tyson thinks he has written, extracted from his website: “Drawing on a wealth of depictions from history, literature, pop culture, and film, Tyson applies the universal laws of physics to make the case for what Aliens might look like, act like, how they might travel through the universe to reach us, and what they might think of us upon arrival. Should such an event occur, Tyson further offers useful etiquette tips for your first close encounter. … Take Me to Your Leader is a tantalizing exploration of what would be the most mind-blowing experience of your life—the book for anyone who has ever wondered: Are we alone?”  [My ellipsis.]

    My take: The book presents Tyson’s musings on possible alien intelligent life, with emphasis on depictions on the screen, speculations in the UFO community, and ones in serious science, in about that order of priority. The book is amusing, and I did pick up, or was reminded of, a few scraps of knowledge or striking opinion.

    Unfortunately,  Tyson’s book has many negatives to weigh against the positives. In fact, the book gives me the distinct impression that Tyson has now reached that level of fame and marketablity where his publisher will buy anything he writes in whatever version that Tyson chooses to deliver it, swallowing whatever faint impulses toward editorial duty that a modern publisher may still possess. The book is written as if Tyson had deliberately chosen to write it straight off the top of his head.  Moreover, Tyson conveys the impression that, while he is quick to reach for the remote control, in his adult life he has rarely cracked open the cover of any book that was either a) fiction of any sort, or b) nonfiction on a subject other than one closely associated with his work as a science communicator or onetime working astrophysicist.

    Thus his book begins with a rant against the fact that aliens are almost always represented in film and TV as humanoids.  He lists a tedious number of examples and rare exceptions, pretty much ignoring the fact that before advanced computers, Hollywood was constrained by the limitations of special effects, and even now is constrained by the necessity to convey through the screen a story that humans can easily relate to. Meanwhile, as the book’s Wikipedia article puts it, “The New York Times indicated that Tyson ‘almost entirely ignores an art form that isn’t constrained by practical considerations — the dazzlingly inventive world of science fiction novels and short stories.'”  The only references to post-H.G. Wells written sf that I noted in the book were to: 1) the Terry Bisson short story “They’re Made Out of Meat,” which Tyson perhaps stumbled across because it originally appeared in the popular-science magazine Omni rather than a genre publication; 2) Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five; 3) Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud; 4) Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain; and 5) Carl Sagan’s Contact.  I note that, although Tyson explicitly mentions the books, there are screen versions of four of the five the above novels .  (An additional borderline case, dubiously science-fictional, is Whitney Streiber’s UFO novel Communion, which also has a screen version.)

    In the book, Tyson frequently ventures into the field of history, where he demonstrates both his ignorance and the absence of much fact-checking.  Making a valid point about the slowness of lightspeed communication over interstellar distances, Tyson says, “So, without wormhole communication, if we received signals from Aliens today, those signals would have been sent five thousand years ago, back when we were inventing paper.”  [Tyson idiosyncratially capitalizes “alien,” in the sense “extraterrestrial,” throughout.]  Any schoolchild who paid attention in class knows that paper was invented by the Chinese not 5000, but only about 2200 years ago. Tyson seems to be thinking of papyrus, a substance with very different properties and history.

    Distressingly for a science educator, Tyson’s views on the history of religion do not seem to have progressed beyond what one might have expected of a doctrinaire Positivist of the 1920s.  He mischaracterizes Copernicus and hauls in those supposed martyrs for science, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei.  (Both were martyrs for freedom of speech, more literally in Bruno’s case, but neither was a martyr for science, although explaining the actual circumstances would take us far afield.) Tyson then makes the ridiculous assertion that a 2009 scientific conference at the Vatican was “[i]nspired by rampant reports of UFOs and Alien abductions.” I can find no evidence online that this was the inspiration. It seems much more likely that the motive instead was the usual scientific speculations on the probability of alien life, and even intelligent life, arising elsewhere in the universe. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute, certainly no UFO chaser, was one of the participants.  A contributing factor could have been that several astronomers at the Vatican Observatory were, unlike Tyson, known sf readers. Jesuit Brother Guy Colsolmagno, now director emeritus of the Observatory, was already working there in 2009, and he is an sf-convention-attending fan, and has been since his college days at MIT in the 1970s.

    As for the various formats, the eye-book version contains an index and notes absent from the audio version. The ebook has one set of endnotes, designated by Roman numerals, that perhaps appear as actual footnotes in the paper version. These supply additional details. (If memory seves, at least some of those notes are incorporated into the main text of the audio version.)  A separate set of endnotes, designated by Arabic numerals, identify some but far from all of Tyson’s sources, and some of them are worth following up.

    Given Tyson’s skill as is a speaker and a writer, I find some value in hearing his extemporizations even on a subject on which he has done glaringly inadequate research.  If the listener or reader knows little about the general subject, they may learn considerably more that is new to them than I did, although I worry that such a callow reader might also take at face value Tyson’s lacunae, inaccuracies, and outmoded Positivism.  For the rest of us, his book is perhaps worth borrowing from the library, but not worth paying money for.

  15. Ha! I remember when Martha Wells was not well known, before Murderbot, so I’ll claim her as one of my stealth favorites. I tend to work my way along the various SFF awards lists and that serves me well for finding new authors, and also new to me authors. My current favorite is Liz Williams, found reading Comet Weather, now working though her backlist. Another favorite is Victoria Goddard – she writes a LOT and also a couple of real door stop books, but her characters are SO delightful, and settings are fascinating. If you’re daunted by the size of The Hands of the Emperor (reasonable, it is a solid 1000 pages) then try Stargazey Pie and meet a slightly younger crowd.

    1. To denote fairly modern sf, I used to write “post-Wells,” but since Martha Wells’s recent fame, for clarity I decided to make it the slightly more awkward “post-H.G. Wells.”

    2. The Stargazy Pie series is much more picaresque, more swashbuckling adventure, a very different mood and atmosphere than The Hands of the Emperor – neither is bad, and there are points of connection between the two series, but don’t expect a continuation of the reading experience of Hands when picking up the other series books.
      Some of the related novellas might also be a good taste-test for if you’ld enjoy her writing.

        1. I am with you. I loved loved the Hands of the Emperor and it’s satellite short stories but I couldn’t get on with the other stories.

    3. Yes! I always thought Martha Wells was vastly under-appreciated during her Ile-Rien days when I first started reading her books. I was so happy when Murderbot came out, both because it was so much fun, and because she was finally getting the recognition she deserves.

  16. TM Baumgartner. She has range and depth, writing urban fantasy, sci-fi fantasy, and fun cozies under Tess Baytree.

    Will come back with more names if they come to me…

  17. •Jane Austen, Persuasion, 1817 (posthumously published, written 1815 to 1816); audiobook capably read by Rosalyn Landor, 2016

    In 1814, Ann Elliot, at 27, knows that by the standards of her day, she is distinctly past her best-by date for catching a husband, and what is more, she is still carrying a torch for Fredrick Wentworth, with whom she almost became engaged in the summer of 1806.  Wentworth back then had just made commander, meaning that (like Jack Aubrey in O’Brian’s Master and Commander) he could expect to receive his first command of a small warship, but had not yet been made post-captain. Indeed, lacking high-level influence, in 1806 Wentworth was still waiting for a ship, and (unmentioned by Austen) peace negotiations between France and Britain had been taking place, so it remained unclear if he would ever get one. Thus Wentworth lacked both financial prospects and  blue blood, the latter of importance to both Ann’s father and her closest female advisor, and Ann had bowed the the counsel of people older and supposedly wiser.

    Eight years on, in 1814, the wars are over, save for, unmentioned by Austen, that vexatious little spinoff war with the Americans, and even for that war, peace negotiations are in progress.  Wentworth is on shore again for an indefinite period. He has been promoted to post-captain and has made a substantial but not aristocratic fortune of £25,000 in prize money.  (If his money was conservatively invested in government bonds, the then-current effective annual interest rate would have been about £1125.  He also would receive a bit less than £200 per year as half-pay while, as we would say today, remaining in the naval reserve.)  Wentworth likewise is carrying a torch for Ann. If, as Jo Walton has suggested, romance novels are really about economics and not love, the path would seem to be clear when Wentworth reappears on the scene.  Unfortunately, there is a Big Misunderstanding, in that Ann thinks Fredrick Wentworth hates her for the deep wound of rejecting him and has moved on, while Fredrick thinks that Ann is after a bigger fish in the form of her cousin once removed, William Elliott, who is thought to be rich and who will also become a baronet and inherit the family estate when Ann’s father dies.

    Actually, besides the complications in the main plotline, there are more other subplots going on than would be typical of a modern genre romance. In any case, all ends happily for all the deserving characters. (Mrs. Smith’s presumable slaves in Barbados are, unfortunately for them, far offstage.) 

    By the time that Austen finished the novel in 1816, she knew that the Hundred Days and the tail end of the American war lay in Ann and Fredrick’s future, but she knew no more than that.  I doubt that there would have been time or necessity to recall Wentworth for either of those events.  Austen speaks of the risks in becoming a sailor’s wife, so she seems to think that there is more of a chance of Fredrick’s having a further naval career than I can see, in light of information she did not have.  (Unless somewhere he has picked up an unmentioned influential sponsor in recent years and hence could receive command of a ship even in the downsized postwar Navy.)

    This is perhaps my fourth or fifth rereading of the novel, and I still picked up new bits.  This time I also was struck by Ann’s statement that she still thinks that under the circumstances she was right to reject Fredrick in 1806, but that if he had written her in 1808 after she had matured a bit more and he had earned his first prize money, been made post-captain, and had been given a ship worthy of that rank, things would have been different.  So Ann is still not a person who sees herself as ever, like the heroine of some poem or ballad, risking all for love.

    1. Thanks, lovely description and review of Persuasion. Another for the reread pile.

      1. I reread all of Jane Austen’s novels faifthfully twice a year through my 20s and early 30s and then I completely stopped. I have reread them all recently spurred on by an excellent podcast episode on BBC4 where Melvyn Bragg discussed Persuasion with his guest. Persuasion was my favourite back in the day and it still is with Mansfield Park a close second. I just really really like Anne.

  18. I think Taylor Fitzpatrick tops my list as the most Under-the-Radar author. In this era where M/M hockey romance is so hot I don’t understand why she hasn’t gained deserved recognition because she is (imho) the best out there. Another one – also in the M/M hockey genre — is Catherine Cloud; she runs a very close second to Taylor Fitzpatrick in skill and yet doesn’t seem to be as widely known as she should be.

    I reread “Husband Material” by Alexis Hall (in preparation for his latest) and loved it again. This time I recognized the tribute to Four Weddings and a Funeral (I’d totally missed that the first time around) and appreciated it that much more. There were some laugh out loud moments and I enjoyed it even more this time around. I am giving the series a little break before reading his latest “Father Material”.

    Otherwise it was a dud of a reading week for me. I DNF’d quite a few books on my TBR pile and finally stuck with “The Accidentals” by Sarina Bowen which many Arghers loved but which didn’t strike a chord with me. It’s the coming of age story of an 18 year old coming to terms with the rock star father she never knew, dealing with the loss of her mother, falling in love for the first time and getting a sense of who she is. I liked the way the father-daughter relationship unfolded but the rest of it (including the romance) just didn’t work for me and I was relieved once I’d finished it. Probably a case of me being in the wrong frame of mind.

    I’m now starting a reread of Books 1 and 2 of the TA Moore series “Digging up Bones” so that I will be up to speed for book 3 which came out last month.

    1. Yes to both Taylor Fitzpatrick and Catherine Cloud for MM hockey lovers.

      Catherine Cloud is cosy (not in the crime sense) low angst. In addition to her published work, on AO3 her current ‘Snippets from Seattle’ is lovely. I am always happy when a new episode comes out.

      1. Me too re Snippets from Seattle. When she’s finished it, I’ll have to turn around and re-read the whole thing.

      2. I despair of trying to find anything on AO3. I’ve tried variants of both Snippets from Seattle and Catherine Cloud, but it comes up blank every time.

        1. https://archiveofourown.org/series/2579419 . She’s posted it as a series rather than an individual work.

          The way both Cloud and Fitzpatrick post each chapter as an individual work drives me nuts. Fine if you’re reading it in the web browser but I prefer to save my eyes and download to my e-reader, which is an option if they just used the site as intended. I know I shouldn’t complain but it really does make me less likely to read their work. Sigh.

          2. Thanks, both of you! I can see that the individual chapters are going to make it clunky, but like you, I want to read it on my e-reader.

          5. I did not put these together so you can ignore any unknown folders with impunity. I haven’t looked at them myself.

        2. I agree with you that AO3 is hard to navigate (and hideously frustrating) but I’ve found it to be worth the effort — after much gnashing of teeth. That said some of both Catherine Cloud and Taylor Fitzpatrick’s books are available on Amazon as fully formed ebooks as well — Fitzpatrick’s “Between the Teeth” series as well as “You Could Make a Life” and Catherine Cloud’s “Love and Other Inconveniences” and at least 4 others.

        3. Tammy, did you put these together? If so, double thank-you!

          OK, so YCMAL is Taylor Fitzpatrick’s “You Could Make a Life”, theundiagnosable is as it says, and thesameoldstreets are Catherine Cloud. What are olympus mons, takeit makeit, and Ngozi Ukasu?

          If you put the folder together, I’ll assume they’re good and take a look. Otherwise I might avoid enlarging my tbr. 🙂

  19. Hmmm … I have no real sense of how well known authors are. Nicholas Whyte has market penetration stats for the Hugo finalists and I was really surprised by which ones has the most GoodRead reviews etc. I think we cover a pretty big range of authors on Argh, but if I go to another site it’s often a different set of authors that are shared reference points.

    Best thing I read this week was “The Isle in the Silver Sea” by Tasha Suri (2025). It’s a very meta story where the land is physically sustained by story tales (and the Fae etc are made of ink!) mixed with a nice f/f love story between the Witch and the Knight who are destined to kill each other in order to fulfil their story. I would have like slightly more on the secondary m/m romance, but the point is more about how culture shapes story and what makes a culture vibrant. Similar in themes to Alix E. Harrow’s “Everlasting”, also published last year.

    “The Adventures of Mary Darling” by Pat Murphy (2025) is a likable mashup of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes – positing what if Wendy’s mother was John Watson’s niece, and decided to rescue the children herself. I really like Mary and the framing of Peter Pan, I like all the little bits of history, and I liked the rather critical look at Holmes. It is doing a lot of things, which slightly diluted the emotional power of a woman rescuing her children, but I enjoyed it and am glad I read it.

    I also read the first two books of the Hierarchy series by James Islington. “The Will of the Many” (2023) was a fast read with an engaging protagonist through a Roman-inspired world and I picked up the second book immediately. “The Strength of the Few” (2025) slowed down due to a split narrative and by the end of it I had no idea of how its going to resolve, so book 3 is going to be decisive in whether I ultimately like the series and he hasn’t even finished it yet 🙁

    “Any Ordinary Day” by Leigh Sales (2018) is non-fiction about how people react to tragedy. The first chapter is devastating but after that I found it pretty interesting. Some fascinating interviews with people who made the headlines, but also with the various people around death – the coroner, the police detective, the counsellor, the priest .

    Best of the short fiction was “We Begin where Infinity Ends” by Somto Ihezue (2025) which is a love story really, featuring a couple of teenagers trying to save fireflies. Loved it and nice to see it nominated for a Nebula and an Igntye. Free online at Clarkesworld: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ihezue_02_25/ (also audio)

    (Mini-rant – what is with the increased instances of smoking in fiction? Are they paying for product placement or are the quit campaigns fading? I dnf’d one book at 25 pages, and almost cried when another had a protagonist start smoking in the epilogue – argh!).

    1. Yuri, I also noticed that it seems to become in/hip again to smoke – if I can take some very *in* actors being photographed rather often snd deliberazely with cigarwttes that are clearly no props. Is it their sign to be /look the indie/ unconventional type? To rebel?
      I prefer to invest my money in things like books instead of disgusting little stickd that get me addicted.
      I’m with you, Yuri, that I find it faaaaar from attractive.

      1. I find it baffling. And unethical – having an MC smoke helps to normalize a product that kills people. Sure the impact of each instance is going to be tiny, but why be part of the problem?

        1. And honestly, the smell is just soooo awful: everything smells horribly, the skin, the clothes, your tastebuds get numb, even the walls in your living quarters get soaked in Nicotine and it’s a nightmare to try and get rid of the residue (neighbours tried it, but the smell lingers on after decades). Whenever we returned from visits with the in-laws, the first stop was the shower, with all the clothes going into the washing machine. F-i-l stopped after his heartattack, but m-i-l didn’t have the strength until well after her 80s birthday. I wish she’d been able to stop sooner. Maybe my husband’s father wouldn’t have had to succumb to cancer then.
          Needless to say, hubby is an avid non-smoker. I wouldn’t have found him attractive if he’d smoked anyway.
          I’m soooo glad smoking isn’t allowed in indoor-eating venues in my neck of the world anymore!

          1. Yup my mother was a nurse – showed my cancer lungs, which should have been the reason I never started, but really it was the boy who I kissed when I was 15 – couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth for days, ugh.

          2. Yep, seeing info, even horrible pictures, has hardly the same effect than experiencing something as ugly and horrible as e.g a kiss that feels like diving into a saliva mixed into an ashtray, right?

  21. Well, there’s this obscure author named Deborah Blake…I hear she’s quite good. (Humor, har.)

    I have a few author friends I think don’t get enough attention: Alethea Kontis, who wrote this great fairy tale series about the Woodcutter Sisters. Sadly, the series was canceled, but she finally self-published another one, Thieftess, about one of the sisters who becomes a pirate queen. The first one in the series is called Enchanted. Alex Bledsoe, who has written some wonderful books including a sword and sorcery series. Jim C. Hines, who has been mentioned here a few times. Nan Reinhardt, who writes lovely romances. She’s currently doing a set of cowboy romances, which is SO not my genre, but I’m still loving them. She does great characters and community.

    This week I’m reading Jenny Colgan’s latest, set in Scotland as always, Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages. I found her first books quite charming, but she does a truly egregious amount of head-hopping and her more recent characters are less likeable. I keep saying I’m not going to get the next one, then I do. But I’m itching to read the 2nd retired assassin book, so this one is seeming quite slow…

      1. I loved everything he wrote except his Southern Vampire books (set in the 1970’s). Read the first one, and it was such horror, I asked him if his wife slept with one eye open, lol.

    3. I felt the same when I read the latest Jenny Colgan too Deborah. Felt like she was phoning it in, and did not have the same kindness, humour and heart as her previous books. Fortunately (as she is Scottish) my library usually stocks her books so I didn’t have to buy it – I would have felt annoyed it I had.

      1. She has apparently gotten big enough that my library system carries her books, so I also didn’t have to buy it. (And yet they don’t carry Trisha Ashley or Katie Fforde, both of whom are huge best sellers in the UK. Go figure.)

        1. Just thirsting here. Jenny Colgan used to be an auto buy for me but her last few books have been gradually losing me.

  22. No matter how many awards she has accrued, Lois McMaster Bujold always seems undervalued to my way of thinking. I just love everything she writes.

    Also, I’ve read Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone, what should be my next choice?

    1. I really liked Kingfisher’s Snake Eater, but that may be because it is set in the Arizona desert.

      Have you read The Goblin Emperor, by Kathrine Addison? It’s one of my favorites.

      1. Loved The Goblin Emperor! And also, The Witness for the Dead. Which I just looked up and discovered two more books in that series… making me so happy right now!

      2. Have listened to The Goblin Emperor many, many times this July. It is one of my favourite books. Recommended it to many. Also, Murderbot. I probably would have never discovered the books if I had not been reading this blog.

    3. I like her Clocktaur Wars – a duology, mostly I think because a single book would have been too big – that is situated in the center of a world she keeps expanding. she’s also got a series about the Paladins of Steel that I’ve really loved, any title that starts with Paladin of something will get you going there.

    4. Sword heart. Great middle aged woman heroine who escapes her m in l . Funny and tender and exciting and not too much horror.

  23. I read this week Iona Whishaw’s A Killer in King’s Cove. Set in post WW2 British Columbia and to do a bit with spies, PTSD, rural life. I liked it, I felt it could have been lightened up a bit with some humor but I will aquire the next in the series.
    Just reread also the unfinished Austens- the Watsons and Sanditon. Lady Susan, which was sort of finished but rather abruptly, as if the author lost interest.
    I really like a version of Sanditon by Jane Austen ‘and another lady’; I note that it has been finished again by at least one other writer but I am nervous to read a different ending from the one I have internalized!

  24. Back in my youth I snapped up everything that Tim Powers and James P Blaylock put out. They were writing steampunk before that was a thing. They even shared a character or two. I still auto-buy them, but I may not immediately read them. If you’ve never read The Drawing of the Dark by Powers – that’s a mix of Arthurian legend and beer and the siege of Vienna by the Turks back in the 1500s. The other of his I never tire of is The Anubis Gates, a time travel tale, where modern folks go back to Victorian England.

    Meanwhile, I’ve been working through the Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting. This one, at least so far, is more truly a Dante story, with able support from the other folks from the previous book. I’m enjoying it so far.

    1. Oh, heck yeah! I haven’t checked their lists lately. Thanks for the reminder–Blaylock in particular lives deep in my heart!

    2. I love the Blaylock series with Jonathan Bing, master cheesemaker! The first two books: The Elfin Ship, and The Disappearing Dwarf, are the best.

  25. On audio I am really enjoying ‘The Hands of the Emperor’ by Victoria Goddard. As Lee says above, it is a big book- more than 31 hours. I have 20 hours to go and am happy to have so much left (and there is a follow up, just out, that is 38 hours!). Not action packed, but lovely main characters, settings and discussions of public service.

    In reading I am still hanging out on AO3. Just finishing ‘The disappearances of Draco Malfoy’ by speechwriter, a Dramione. Well plotted, slow burn with some great set pieces.

    1. I love these books SO MUCH!! You can tell they are fiction because the government works? but Kip… wonderful dedicated Kip and his determination to make things better.

  26. Thinking about it, maybe if my local library doesn’t have an author without me ordering it, then maybe she’s under the radar?

    Seconding Lupe’s suggestions of Alexandra Rowland and KJ Charles in particular. Plus:

    Ari Baran
    Evie Dunmore
    Farah Heron
    Ginn Hale
    Harper Fox
    Jenn Lyons
    Lyn Gala
    Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
    Stella Riley
    Victoria Goddard
    Wen Spencer

    1. I remember really enjoying Lyn Gala’s stuff back when she was only doing fanfic. Good writer!

    2. Oh, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Their Liad series is so amazing if you enjoy scifi. I hope Sharon is able to wrap it up.

  27. Underappreciated authors: A couple that come readily to mind could be underappreciated because their opus is of variable appeal depending on the book. But I like a lot of what I’ve read of Brenda Clough, whose Revise the World I recommended here repeatedly. The same is true of Barbara Hambly. I may think of others later.

  28. This week, I have read a book that was connected with work stuff, Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, which has some interesting reflection exercises to help explore options and opportunities.

    Also glommed up Book 6 of the Slough House/Slow Horses books, just a day’s read, wonderful!

    Under the radar writers: Jude Morgan, who was incredibly versatile, but hasn’t published anything recently that I’m aware of. This is one of the pen-names of Tim Wilson, who also wrote as Hannah March. Absolutely wonderful writer, who wrote the best non-Heyer regencies that I’ve read, plus reinterpretations of the lives of Berlioz, the Brontes and Shakespeare. Hannah March books were historical detective books.

    Another unsung author is Patricia Finney/PF Chisholm who wrote a series of terrific Elizabethen-set thrillers.

    1. Nothing much by Tim Wilson under any pseudonym seems to be in eprint in the US, although a couple of Hannah Marches are in overpriced ebooks and his novel about the Brontes is available in Spanish translation more reasonably. The Spanish title is El sabor de las penas; I’d need to research to find the English title.

      1. I’m seeing A Little Folly by Jude Morgan on Bookshop.org in the US, if that helps.

  29. I love TE Kinsey’s Lady Hardcastle series about a pre WWI lady and her maid who are former secret agents of the crown.

    Also Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness series is a favorite. Plus Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight series. Claudia Gray’s Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney series too.

    I’d recommend my own books since I was writing romantasy before it became a thing worth of its own tag.

  30. Norah Lofts! I typed a longish piece about her but it disappeared before I could post it. 🙁 Running out of time.
    The Concubine, about Anne Boleyn I’d recommend. She doesn’t always give you a happy ending but she makes you feel that you know what it was like to live then.
    Modern ones I don’t like at all. The trilogy about the house and the generations of families who live there is great. The Golden Fleece is one of her best – on the rugged side, but worth it I think. White Hell of Pity is one of her downers. Amazon has very little of hers. Seems really stupid to me that some of her great ones are out of print. I have them all I believe, collected over many years.
    I could go on and on about her but out of time. I’d love to hear if there are any other Lofts fans here.

    2. I was addicted to Norah Lofts in my teens. Having reread some of them relatively recently I found them pleasantly free of the suck fairy who visits so many older books.

  31. Well, I had to send Nora Roberts, the Final Target back to the library before it was finished and could not renew it as somebody else had a hold on it. Not a problem I have additional holds on the book. Do you want to know why I couldn’t finish it? I’ll tell you anyway. I think she loves descriptions. Any flower, wooden bowl, bed frame, paint sample, sheet set and duvet cover etc. You name it she will tell you all about them. And the main character Arden gushing over all the fam and them over her and everybody together. I know I’m being facetious, but I remember the good old days of the MacGregors and the Stanislawskis when there were only about two hundred pages and being smothered in their happiness and then at the end holding the book close to my chest and sighing. I did read a few of the reviews and there are people that like the new style, so I figure it is just me. I just want to know how Arden gets out of her Delima without going to the end.

    In the meantime, I started Luanne Rice’s Until Midnight a murder mystery at a wedding. Only on the first chapter so I have a bit further to go.

  32. I’m on a rereading jag: the Rocky Start books, to be specific. There’s a game I play trying to cast the characters of books for a movie, and Jenny and Bob’s characters are so well-crafted, that it is even more fun than usual. I’m on the last one of the trilogy, and savoring it, because I know the ending will be so satisfying. I love it when justice is done.

    Elizabeth Young has written several good romances. My favorite of hers is A Girl’s Best Friend. They made a movie from one of her books, but really butchered the plot. Another book I go back to as a comfort read is The Answer is Yes, by Sara Lewis. My brother, the lurker, recommended it to me years ago. She has written other books, but they do not have the panache of this one. A young woman finds her true self and talent, and resolves the pain of being adopted.

    1. Loved Elizabeth Young’s novels too Jan (except Wedding Date). She only wrote the four but I re-read them every few years and always wish for more books by her.

  33. I read The Whistler by John Grisham and I know he’s not under the radar LOL. A humorist once said he went to the airport and it looked like every other book held by a traveler was by John Grisham. I want to think about identifying an author who could be under the radar. What a great, thought provoking question, Jenny!

  34. Great topic, I have requested many new samples!

    I concur with Marian about Norah Lofts, a truly excellent writer, though you can’t count on a happy ending, so I leaned to check first. And I do re-read my favorites from time to time, since they are on Marian’s bookcase, easily accessible to me.

    I always felt Kathleen Gilles Seidel did not receive enough attention when she was actively writing. Anyone I ever got to read one liked it – my mother, my sister, my husband, many friends both male and female. Very dated now, but still work for me. “Again” may be my favorite, but “Don’t Forget To Smile” was my first so holds a special place in my heart. Her Harlequins are not as good, but better than many things I have read. Her last releases, the Standing Tall series, didn’t grab me as much when I first read them, but I should give them another try, now that I am thinking about it.

  35. Mary Lancaster’s Escape of the Duellist is #5 in the series. I read the previous 4 stories and enjoyed them, and I enjoyed this one too, although maybe not as much. Like the others, it is a quick historical romance novella. All the necessary ingredients are present.
    A beautiful young lady, poor but proud – check.
    A reckless duelist – a viscount, no less – reformed by his love for the heroine – check.
    Some problems and a couple of nasty antagonists – check.
    A happy ending – check.
    Altogether – not bad.
    Ada Maria Soto’s Agents of Winter is #2 in the series. The first novella of the series, His Quiet Agent (I mentioned it last time), was raw and organic. It touched my heart. This one was written five years later, and I’m not sure it should’ve been written at all. The first half of the book, which the protagonists spent apart, felt contrived, laborious. Lots of unneeded conversations and unnecessary scenes with almost no emotions, as if the author was merely beefing up the word count while waiting for the heroes to meet again.
    Then, about 50% into the story, they finally got together, and the narrative started flowing, its emotional wavelength just as good as in the first book. These two protagonists have amazing chemistry together, and it bled into the pages, as their mutual love deepened and matured.
    I think this story would’ve been better as a shorter type, a novelette instead of a novella maybe, with the extraneous first half cut off, but overall, it was still a good, solid read. I enjoyed it.

  36. I just got a notice from Amazon that Tl Kingfisher is coming out with a sequel to Swordheart called Daggerbound.

  37. In answer to Jenny’s question about underappreciated authors, I would suggest Linzi Day’s Midlife series. They are all self-published, and I love them. At the moment, there are 7 books in the series, the 8th is coming soon, but Linzi promised 10 altogether. They are sort-of contemporary portal fantasy, but not isekai. The heroine goes back and forth between our world and the others, at will and at need. I adore these books, even though they are all pretty long, 500+ pages each.

      1. They are great but quite confusing when the last one came out I had to reread the others to make sure I got all the numerpus characters, plotlines, twists, references straight in my head. They have beautiful energy though.

  38. Some authors I’ve stumbled across lately that I really enjoyed but don’t think have a wide readership yet:

    1. Emma V. Leech (I’ve read her Cupid Comes to Little Valentine)
    2. Christina Dudley (I’ve read The Belle of Winchester)
    3. Michelle Dayton (I’ve read The Love Hack)

    Has anyone else heard of/read their work? I’ve only read one book each so far, but I’d love to read more (though of course my library doesn’t carry them)!

  39. I think we live in extraordinary times because with book promo sites, great authors can go above radar without a review by The New York Times. ❤️📚

  40. Period Piece by Gwen Raverat. I mention this a lot—it’s an idiosyncratic book about the authors childhood in late 19th c Cambridge with her own prints illustrating it.
    Sheila Simonson, both her regencies and contemporaries.
    Ellis Peters mysteries (and the tv versions).
    Courtney Milan.
    Joanna Bourne.
    And I am very fond of Jo Goodwin.

  41. – IN WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, FAST WOMEN and THE CINDERELLA DEAL are queued up

    – IN THE KINDLE AP, I have not finished THE FIFTH ELEPHANT by Sir Terry. Soon.

    – IN MOBIPOCKET READER, I finished THE ALEXANDER INHERITANCE by Flint, Goodlett, and Huff. I read a few graphic novels that will remain nameless. Okay, one of them was TOO MUCH INFORMATION by the late Andy Odenthal. It will never be finished, but there’s a lot of it to enjoy. I have now opened a sequel, THE MACEDONIAN HAZARD by Flint, Goodlett, and Huff.

    – ON THE WEB, the word opera continues. Grey Wolf’s VARIATION ON A THEME Book 7 is all the way up to Chapter 12. The story is still in the summer between Sophomore and Junior years in college. There’s a new subplot.

    – ON NETFLIX, nothing, but stuff is Coming Soon.

    1. If you have Amazon Prime, you might like “Ride or Die” until your Netflix queue fills up again. Fun, buddy-adventure series (except the buddies are women instead of the usual men) with a bit of Thelma & Louise thrown in (except no sexual assault).

  42. I see that Bob’s Liz Danger prequel novella Red Rain in now out (and in KU). The cover is completely unlike the trilogy and the novella appears to be a war story on how Vince met Raina Still, a side character in the trilogy, so a little farther from the trilogy than was Bob’s Rocky Start novella from its trilogy. The cover has “A Novella” in print unreadable in the thumbnail and so likely pointless, but the word is repeated twice in large print once you click on the title. I just downloaded it, so no opinion yet from me.

  43. Rihasi, which is one of Tammy’s favourites in the Tuyo series, is also now one of mine. Wonderful high stakes and exceptional protagonists.

    I think perhaps Susan Hill’s Simon Serailler crime series is underrated. They are a lot more literary and more character based than many crime novels, and although Simon is supposedly the main character, his sister Kat and and her family are also a major focus, and one of the most appealing aspects of the series. I just finished A Change in Circumstance, which was excellent.

  44. Hooray for lesser-known authors too!

    For Murderbot fans, I’d suggest Sunward by William Alexander and Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer.

    I haven’t read much by Mhari McFarlane, but IIRC Jasmine Guillory’s books have a somewhat similar vibe? (I think of the purse cheese from the elevator scene in The Wedding Date often.) I don’t think of her as lesser-known, but I don’t remember seeing her books here much?

    They’re historical fantasy/mysteries set in 1910s Egypt, but I think P. Djèlí Clark’s Dead Djinn series might appeal to Ben Aaronovitch fans. Or the Greta Helsing series by Vivian Shaw, if you want contemporary London.

    T. Kingfisher fans who can accept fewer severed heads might enjoy Violet Thistlewaite is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz—it’s lighter, but I loved how she wove the character’s past choices in. (I’m excited for her next book!)

    And I always love Stephanie Burgis’s historical fantasies and romantic fantasies, and Olivia Waite’s historical romances and SF mysteries.

    1. I discovered I had a Jasmine Guillory book already in my tbr queue. I wouldn’t get too many romance recommendations from places other than this site, so likely someone here recommended it. I’ve at least sampled all the other authors mentioned by Kelly except for 2 or possibly 3 (unsure about Burgis). None are must-reads for me but they remain on my list of authors to try more of.

  45. Rosalind James. I adore her books. The character development and the clear, unique humanity of the characters is outstanding. More people should read her!

  46. I read Ann Leckie’s latest book in the Imperial Radch series “Radiant Star”. At first, after finishing the book, I felt that it was too distant since the book is an arch, distant 3rd person omniscient viewpoint. However, as I started to think over the events of the book, I realized that the viewpoint was necessary in order to get people to finish the book because it depicts the events on a small, unimportant world while a civil war is raging off-world and the supply ships stop coming. Monstrous things happen and I think Ms. Leckie wrote this with a lot of anger and sorrow for the events happening in the real world today.

    I then re-read the Arabesk Trilogy (Pashazade, Effendi, Felaheen) by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, which, in my mind, is his only readable works. This is also, in my opinion, one of the most sensory and visceral stories set in the Middle East I have ever read. Shit stinks, people sweat and vomit all over the place. It’s the story of Zee Zee aka Ashraf Mansur who may or may not be the son of the Emir of Tunis or the son of a Swedish hitch-hiker. Zee’s mother swears that his father is a Swedish hitchhiker, but he also just happens to be the spitting image of the young Emir. In this world, the Austro-Hungary empire never fell nor did the Ottoman empire. France, Berlin and USA are the big powers of the world. Zee Zee is summoned to Iskenydra by his aunt to finally fulfill his familal duty, but then she is murdered and Zee Zee must find out who did it or be arrested as the murderer. Grimwood does have a problem in that none of his stories are linear. There’s always another storyline happening in the past affecting the present.

    I am currently reading Mimi Matthews’ “The Matrimonial Advertisement” which I’m liking very much. It’s the story of woman desperate for safety who answers an ad for a wife and finds more than she expected. I really like the MMC – who is tormented in the best way – and the FMC. So far, at least.

    1. Mimi Matthews is a good writer. I read everything of hers and enjoyed most of them. The Matrimonial Advertisement was one of her best novels, I think, and I liked the entire series.

    2. Oh gosh, it’s years since I read the Arabesk trilogy, but I loved it. I might check it out again, it was such an interesting and original series. Thanks for the reminder!

    3. I’m really struggling with the distant (and multiple) POV in RADIANT STAR. I had to stop reading for a while, because it felt like too much work for what is supposed to be entertainment. Good to know that there is a payoff in the end. That will help me get back to it when I’m done with some other stuff I’m listening to.

  47. I read Sea of Charms by Sara Beth Durst, the latest novel set in the world of Spellshop. Genre cozy fantasy/light romance. I loved it as easy escape reading (took with me while I had minor surgery to remove skin cancer — escape reading is a good idea while sitting in a clinic!) Main character is Marin, who captained a boat in the prior two novels in the series.

  48. It’s been a while since I read Anthony Trollope.  I can’t now recall if I’d discovered him before the BBC series The Pallisers showed up on US public television in 1977, but at the least that inspired new book editions that made all of Trollope easier to acquire over here, since this all happened before ebooks or easy used book shopping via the internet. I think I’ve read very nearly everything he ever wrote, including obscure items like his dystopia The Fixed Period.  His autobiography was also interesting.  Probably I should start rereading him.

    Anyway, Trollope has always had a sort of low level presence as a classic, and a burst of popularity inspired by the screen versions in the 1970s, but now that that has died down again, he probably qualifies as underappreciated.

    1. In the same vein, I wonder if Mark Twain is now underappreciated, at least for his many works beyond Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

  49. I just thought about another underappreciated romance writer – Jayne Davis. I enjoy her writing and her stories. She is an indie, but her works are superbly edited and her stories imaginative. My favorite of hers was The Mrs MacKinnons.

    1. Olga, thanks for reminding me to check out Jayne Davis again. I loved her Mrs McKinnons! Since I read that one, Davis has published quite a number of titles… Just downloaded “An Improper Correspondence”, one of those books that came out while I was binging hockey romances 😉

  50. I’ve enjoyed Jasmine Guillory, and RosalynJames. I usually do buy their books but they’re not an automatic for me.
    Well, my favorite Marc Twain is Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and I also love to Saint Joan of Ark one and who could forget the literary offenses of James Fennimore Cooper. I forgot to mention the diary of Adam and Eve. Which opened the musical, the Apple Tree I love so much of Marc Wayne‘s short fiction I’m looking forward to.Sangu Mandanna’s next book and I’m sure I’m going to end up buying the next book in the assassin series by Hannah Maher. And, of course, the next book in the smallhope and PennyRoyal series. Then they’re all the people that are not writing anymore because they’re not around. But I own all of the georgette Hayer books, all of the Robert Heinlein books. all of the Anne McCaffrey books.
    All of the Elizabeth Peter’s books under all of her names. up until a few years ago, I had all the Nora roberts. But I was getting very tired of serial killers and then she wrote a cliffhanger. Once somebody writes a cliffhanger, I no longer buy them. Which is why I no longer buy Robyn McKinley.
    Oh, I also buy anything by Sarah Wynde

    I didn’t finish the Second umbrella Academy book it was dragging badly
    I’m now on the best hex ever which I had high hopes for from the beginning of it the magic parts are great the rest of it? MEH. Thanks for this discussion.

  51. A busy week once again with my daughter come from the other end of the country for a visit.
    I have continued with the Farah Mendelssohn book mentioned last week and also started reading Gelato Forever by Lynn Joseph which was recommended by Jo Walton a month or two ago. No verdict yet as I’m only about 1/3 of the way in.

    On the subject of writers who fly below the radar, there are so many I know I will forget someone.

    To start with these two whom I’ve mentioned over the last two weeks
    Pamela Belle
    Judith Merkle Riley

    Then I have to agree with these, already mentioned
    Joanna Bourne
    PF Chisholm/Patricia Finney
    Barbara Hambly
    Norah Lofts
    Hannah March/Jude Morgan (Tim Wilson)
    Patricia Mckillip
    Tim Powers
    Stella Riley
    Sheila Simonson
    Sherwood Smith
    DE Stevenson
    Caroline Stevermer
    Liz Williams

    Moving on to some recommendations of my own

    Paula Allardyce/ Charity Blackstock etc (Ursula Torday) Georgian historical romance/ gothic/ fantasy. One of the things I really liked about this author was that her heroes were not generally rich, powerful or socially connected – they tended towards Jack figures, rebels and outsiders, though one of my favourites, Adam and Evelina is different, the hero I think is an earl and this one follows the story after the earl weds the governess…

    Lisa Goldstein – fantasy

    Diana Norman/Ariana Franklin historical fiction and historical mystery respectively

    Anya Seton – Historical fiction/romance

    Kari Sperring – fantasy, deep evocative world building. Not for those who need action.

    Patricia Veryan/ Gwyneth Moore Georgian Romantic adventures. Definitely not for everyone, some people find her language too flowery to be worth the effort (think Heyer’s earlier Georgian set novels) but she has a real talent for depicting male friendship.

    I haven’t included authors like KJ Charles, T Kingfisher etc because they need no introduction here. There are more but it’s past my bedtime.

    1. Yes, Stella Riley! I loved her early Civil war novels because I didn’t know much about the period and the Mesalliance is just a perfect little gem of its genre.

  52. My favorite read ths week was Sea of Charms, the latest cozy fantasy by Sarah Beth Durst. It’s about a young woman who runs a courier sailboat among the islands with her sea serpent friend. She is distrustful of opening up to people following an abusive relationship and the story follows her as she finds her footing again. Also, I read Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer. I loved the MCs but the premise and dystopian setting of this near future SF are so sad that I don’t think I’ll be rereading anytime soon. In addition, I quickly devoured The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley, the second book in an amusing M/F enemies to lovers fantasy duology. The two MCs are a healer and an assassin, and the banter is delightful. I also read Unpredictable Magic by Faith Hunter which is a new spinoff of her Jane Yellowrock series. The brother sister MCs are witches and private detectives who, along with their vampire bodyguard, are trying to stay alive as they investigate some supernatural occurences. I enjoyed this book, hoping for another. Now I’m rereading Beverly Connor’s mystery series about kickass archaeologist Lindsay Chamberlain. Two words: competence porn!

    1. I find the reactions to “Ode to the Half-Broken” interesting, mine and yours and others, and wonder how much it depends on someone’s outlook? I found it fun and hopeful, and somehow the bits that were horrific made the bits that were idyllic feel more grounded, and I ended it on a high. Maybe because I’m generally rather pessimistic about the future?

      Similarly, I remember Martha Wells saying she was (pleasantly) surprised by everyone calling Murderbot fun and cosy as she’d written a corporate dystopia with slavery. We as readers bring so much to the stories we read.

  53. I enjoyed The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood (woman who dies has 10 days to get kissed by her “soulmate” so she can keep living)–some LOL moments, a nice twist or two, and characters I liked spending time with. I also read her latest book, Romantic Hero, which has a great concept (character from a romance novel suddenly appears in the author’s apartment). That fell apart a bit at the end, but it was still a fun read.

  54. This week I have read:

    The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, which I absolutely couldn’t put down and loved. Thank you everyone who wrote about it hear, I’d never heard of this author anywhere else. Luckily it was in the library as are the 3/4 follow up novels based on the Witness for the Dead character, so I get to read more of hers.

    Read Dead Man’s Grip by Peter James, part of the Roy Grace series. Competent and very twisty thriller, but I also really enjoy learning the backstories of the repeat characters.

    The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins, the second in the Blue Heron series, and while it was not as great for me as the first one I loved being back with her family and her ovaries were really funny and made me laugh a lot. Guess I didn’t like the British Tom (her love interest).

    Just finished Seeking The Dead by Kate Ellis – another good, thrilling murder mystery. Plenty of red herrings and was guessing until the end. There is another in the series in the library so I can read more.

    Under the radar writers for me are often self publishers that I hear mentioned here, and I never really know who is above the radar in the USA unless it says on the cover (NYT etc.). One of my favourites is Laura Moher who wrote a great trilogy set in small town America. And Olivia Dade who wrote Spite House and the follow up (don’t really like her paranormal stuff).
    Jenny Crusie, naturally, D L Keur and the much missed Janet Chapman and Julie Garwood (though I think they were both quite well known in their day).

  55. My list of under the radar authors:
    Michelle Sagara ( Cast in… series, about a young woman cursed(?) with magical powers)

    Sharon Lee and Steve Miller ( the Laden Universe series currently numbering 29 novels and several compilations of short stories. Excellent space opera, mostly the story of a clan of people as they get kicked off one planet and move to another. Wonderful characters and writing.)

    Gillian Bradshaw ( mostly historical fiction, although she writes across genres. My favorites are Island of Ghosts and the Sand-Reckoner)

    Peter Bowen (the Montana Mysteries. About a Metis fiddler and his family. Total of 15 books, first is Coyote Wind.)

    1. Definitely Gillian Bradshaw, my favourites are The Beacon at Alexandria and London in Chains though I’ve enjoyed all of her books that I’ve read.

  56. A friend is writing a book on Persephone & Hades. It is very good. Which has lead me to samples of The Son of Achilles and Galatea, both by Madeline Miller. Will purchase the full novels. Which also lead me to an historical; Seeking Persephone by Sarah M Eden. Which lead me to the series Seeking Persephone. Quite lovingly produced with a small cast. Of course, The Odyssey is out. Waiting to see it with SIL/DIL when they get back from camping.

  57. The comment counter is at 170 as I write this. Historically, additional comments to Thursday trickle in until at least Sunday, so the counter ought to top 200, which I think is unusual, at least recently. A combination of customarily heavy GBTh plus Jenny’s under the radar question, I imagine.

  58. Late to the party, but someone who hasn’t been mentioned yet, and who is under-appreciated is Lindsay Buroker. She has a faithful following (and is prolific), but she doesn’t seem to have broken through enough to be in (most) libraries or to be mentioned on various lists.

  59. You recommended Rosalind James a while ago, for which many thanks. Very much of their time, but most of the Helen MacInnes novels, so much interesting information in them if you’re interested in the classics/ Greece etc. Ditto with Mary Stewart…again of their time. Georgette Heyer. English author Minette Walters non-historical ones… Crusie/ Mayer goes without saying! I run out of books from authors whose writing styles i like so very interested in recommendations.

    1. Wow, I haven’t seen Helen MacInnes mentioned in ages. I picked up my first of her books at my grandmother’s house (amongst all the Reader’s Digest …compressed novels? Anyone remember those?), and started my illustrious career of reading everything an author had to offer. I’m not sure how well I’d handle them so many decades later, but/so the fondness remains.

      Has anyone gone through Jane Haddam’s Gregor Demarkian series? I love her character builds, they’re so detailed and complete. And it’s a series where the main characters grow together for *30* books.

      1. I’ll look into Jane Haddam, thanks. Ref Helen MacInnes, the male / female thing is quite historical! I first read them 50 or more years ago.

      2. I very much liked many of the Demarkian novels, although some of them spent far too much time for my liking on the viewpoint of other characters and not on the crimesolvers (mostly Gregor and Bennis).

      3. Haddam also had published many novels under her real name, Orania Papazoglou. Back when, I read all of those that I could find. The Wikipedia tells me that she had two other pseudonyms, Nicola Andrews and Ann Paris, and I know nothing about those.

  60. I just finished Beginner’s Luck by Melissa Patton. It’s a fast-moving, entertaining urban fantasy. I had trouble putting it down. Lots of fun! Five stars, definitely recommend!

    I love It’s Raining Men by Hollie Smurthwaite. It’s a funny paranormal romance. I ate it up when I first read it. Five stars, definitely recommend!

    I’ve read several contemporary romantic suspense novels by Katie Ruggle. I loved her Search and Rescue series and her Rocky Mountain K9 Unit series. I’ve listened to the audiobooks of each twice. Five stars, definitely recommend!

  61. I have been in a reading slump for a few years now, and pretty much only re-read comfort reads and new books by my favorite authors. But these are 4 new series that have managed to slip their way into my favorites:
    -Retired Assasin series which has already been mentioned.
    -Dragons of Safe Haven series by Julia Huni
    -Tales of Aedea series by S. L. Rowland (I have only read There be Dragons Here so far, but loved it.
    -The Wizards Butler and The Wizards Cat by Nathan Lowell

  62. Lissa Evans. I’ve read several of her books, starting with Their Finest Hour and a Half and, most recently, A Small Bomb at Dimperley. I love them dearly, so warm and clever about people.

  63. I’m very late on the ball here, but I must put my word in anyway.
    Just reading M.W. Craven’s Washington Poe series. New to me author. Thrillers with unpredictable twists, flawed and human main characters, dry wit. I have plowed through 4 books since last week. Warmly recommend.

    Lauren Gilley is an author that in my humble opinion does not get the wide recognition she deserves.

About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author and co-author of twenty-three novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in Pennsylvania, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.

Find out more about Jenny’s published works by visiting JennyCrusie.com

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