Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I’d Love a New Book From

Posted on by The Book Lover's Sanctuary

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Previous Top Ten Tuesday Topics

These could be authors that have passed away, who have retired from writing, who have inexplicably gone quiet, or who might just not be able to keep up with how quickly you read their books!

Good evening all and welcome to another Tuesday… it has been (another!) tricksy week for me: having caught a ‘flu type bug off my daughter (or possibly brought it home from my boss at work) I had the best part of last week off. And whilst I did go back to work for Friday – last revision session before exams for my Year 11s – it was such a mistake! I was both brain dead and voiceless. My daughter found my attempts to read How To Train Your Dragon – which requires much yelling as a plot point – highly entertaining! And I won’t disclose which part of me started bleeding over the weekend… but that hurt enough to warrant a trip to the hospital for antibiotics!

Still, on the mend now and this week’s topic to turn my thoughts to is authors who I’d like more from…. the easy route here, as a reader who loves the classics, would be to go down that route! Who wouldn’t want to see Jane Austen’s take on social media? Or Mary Shelley’s imagination spliced with our AI technologies! Dickens’ response to the cost-of-living crises… It is quite scary to imagine how similar some of our concerns are to theirs, how little the world has progressed in some ways.

But let us turn our thoughts to contemporary writers instead, those whose books I love but from whom I have heard very little recently. Of course, the fact that I have not been aware of them may not mean that they have stopped writing; it may reflect more on my not being up to date!

Honourable Mention:

Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie Series

I know that Atkinson has written since, but her last Jackson Brodie novel was in 2019 I think – Big Sky – and it felt like a swansong, a beautifully crafted (what else would you expect of Atkinson) farewell…

But the good news is that book six in the series is due out in August this year! Death at the Sign of the Rook!

China Miéville

It is with regret that I have to come to terms with the fact that Miéville was unlikely every to return to the world of Bas-Lag… but we didn’t seem to hear much from him at all since the early 2010s… Kraken, Embassytown, Railsea and then nothing… and in researching this post I discover that he plans to release two novels in 2024 and 2025!

Tana French

Similarly to Kate Atkinson, I am aware that Tana French has published in the years since The Trespasser in 2017. I am actually reading The Hunter now!

However… I did so love the Dublin Murder Squad, the shifting narrative points of view between the novels, the police procedural, the tension of her interviewing and dialogue… I’d love to find that there was another in the pipeline, but The Trespasser again felt like a farewell!

Patrick Rothfuss

This is an obvious one for fantasy readers, to the point where Rothfuss has become synonymous with a failure to complete a series! And the first two books were sublime within the genre but I think most fans are now resigned to the fact that the title The Doors of Stone is possibly all we will ever get,,,

Philip Pullman

The His Dark Materials trilogy holds a very firm and steady place in my heart… and the follow up trilogy, even is it is a strange beast jumping from being a prequel to His Dark Materials in the first novel and a sequel in the second was also gripping.

I am invested in the character of Lyra Belacqua and want to see her reclaim that childish joy and energy from the original series… but the phrase “title and publication date TBC” does not fill me with much faith!

Francis Toon

I loved the evocative narration of Toon’s first debut novel, Pine, released back in 2020… It was all isolated forests and abandoned houses in the woods and something stalking the town…

But I’ve not heard of anything more from her at all… #sadface

Patrick Ness

We’ve not had a significant substantial novel from Ness since Burn in 2020, have we?

Surely it is about time, because everything Patrick Ness has written is gold!

Frances Hardinge

Unraveller came out in 2022 which is… not exactly far away in time, but I have loved Hardinge’s weirdness, her otherworldliness, her twisted fairytale gothic sensibilities… let’s hope we get another such tale from her soon!

Andrew Michael Hurley

It’s been five years since Starve Acre terrified and disturbed us all… or me anyway. A shocking depiction of awful grief and the most sinister final scene I have read in a long time….

I am sure that there are so many other authors who I have loved and lamented … please let me know who you wish we had a new book from this year…

Upcoming Themes

May 28: Books I Was Super Excited to Get My Hands on but Still Haven’t Read
June 4: Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About (Any emotion! Did a book make you super happy or sad? Angry? Terrified? Surprised?)
June 11: Bookish Wishes (List the top 10 books you’d love to own and include a link to your wishlist so that people can grant your wishes. Make sure you link your wishlist to your mailing address or include the email address associated with your e-reader in the list description so people know how to get the book to you. After you post, jump around the Linky and grant a wish or two if you’d like. Please don’t feel obligated to send anything to anyone!)
June 18: Books on My Summer 2024 To-Read List
June 25: Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2024

Published by The Book Lover's Sanctuary

#bookblogger, teacher, father | he / him |

2 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I’d Love a New Book From”

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.