My Favorite Books By My Favorite Authors

Hello! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday. I missed a couple of weeks, and I had to work yesterday, but today we’re talking about our favorite books from our favorite authors. I’m not sure if I have ten favorite authors, but I suppose I can talk about my favorite authors and then some authors I like. So here we go!

1. Legend—Marie Lu. This was an easy one. I absolutely love Legend and have read the book several times. I’ve read the original trilogy several times as well, and the tetralogy (the fourth book came out maybe five years ago?) a couple of times.

While Ms. Lu has written several other great books since, this happens to be one of my favorites.

2. Chain of Gold—Cassandra Clare. This one was really difficult. I really like all of Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter books, of which Chain of Gold is one of them. I like them better than her Sword Catcher series, although those books are good too.

These books are easy to get into. Even though her Last Hours and The Infernal Devices trilogies are set in a different time, it’s easy to immerse yourself into the world. Perhaps it’s because I was already familiar with the Shadowhunter universe in general (and her very first book, City of Bones, is set in 2007).

3. Carve the Mark—Veronica Roth. While she is most famous for her Divergent trilogy, I think maybe I like the Carve the Mark duology a little better. I’m currently reading her new book, Seek the Traitor’s Son, and accidentally got so involved in the book that I clocked back in to work from lunch two minutes late yesterday. Oops!

One thing I’ve noticed about her work. They can take a little time to get into. Like in Carve the Mark, the world is so foreign that it takes a while to really start to care for the characters and what’s going on. The same was true for Seek the Traitor’s Son. The first ten pages or so I didn’t really know what was going on in the world and it took me a while to get into it. Even with Divergent, it took about 50 pages until I was hooked.

So those are the books from my favorite authors. The ones I’ll auto-buy. Here are my favorite books from authors that I like, but I’m not sure if I’d say they were my favorite:

4. The Twelfth Imam—Joel C. Rosenberg. So while this book is a political thriller, one of the things I really like about this book is that it is also a book about the relationship between David and Marseille. They don’t even list this in the summaries on Goodreads, but it’s pretty much why I kept coming back to these books.

5. Sunrise on the Reaping—Suzanne Collins. Not to be confused with Susan Collins the politician (which I always do—why is the author of The Hunger Games voting on this bill?). Anyway, I’m looking forward to the movie that comes out this November.

This book is all about Haymitch. We see him in the Hunger Games trilogy as the drunken mentor. The victor of a previous Hunger Games. But what we don’t see, until this book comes out, is how he got so messed up in the first place. So I would say that perhaps this is my favorite book from all the Hunger Games novels.

6. Time of the Twins—Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. While the original Dragonlance trilogy (later expanded into a tetralogy) may be the most famous, I think I like this one a little bit more. In this book, the main characters go back to the time before the Cataclysm, which is one of my favorite time periods in this universe.

That might change when their new book, War Wizard, comes out later this year. This is a book about Huma, which is one of the legends in the Dragonlance world, that I’m looking forward to reading later this year.

7. In the Garden of Beasts—Eric Larson. I almost put Isaac’s Storm here, but then I remembered that he wrote this great book about the rise of Hitler. I don’t think I’ve read a book by Larson that I didn’t like; they’re all good. And they’re all nonfiction.

8. A Rome of One’s Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire—Emma Southon. Even though Medieval History is my jam (I know these people suffered greatly, but I do enjoy reading about the Black Death and Little Ice Age), Emma Southon is one of my favorite history authors. She writes about the Roman Empire, but she has got to be one of the most entertaining historical authors you’ll read. She makes running over your father with a chariot funny (I know it’s been over 2000 years, maybe it’s still too soon).

I have read more than one book by her, but I think this one might be my favorite.

9. Today Tonight Tomorrow—Rachel Lynn Solomon. This book is about two high school seniors who are each other’s nemeses. They end up teaming up with each other in a senior scavenger hunt that has life-changing money as a prize (life changing for a graduating senior at least). And as you can guess, they end up falling in love. It’s one of my favorite books by her.

10. The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington—Brad Meltzer. Meltzer has written a variety of books, from books about the true origins of Superman (The Book of Lies) to children’s books like I am Simone Biles. Unlike some thriller authors, he doesn’t use excessive cursing in his works, which I find nice. Although he has plenty of good books to choose from, I think his book on George Washington might be one of the best.

So what about you? What are your favorite books by your favorite authors (or authors you like a lot, at least). Have you read any of these authors or books?