authors Archives - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Authors I Follow on Social Media

By Brookelorren on March 10, 2020March 2, 202020 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, and time for another edition of Top Ten Tuesday, where we talk about books. It’s hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s topic is authors with a fun social media presence, but I’m not really sure how to gauge that, so we’re just going to talk about some of the authors I follow on social media.

Today’s links will point to their Twitter accounts.

Susan Dennard – Last year, she had a Choose Your Own Adventure story running, which was a lot of fun, if you were able to get in on that. She has a newsletter that gives writing advice. Normally, I don’t subscribe to newsletters because that’s more clutter for the inbox, but I follow her both on Twitter and her newsletter.

Danika Stone – Ms. Stone is a ray of sunshine! She’s almost always smiling in the photos she posts. Follow her if you need some brightess in your day.

Kim Chance – Ms. Chance hosts Chance2Connect on the second Tuesday of every month. If you’re a writer, you might want to join her and meet other authors. It’s a lot of fun.

Sandhya Menon – She is such a sweetheart! I’m on her street team and I’ve met her a couple of times, so I might be a little biased, but one of the reasons why I signed up for her street team was because she was so nice when I met her at last year’s Colorado Teen Literature Conference.

Laura E. Weymouth – Laura and I have been mutuals on Twitter since before I even knew she had a book coming out. I thought she was just a really cool person who wrote. Sometimes she posts about her chickens, or her kids, or things like that.

Kiersten White – If you ever get the chance to go to one of her book signings, you should. She’s really funny. I followed her for a year before I ever read one of her books. I’ve still only read two of them, even though I own six.

Marie Lu – Ms. Lu is much more active on Instagram right now, but she’s worth following. In addition to talking about books, sometimes she posts about politics. As her books tend to have political undertones, that’s probably not a surprise.

Sabaa Tahir – She’s been working on Sky Beyond the Storm (AKA Ember 4) for years now, and it’s been interesting to see her journey. She even did a few word sprints with us peons a couple years ago. She can be pretty funny too.

Jodie Lynn Zdrock – Ms. Zdrock is always so nice. Sometimes she posts about her cats, or her running, or her books. You can’t help but to root for people that are nice like her.

V.E. Schwab – I started following her over a year before I read a book from her (I still have only read This Savage Song). She always seems so friendly.

So there you have it. Ten authors I follow on Twitter. I follow a lot more than that, but these are some whose social media presence stands out to me.

Next week, we’re posting our Spring 2020 TBRs! That’s when you can find out what a slacker I’ve been for the last few months. Who did you post about today?

New to Me Authors I Read in 2018

By Brookelorren on January 15, 2019January 14, 201928 Comments

It’s Top Ten Tuesday again! Today’s topic (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “New to Me Authors I Read in 2018”. I mentioned last year that I just found out how amazing Goodreads was last year, which allowed me to discover a lot of fantastic authors, so this list will be a little embarrassing. You may read this list thinking “how could she not have read that author before?” Anyway, here are some of the new-to-me authors that wrote the most highly rated books last year:

I’m not embarrassed that I had never read Gita Trelease before last year. After all, her book isn’t even officially out yet! I was so excited when I was selected to receive an ARC of her debut, Enchantée. I am so happy that this book will have a sequel as well. She wrote my favorite book last year.

Who has written more than a dozen books, has a movie and a television show, and I never heard of before 2018? Cassandra Clare. Out of all the new-to-me authors from 2018, I think it’s my biggest embarrassment that I had never read her books before this year. I don’t think that I’ll end up buying everything that she ever writes — some of the storylines don’t interest me immensely — but her core Shadowhunter books are on my auto-buy list. Which means that I’ll be buying at least six more books from her in the foreseeable future.

Holly Black is another new-to-me author from last year. She’s written several other books, but from what I can tell, The Cruel Prince was a runaway hit for her. I absolutely loved this book (and The Wicked King, which I read last week) and am looking forward to reading more of her books in the future.

Sabaa Tahir is another new-to-me author from 2018. Her Ember books are amazing, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading the final book in this series. She’s also a really nice person on Twitter – you should follow her.

Laini Taylor is another new-to-me author from 2018, and I actually got ideas from her in the book I’m writing. One day, she tweeted that there was a city in France called Malicorne, which of course was where evil unicorns lived. You may not see any malicorn in the book I’m writing, but they do make an appearance in “Brenna Morgan and the Silver Portal“, a fanfic I wrote with characters from Katie Masters’ book, Clary and Jace from the Shadowhunters books, and a couple characters from my book. Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares were great books, and I’m looking forward to reading more from her!

Another new-to-me author that’s embarrassing that I never heard of before 2018 was Sarah J. Maas. She’s only written two of the most popular YA book series in the last several years! But prior to 2018, I got my book recommendations from movies mainly, so I guess it’s understandable that I never read her before. I have a lot of catching up to do now!

Renée Ahdieh has had several books out so far, including the amazing Flame in the Mist. New to me last year. I read three of her books in 2018, although I still have to read the sequel to The Wrath and the Dawn. Maybe I’ll get around to reading it this year.

Caraval and Legendary were books that I loved last year, and Stephanie Garber is another new-to-me author from 2018. These books were magical, and I can’t wait to read Finale when it comes out. One thing about reading so many amazing new-to-me authors last year is that there are so many books that I’m looking forward to!

Another author that has been wildly successful in recent years that I hadn’t heard of before was Victoria Aveyard, who wrote the Red Queen series. I ended up reading all four books last year.

Last year I also read Amanda Foody for the first time. Ace of Shades is not her debut, but I think that it’s been her most successful book yet. I plan on reading the sequel to this book, King of Fools, sometime this year.

So there you have it — ten authors who were new-to-me in 2018. Since I’ve been book blogging for a little while now, there probably won’t be as many “wait, what? I never heard of that author” on next year’s list, but there are still plenty of amazing authors out there that, sadly, I’ve never read before. I hope to fix that at least a little bit, this year.

So what authors were new to you in 2018? I’m looking forward to seeing your Top Ten Tuesday this week.

Authors I’d Love to Meet (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on October 2, 2018October 1, 201830 Comments

Hooray for another Top Ten Tuesday! Today we’re going to talk about Authors that I’d Love to Meet. For this question, I’m not necessarily going to talk about authors that I’d like to wait in line at a bookstore to get an autograph from… because that would basically include any author whose books I like.

Today’s list includes authors that I’d like to hang out with for the day. Maybe go to their house, have over for dinner (assuming that I wasn’t cooking and there’d be maid service involved) or just chill. I’m also assuming that I wouldn’t be a blithering idiot when hanging out with them and we could just hang out like normal people (that’s a big assumption, but let’s say a little magic is involved for that. It’s not like any of these fantasy scenarios are going to happen in the first place).

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Thank you once again!

1. Marie Lu

Is this one really a surprise? It probably shouldn’t be if you’ve read this blog for a while. I’m not exactly sure I’d want her to know how much fanfiction I’ve written based on her books because that might be embarrassing though. We went to the same college, so I guess there’s a couple minutes of conversation that we could have, LOL. Ms. Lu seems like a really nice person who cares about people. At least that’s how she comes across in her books and tweets.

2. Veronica Roth

I had to also include my other auto-buy author, Veronica Roth. Her book that’s expected to be released in 2020 was the first 2020 book on my TBR. I love everything that she’s written so far, even the short story that she’s written that made it into Summer Days and Summer Nights. Okay, not chapter 50 of Allegiant, but I try not to think of that one. Ms. Roth doesn’t post a lot to Twitter, so I don’t really know if we’d have much to talk about other than her books, but I suppose I could ask her about how she likes Chicago.

3. Cassandra Clare

I’ve been reading a lot of The Mortal Instruments lately, and I think they’re really good, but that’s not the main reason why I’d want to meet her. I’d love for her to show me her library! She posted a picture of her workspace on Twitter once and it was only part of her library, and it was gorgeous! Plus, her bio says that she’s travelled a lot. She also got her start by writing fanfiction, so it would be cool to talk to her about that. Plus… maybe I could ask her if she’d convince her publisher to release R-rated versions of some of her books ;-). I know she writes those extra scenes and posts them on Tumblr.

4. Alice Reeds

Alice Reeds isn’t well-known, but she’s the author of Echoes, which I reviewed earlier this year. Why would I want to meet her? She lived in Germany for a long time. She speaks both German and Russian, and so do I. I think that she would be really interesting to talk to.

5. Paper Fury

So if I met her today I’d have to apologize for not reading her book yet, but I did buy it! She seems so nice on her blog and on Twitter, plus I’m pretty sure she lives in Australia. I love Australia! I spent five weeks there on an exchange with the Australian military, and it was awesome. I got to see quite a few cities on the East coast, from Canberra to Cairns. So I think she’d be fascinating to meet.

6. Sabaa Tahir

Not only do I love her Ember in the Ashes books, but she seems like a really nice person on Twitter (if you’ve liked or responded to one of my tweets, your chances of getting on today’s list go up drastically). After A Reaper at the Gates came out, she stayed at a few hotels that were haunted. I’d have to ask her if she’s stayed at any haunted hotels recently!

7. Astrid Scholte

I haven’t read her book, Four Dead Queens, that is supposed to come out next year (although I’d love an ARC), but she seems like a really nice person on Twitter. We could probably talk about our favorite books, and I could ask her about what it’s like to get her first book published, because why not? I’d love to do that someday.

8. Laura E. Weymouth

While I haven’t read her book The Light Between Worlds (it isn’t even out yet), she seems like a really nice person that I’d like to meet; we’ve tweeted back and forth a few times. Plus, she lives on a big farm or something that would probably be pretty cool to visit.

9. Laini Taylor

Strange the Dreamer is a wonderful book and I’m looking forward to Muse of Nightmares as well (out today!). She also seems to be fairly intelligent when it comes to politics, although I’m sure there’s a lot that we wouldn’t agree on. But what’s the fun with talking to an echo chamber?

10. Kiersten White

Here’s another author whose books I haven’t read yet (although I did buy a couple of her books, LOL) but I’d like to meet her. She’s very encouraging on Twitter. I don’t know a whole lot about her other than that, but if she came over to my house for dinner, we could talk books!

So that’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday. What authors would you like to meet? Would you like to hang out with them and pick their brains, or do you think that meeting them while they sign your books is intimidating enough? Leave a link to your TTT and I’ll visit back!

Next week, I’m posting some of the longest books I’ve ever read! I don’t know if it’s the very longest books I’ve ever read, but I did find ten books that I read ranging from over 800 to more than 1500 pages long. I’m glad not all books are that long!