Top 5 Tuesday is created and run by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm. Thank you Shanah for all the work you do on this! You can join the fun by checking out the topics for the month here.

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is staying safe in the current situation. Today, my office officially closed and I worked from home for the first time. Draco, my lovely kitten, made a fine addition to the team. I won’t lie, I’m very nervous – I’m supposed to be starting a new job in two weeks, but as Australia is a few weeks behind the major outbreak we’re seeing in Italy and saw in China, I don’t really know how that will affect everything. But for now, I’m very glad I don’t have to commute because I can get a little extra sleep! My partner and I are implementing daily lunchtime exercise (yoga today!) to help us keep fit and hopefully reduce mental health stress from social distancing.

This week’s Top 5 Tuesday continues the March theme of authors for each letter of the week, and today we’re looking at letters K – O.

Authors beginning with K

TJ Klune & Adib Khorram

I found TJ Klune last year when I read Wolfsong, the first book in his werewolf romance series – and holy shit I did not expect the complete destruction of my soul as I read it. It was incredible! Every time I mention this author, I get more recommendations for which of his books to read next and I can’t wait to read the rest of his work. Klune has two new books out this year. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an adult fantasy, about a social worker for magical youth who must go to a magical island to investigate an orphanage. The Extraordinaries is Klune’s debut YA, a new take on the superhero story featuring a queer teen with ADHD.

Adib Khorram wrote one of my favourite books of 2019, Darius the Great Is Not Okay. This had such a poignant and relatable mental health story, the most incredible development of a father-son relationship, and a brilliant male friendship at its core. I am SO FREAKING EXCITED we get a sequel. This year, Darius the Great Deserves Better is coming and brings new struggles as Darius tries to work out what he wants for the future. And I think that cover is one of my favourite of 2020. I just adore the colour contrast so much.

Authors beginning with L

Laura Steven

Laura Steven is, without a doubt, the funniest writer I’ve ever read. The Exact Opposite of Okay astounded me, because I have never found a novel as funny as I did that. And yet it also manages to be an incredible feminist novel addressing slut shaming and female empowerment alongside the captivating and hilarious main character, Izzy. Izzy’s journey continues in A Girl Called Shameless, and this year we have a new Laura Steven book: The Love Hypothesis, the bisexual romcom I’ve been dreaming of for so long.

Authors beginning with M

Mira Grant & Anna-Marie McLemore

Well these are two rather different authors… Mira Grant (a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire) is a horror writer of the most incredible horror ever! Into the Drowning Deep was one of the first horror novels I’ve ever read, and it is the standard from which I hold all up to now. I think it still remains one of the longest reviews I’ve written (if you’d like to read about how terrifying this novel is, check my review out here!) It was the most intense, terrifying, thrilling book, bringing a fiersome twist to mermaids, is one of my all time favourites, and I’m really due a reread…. (Update: I’ve started rereading. Writing this got me too excited.)

Anna-Marie McLemore is an author I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and whilst I haven’t yet started any of their books yet, I wanted to shout them out as one of the authors I’m most excited to read this year! Anna is one of my favourite book bloggers favourite authors, and I hear so much about them that I really need to just get my act together and start. Dark and Deepest Red, Anna’s newest release, is sitting on my shelf right now and I very much plan on reading it soon.

Authors beginning with N

Abdi Nazemian

Another one of my favourite reads of last year, this week’s list is full of my favourites! Like a Love Story absolutely blew me away. Set during the 1980s AIDS crisis, it is one of the most emotionally stunning, beautiful uplifting books, the most brilliant tale of friendship and love and the power of life. I would love everyone to pick this book up. I have a full review here!

Authors beginning with O

Temi Oh

If I had to think of a book or two I wished I heard more people talking about, I think Do You Dream of Terra-Two? would be one of them. This really kicked me out of a reading slump last year. It was also the very first book I reviewed on this blog, so holds a very special place in my heart. (If you want to see how I’ve progressed – and hopefully I have! – you can read it here.) Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is a heavily character driven science fiction journey, inspired by the 1960s Space Race and set in a world which continued its drive and race to the skies. It feels very similar to sci-fi like Becky Chambers and Emma Newman, in that it brings a strong focus on brilliant, detailed characters, and less of the heavy science. I really loved this one, and I think Temi Oh is going to be a writer to watch in speculative fiction.

That’s it for this week. I have no idea how Australia is going to be doing next week, and I wish so much love and strength to everyone around the world to get through this. Please stay safe out there, and do practice social distancing if you are able to. And try to focus on the bright side: for me, it’s that little bit extra sleep and no need to stuff myself on a awfully humid tram to commute into the city. But find what you can focus on to stay positive in this pretty hellish environment right now.

Top 5 Tuesday is created and run by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm. You can join the fun by checking out the topics for the month here.

Hi everyone,

I am a fool and because we had a public holiday on Monday I totally lost track of days and forgot it was Tuesday. So Happy Top 5 Wednesday?! The world clock tells me it is still Tuesday somewhere in the world, so I’m going to write this so fast to get it in time! Continuing last week’s theme, this week we are looking at authors from F-J.

Authors beginning with F

Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee is an author pretty new to me. I started (and finished) her two novels Jade City and Jade War in January this year, they were my first reads of the year! They had been on my tbr for soooo long and I finally decided to tackle all the massive fantasy tomes on my shelf, starting with these. And I loved them! Filled with twists and turns, characters you expect to be around for a while suddenly…aren’t, incredible worldbuilding and magic system, and morally grey characters. I just LOVE. This is a fantasy series not to miss. Bring on the end to the trilogy in 2021!

Authors beginning with G

Sophie Gonzales

Enter the reimagined queer 90s romcom you’ve always dreamed of! Sophie Gonzales’ Only Mostly Devastated is one of the funniest, most joyful, sassy books I’ve read. Described as a queer Grease meets Clueless, it is the YA romcom I wanted in my youth. It is just the most fun. Ollie, the main character, is so sarcastic, he is a character after my own heart. I’m lucky enough to live in Melbourne, and so tomorrow get to go meet Sophie at her book launch. But if YA contemporary, queer romance, or 90s romcoms are your thing, then this book is for you! Check out my full rave review of this one here!

Authors beginning with H

Shaun David Hutchinson

We are the Ants is the only book I’ve read from Shaun David Hutchinson so far, but I already know he is an author I’m going to love reading more from. We Are the Ants was such an emotional read, Hutchinson has such an honest and relatable way of discussing mental health, I fell in love with the book and loved every second. I’m not usually a memoir reader, but Brave Face is one I really want to read as it talks about Hutchinson’s experience with mental health issues. I also am incredibly excited for his queer political romance The State of Us releasing this year!

Authors beginning with I

Ivy Pochoda & Jordan Ifueko

‘I’ was the first of the letters I really struggled with. So whilst I couldn’t think of any authors I’ve read beginning with I, I could think of two books releasing this year I wanted to shout out. Ivy Pochodo’s These Women is a serial killer literary thriller. A story about female empowerment, focusing on five women all connected to a dangerous, obsessive man. It sounds thoroughly dark and intriguing and oh so thrilling.

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko is the very different, debut YA fantasy about a woman sent to the city to compete to join the Crown Prince’s circle of advisors, but who is bound by a magical wish to kill him once she gains his trust.

Authors beginning with J

Joan He & N.K Jemisin

Two authors, one new to me last year, another I have loved for years! So of course I had to talk about them both. Joan He’s Descendant of the Crane was one of my favourite books last year. It is a detailed, political fantasy, a murder mystery with magic, and the most twisty YA fantasies you’ve ever read. It was incredible work for a debut author, and He’s second novel, The Ones We’re Meant to Find, somehow sounds even more incredible. It’s described as We Were Liars meets Black Mirror, and is about a girl living on a deserted island with no memory of who she is, and a girl trying to save an Earth ravaged by natural disasters. And He says it is even more twisty than her first, which I can’t even comprehend.

N.K Jemisin is certainly no stranger to fantasy readers. She is one of the biggest names in fantasy, most well known for her Broken Earth series, the queer as fuck, science as fuck, utterly captivating, geological masterpiece. It is, and will likely remain forever, one of my favourite fantasy series. N.K Jemisin also has a new book coming at the end of this month, The City We Became, based on a previous short story, about cities with souls. And New York has five of them.

That’s it for this week. Next week I will definitely not forget what day Tuesday is and have to stay up late to write this post and thus be exhausted at work tomorrow, definitely not.