Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn't

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week has a different theme & you can find all the details about how to join in HERE.

Today's topic is Top Ten 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn't Get To. There were actually a lot of 2015 books that I was really excited about but never got around to reading but here are the ones I REALLY want to try and get to soon!

Top Ten 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn't Get To:

Young Adult

1. Witch's Pyre - Josephine Angelini 
2. Riders - Veronica Rossi
3. The Raven King - Maggie Stiefvater
4. Arcana Rising - Kresley Cole
5. Torch Against the Night - Sabaa Tahir

Adult:

1. Grave Visions - Kalayna Price
2. Cursed - Sue Tingey
3. A Closed and common orbit - Becky chambers 
4. Alliance - S.K. Dunstall
5. Infernal - Mark de Jager

What books are on your list?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten New To Me Authors I Read for the First Time in 2015 (& yes I do know I'm 2 days late LOL)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week has a different theme & you can find all the details about how to join in HERE.

Today's topic is Top Ten New To Me Authors I Read for the First Time in 2015 and I've discovered some wonderful new authors this year so I have lots to talk about. This will include a mixture of debut authors and authors who have been around for a while but who I only discovered this year. I'm also including a selection of adult and YA author's so there hopefully should be something here that appeals to everyone.

I've been looking forward to this topic for ages but life got in the way & I'm only just getting around to actually writing it so I apologise for being 2 days late. Better late than never though so here we go :o)

I love discovering new authors (I've actually read books by over 50 new to me authors this year!) and you can see a list of all the author's I've discovered in 2015 HERE if you're interested. It's been very hard to narrow it down to just my top 10 but I've finally done it so here are my favourites:

Pippa Dacosta

Pippa Dacosta has quickly become one of my favourite authors, I fell in love with her writing when I picked up the first in her science fiction series Girl From Above: Betrayal but have since also devoured her urban fantasy series that starts with Beyond the Veil. In fact I've worked my way through her entire back list (11 books and novellas) since August so that should give you a hint about how much I LOVE her stories. You can read all of my reviews of her work HERE.

K.F. Breene

K.F. Breene is another author whose books I've been absolutely devouring, I've not managed to make my way through her entire back list but I did devour all of the books currently available in her Warrior Chronicles series and I'm now desperately waiting for the next book to be written! Read my reviews HERE.

Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

I can't believe it took me so long to discover these author's wonderful series, I absolutely devoured These Broken Stars and This Shattered World earlier this year and the final book in the trilogy, This Fractured Light, is right at the top of my Christmas wish list this year. Both Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner have been added to my list of auto-buy authors and I can also highly recommend Illuminae that Amie wrote with another fabulous (but not new to me) author Jay Kristoff. Read my reviews HERE.

V.E. Schwab

Another new autobuy author has to be V.E. Schwab, I absolutely adored both A Darker Shade of Magic and Vicious. Both books are very different but utterly brilliant and I'm glad we're going to get more stories set in each world. You can find my reviews HERE.

E.K. Johnston

A Thousand Nights was one of my favourite books of the year so of course I had to include debut author E.K. Johnston in my list. This story is incredibly atmospheric and was so, so beautiful to read, I completely devoured it and I can't wait to see more from this author in the future. Read my review HERE.

Becky Chambers

I've been really enjoying my science fiction this year and Becky Chamber's debut, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, was brilliant. It has such a varied cast of characters and I really hope that this is going to be the start of a new series. I'll definitely be watching out for whatever this author writes next though. Read my review HERE.

Pamela Clare

I don't tend to read a lot of romantic suspense but I've been hearing amazing things about Pamela Clare's writing from American bloggers for such a long time now so when I found out her books had been picked up by a UK publisher I couldn't resist giving them a try. I can definitely understand why everyone raves about her now because these books are amazing! You can find my reviews HERE.

Naomi Novik

I loved Uprooted so much that I've already read it twice this year, it's an absolutely wonderful fairytale type fantasy story that I don't really have the words to describe, hence the reason I STILL haven't written up my review for it! I will be getting caught up with my final reviews by the end of the year though so watch out for this one - it's put Naomi Novik on my list of must read authors and I'm really looking forward to working my way through her back list.

Juliet Marillier

Another fantastic fantasy story that I'm yet to write a review for. Dreamer's Pool was brilliant and I already have the next book in the series that I'm hoping to read very soon so Juliet Marillier is another recommended author.

Louise O'Neill

Louise O'Neill's Asking For It isn't an easy read, in fact there were times when it was incredibly painful and it made me so mad that I could have probably committed murder if I'd been able to climb into the story and confront some of the main characters! This is such an important book though and I really do feel like EVERYONE should read it, Louise shines a light on rape culture in today's society and I think it paves the way for some very important questions that we all need to ask ourselves. I really think this should be required reading in schools to get people openly talking about what constitutes rape and whether anyone is ever Asking For It (of course they're absolutely NOT but you'd be surprised at how many people don't agree with that!). I've heard great things about Louise O'Neill's debut novel Only Ever Yours too so I'm planning on reading that one as soon as I get a chance.

So those are my favourite newly discovered authors for 2015. Have you read any of the books or series I mentioned? Which ones are your favourites? Who are your top new authors? I'm always looking for recommendations :o)

Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

Somewhere within our crowded sky, Rosemary Harper has joined the crew of the Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days. Rosemary is looking for a small, quiet spot to call home with adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. She believes she has found this on the Wayfarer.

The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptilian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful - exactly what Rosemary wants. That is until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet.

The job will earn them enough money to live comfortably for years . . . if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.

It soon becomes clear Rosemary isn't the only person on board with secrets to hide. and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

Set against a backdrop of curious cultures and distant worlds, this episodic tale weaves together the adventures of its eclectic characters, each on a journey of their own.

Visit Becky Chambers' website for more information

Review:
Reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is a bit like diving into a series of a show like Star Trek or Firefly and I enjoyed every minute of it. The story is very character driven so the plot can be a little slow in places but I was having so much fun getting to know everyone and learning about the different alien cultures they come across along the way that this really didn't bother me. Most of the action is towards the end of the story though as they get closer to their destination and that's when I was completely on the edge of my seat waiting to see how things would turn out.

This is the story of the Wayfarer, a small ship that tunnels wormholes through the galaxy to make long distance space travel much easier. Their latest job has the potential to make the crew rich but the journey will be long and tedious and they're flying into a war zone so the potential dangers are high. The Wayfarer's crew is small and relatively tight nit, but even the closest friends can start to wear on each other after spending a long time trapped together in a relatively small space. There are nine members of crew who come from a variety of backgrounds spanning across both human and alien races. They even have an AI on board who is just as sentient as the rest of the crew.

Rosemary, the newest human crew member and the ship's clerk, is looking to escape from her past and just wants to get as far away from her home on Mars as possible. Captain Ashby is also human but he was born in space and just loves to travel, his ship is everything to him and he cares deeply about his crew. Pilot Sissex comes from a lizard like alien race who have very different customs to our own while Dr Chef, another alien, wants to live in peace away from his war torn home world. The two ships engineers, Kizzy and Jenks, are both a little on the crazy side and fight like brother and sister while AI Lovey watches over the ship and her friends to protect them from danger. The final members of the crew are navigator Ohan, a complicated symbiotic pairing with a very different outlook on the world, and algaeist Corbin who is in charge of fuel production.

Each of the characters get to tell part of the story which really allows us to get to know them all, they are all unique but sometimes flawed individuals with their own quirks and interests and I really grew to love them. The interactions between the various crew members were fantastic and I enjoyed seeing how various relationships changed throughout the course of the story. The universe Becky Chambers has created is fully fleshed out and full of intricate details, she has some brilliant settings and we get to meet a lot of interesting alien races along the way. Each species introduced has it's own customs and eccentricities that really helped bring them to life. Although The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet works perfectly as a stand alone story I can't help hoping that we'll get a chance to meet up with the Wayfarer again to join the crew on another adventure.

Source: Received from publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Other Reviews:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

Hardback / Paperback / Kindle: