Top Ten Tuesday – Authors I’ve Read the Most Books By
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 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Authors I’ve Read the Most Books By. This was an interesting topic for me, mainly because it really highlighted that since I’ve been blogging, I don’t often read many books by the same author. With very rare exceptions such as Victoria Schwab and Leigh Bardugo, my obsession with those shiny, new releases has had me jumping from author to author for a while now. Maybe I’ve read two or three books by the same author, but that’s about it. To find anymore than that, I had to dig way back into my Goodreads history. In a couple of cases, I had to go back to my college coursework and in one case, I had to go all the way back to my childhood!
One author I included I was hesitant to do so, just because she has become so problematic on social media with some of her views. I finally decided to include her anyway for authenticity’s sake since she is definitely one of my most-read authors. I may never read anything else from her again but that doesn’t erase her from my reading past.
Anyway, below are my most read authors, to date, as well as all of the books I’ve read from each of them.
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Authors I’ve Read the Most Books By
1. VICTORIA (V.E.) SCHWAB
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2. LEIGH BARDUGO
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3. SARAH J. MAAS
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4. JANE AUSTEN
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5. TONI MORRISON
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6. JANET EVANOVICH
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8. ALICE HOFFMAN
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9. JUDY BLUME
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10. SHE WHO WILL NOT BE NAMED
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Question: What authors have you read the most books by? Did any of mine make your list?
Reviews: THE HEIR AFFAIR & NOT LIKE THE MOVIES
I hope everyone who was celebrating this weekend had a safe and fun 4th of July holiday. I spent most of my holiday weekend reading so today I’m sharing reviews for a couple of fun contemporary reads that are coming out this week. The Heir Affair and Not Like the Movies are the perfect reads to escape into this summer.
The Heir Affair (Royal We, #2) Goodreads Author: Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
If you enjoy books about royalty or have ever fancied yourself marrying the future King of England, The Royal We series by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan needs to be on your must read list. The Royal We, the first book in the series, follows American college student Rebecca Porter (Bex) and Prince Nicholas (Nick), the future King of Great Britain as they meet, fall in love, and navigate the many obstacles that stand in the way of Bex becoming a member of the Royal Family, while the newest novel in the series, The Heir Affair, picks up with Nick and Bex as a newly married couple starting out their lives together.
While I thoroughly enjoyed both of these books, what I really loved about The Heir Affair is that it really takes a deep dive into Nick and Bex’s relationship. Some very dramatic events from the first book have really shaken them. They need time to heal and regroup, and then they also need to work to try to reconcile with Nick’s brother, Freddie, as well as mend their reputations with respect to the people of Great Britain. The authors do a wonderful job of making Bex and Nick’s relationship easy to relate to. Even though they are royalty and many of their issues and challenges are royal problems that most of us can only imagine in our wildest dreams, many of the other challenges they face are normal, everyday couple issues.
Of course there are still plenty of humorous moments sprinkled throughout the book, particularly with respect to Bex’s relationship with the Queen and with Bex and Nick’s circle of friends from college who are always entertaining. As much as Bex and Nick’s journey through married life and, in particular, their strained relationship with Freddie, tugged at my heartstrings, the humorous moments really balanced things out, as did some of the long-buried, juicy royal secrets that come to light and shake things up for everyone.
As much as I enjoyed The Royal We, I couldn’t have asked for a better sequel in The Heir Affair. Overall, a very satisfying read. 4 STARS
Not Like the Movies (Waiting for Tom Hanks, #2) Goodreads Author: Kerry Winfrey
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
Publisher: Berkley Books
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
I went into Kerry Winfrey’s new novel, Not Like the Movies, hoping for a bit of light rom-com goodness, but I have to say that I fully underestimated this book because Not Like the Movies has turned out to be one of my favorite reads of the summer so far. While yes, it has plenty of that rom-com goodness I was looking for, it also has so much more.
Chloe Sanderson is the protagonist of the story and I adored her and just found her so relatable. Chloe has a big heart, always going out of her way to do nice things for others. She also has a lot on her plate, working as a waitress and baker at Nick’s Café, going to school to finish her business degree, and, most importantly, caring for her aging father who has Alzheimer’s. Chloe’s life is further complicated when her best friend Annie, an up and coming filmmaker, writes a rom-com screenplay inspired by Chloe’s life and her romance with her boss, Nick. There’s just one problem…Chloe and Nick are not in a relationship and never have been.
When Annie’s screenplay is actually picked up by a major studio, Chloe’s fictionalized life is suddenly everywhere and everyone thinks she and Nick are together. Awkward! Things become even more awkward as Chloe starts to consider the possibility of dating her boss. She doesn’t have time for it with everything else on her plate and doesn’t even know if she believes in love, but Nick is kind of irresistible in a sexy, grumpy yet super sweet Luke Danes from Gilmore Girls kind of way. I loved Nick and Chloe’s chemistry and immediately became fully invested in the “Will they or won’t they?” pull of the story.
As much as I adored the rom-com aspect of Nick and Chloe’s evolving relationship, what really took Not Like the Movies to the next level for me was Chloe’s journey as she tries to balance everything she has going on in her life. It’s an emotional one for her because she’s always so worried about caring for others, especially her Dad, and leaves her own self-care out of the equation. Even though the journey is a struggle for her, I loved watching Chloe grow as a person, and I especially enjoyed watching her assert herself when it comes to her brother, who has conveniently stayed away and not pulled his weight when it comes to matters of their family.
There’s just so much to love about Not Like the Movies. I flew through it in a couple of sittings and even though I was completely satisfied with the ending, I was actually still just a little sad just because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Chloe and Nick yet. If you’re in the mood for a story that features romance, family drama, and friendship, this is your book. Oh and there’s pie too! Lots of pie! 4.5 STARS
Review: I KILLED ZOE SPANOS by Kit Frick
I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick 
Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books on June 30, 2020
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 384
Source: Netgalley
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Kit Frick’s new novel, I Killed Zoe Spanos, has all of the ingredients that make for a great summer read. It has a compelling mystery regarding what has happened to Zoe Spanos and who is responsible, and it also features a fantastic podcast run by a teenager who doesn’t think the police are doing enough to solve the mystery. Top that off with an unreliable narrator and a small town setting in the ultra-elite Hamptons and you’ve got yourself a must-read book for the beach or your next vacation.
The protagonist of I Killed Zoe Spanos is Anna Cicconi. Anna has come to Herron Mills, a village in the Hamptons, to work as a nanny for a family there. She is hoping this job will be a fresh start for her. Anna has gone through a rough patch lately and spent entirely too much time partying and drinking, to the point where she has started experiencing blackouts and memory loss. Anna’s journey takes an unexpected turn when she arrives in Herron Mills and is immediately told by everyone she meets that she looks just like Zoe Spanos, a young woman who went missing in the village months earlier. Anna becomes interested in Zoe’s disappearance and starts having little flashes of memories that convince her that she knows Zoe and that she has been to Herron Mills before. When the story opens and we are faced with a scene in which Anna is confessing to Zoe’s murder, it becomes clear that Anna’s summer in the Hamptons is life changing in all the wrong ways.
We get most of the story from Anna’s perspective, and Anna is a classic unreliable narrator. From the moment we meet her as she is confessing to Zoe’s murder, it’s clear that we can’t necessarily trust what she’s saying. The confession is oddly specific yet filled with comments like “I guess,” “I think,” etc. It doesn’t sound at all like a statement made by someone who is sure she committed the crime. An even bigger cloud of doubt is cast over Anna’s story when we learn from her best friend Kaylee that she was with Anna and they weren’t even at the house where Anna is saying Zoe died. Even though the story opens with a confession, the mystery of what happened to Zoe and what, if any, role Anna had in it, is truly about as muddled as it gets and I was hooked on wanting to get to the bottom of it. I also really liked Anna and that she was trying to get her life under control, so I wanted her account to be wrong. I didn’t want her to be a killer. Sometimes unreliable narrators don’t work well for me, but I loved its use here.
I was also a big fan of the author’s use of a dual timeline. One timeline follows the events that lead up to the discovery of Zoe’s body, while the other timeline deals with the fallout after the body is discovered. I always love watching the pieces of a puzzle come together this way, as it allows me lots of opportunities to try to fit those pieces together and come up with my own theories about what has happened, as I did with this story. In this case, the chapters alternate between the two timelines so that the reader is fed a few crumbs at a time from each end of the mystery, both from Anna’s perspective and from the perspective of Martina Jenkins, who is conducting her own investigation into what happened to Zoe, and broadcasting her findings on a podcast called Missing Zoe.
I don’t want to give away any details about what actually happened to Zoe, but I will say that it’s a wild ride to the final reveal. I came up with lots of theories along the way and was wrong every time. In addition to the mystery about Zoe, there are also plenty of little side plots filled with secrets and drama that add extra layers of intrigue and suspense to the overall story. I devoured I Killed Zoe Spanos in just a couple of sittings and definitely recommend it if you’re in the mood for a good mystery.
About Kit Frick
Kit Frick is a novelist, poet, and MacDowell Colony fellow. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, she studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. When she isn’t putting complicated characters in impossible situations, Kit edits poetry and literary fiction for a small press, edits for private clients, and mentors emerging writers through Pitch Wars. She is the author of the young adult novels See All the Stars, All Eyes on Us (2019), and Windermere (2020), all from Simon & Schuster / Margaret K. McElderry Books, and the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs (New American Press). Her fiction is represented by Erin Harris at Folio Literary Management / Folio Jr.