Top Ten Tuesday: Author's I've Read The Most Books From

Sorry for the radio silence recently - I had a family holiday, then went straight on to two weeks of work experience at Penguin Random House in London! That was an amazing time, but the wifi in my hostel wasn't the greatest, to say the least. I'm thinking about blogging about the work experience time, so let me know if that's something you'd be interested in hearing about.

On to Top Ten Tuesday - I love this weeks topic! I think it's really interesting. A couple of authors popped into my head straight away but then I started remembering different (finished or ongoing) series I've read, which threw off my initial thoughts. For the purpose of the list, I'm leaving out short stories.

I've put these roughly in order of number of books, counting down to the author I've read most.


10) Tamora Pierce - Yes, these are quite short, but I've read two of her series now - 8 books total.

9) J. K. Rowling - Apart from Harry Potter, I've read The Silkworm, so that's 8 books.

8) Ilona Andrews - I've read all except the most recent of her Kate Daniels books - 8 books again.

7) Richelle Mead - I've read several of hers from different series - 10 books in total.

6) Seanan McGuire - Despite feeling like I talk about her too much on this blog, I've 'only' read 11.

5) Katherine Kerr - She's started a new urban fantasy series (I've read the first one) but she's also got an epic fantasy sage, told over several quartets. I've read 13 of her books.

4) Kim Harrison - Every single one of her Rachel Morgan books. That's 13.

3) Keri Arthur - I've read a lot of these too, and still have a few Riley Jensen books to go. I've read 15 of her books in total I think.

2) Brian Jacques - In a throwback to childhood, I read a lot of Redwall books, plus some of his other work. I looked them up online and surprised myself - 17 books!

1) Nalini Singh - I've read all the Psy/Changeling books and several of the Angel series. 19 books overall.


Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke And The Bookish - check out their page & the link up.

Let me know if you've read any of these and what you thought of them! And if you leave a link to your own, I'll pop over and have a read.

~Ailsa

Top Ten Tuesday: Beach Reads

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at The Broke & The Bookish. 

*Reminder - win a kindle & bundle of ebooks - enter here*

This week's theme is 'Ten books I plan to have in my beach bag this summer'.
Each year my family goes on holiday to the beach. This is Scotland, so our time on the beach involves sitting on the sand or on some rocks that shelter you from the wind, and reading for ages. Then we go back to the holiday house and keep reading there. For me, the kind of book I read on the beach is one I've been looking forward to having the time to get stuck in to, or it's the first in the series with the rest of the series in my bag to glom through in one week. So here are several books that I own and want to be reading this summer, sometime, with links going to Goodreads:

1) Farlander, by Col Buchanan

2) The Emperor's Blades, by Brian Staveley

3) Ice Forged, by Gail Z. Martin

4) Blood Song, by Anthony Ryan

5) The Shadow of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky (I've read the first one, and my Dad has the whole rest of the series.)

6) Some books by Elizabeth Moon. (I'm not sure where to start with these, but again, my Dad has loads of them.)

And I think that's plenty to be going on with :-)

Which books are you reading this summer? Feel free to leave me links in the comments!

~Ailsa

Top Ten Tuesday: series I want to start

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's question is 'New series' you want to start'. Since I'm not so up-to-date on this year's new releases, I'm going to do this as any series I haven't started yet but want to. This was actually quite hard for me, because most of my wishlist consists of second, third etc books in series I've already started. I've linked to the first book of each series on goodreads.

1) The Twilight Reign series, by Tom Lloyd. This series has been on my radar for a while, and after briefly meeting Tom last year at WFC '13, I've really been thinking about buying the first one, Stormcaller. Fantasy series.

2) The Throne Of Glass series, by Sarah J. Maas. Another fantasy series, I've heard so many good things about them and I'd love to read it.

3) The Paranormalcy series, by Kiersten White. Again, I've heard many many good things about this series, and haven't had a chance to read it yet.

4) The Grisha Trilogy, by Leigh Bardugo. I'm sure this doesn't need explaining.

5) The Charley Davidson series, by Darynda Jones. I don't know so much about this series, but I keep seeing recommendations for the later books in the series, and I think I'd like to check it out.

6) The Curse Worker's series, by Holly Black. I love the sound of these books, and Holly Black seems kind of awesome. I love her Spiderwick series and I've read some of her other books, so I've been hoping to read these ones for a while.

7) The Shadow Police books by Paul Cornell, which start with London Falling. Magic in London. Always a fun thing to read about.

That's all I've got... so if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Particularly if there are new steampunk novels that have come out this year! :)

Top Ten Debuts I'm Excited For

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! This is a new feature for me, and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a topic for a 'top ten' list.

Here are mine for this week, in no particular order:

1) Banished, by Liz de Jager. I'm reading an ARC of this at the moment, and really enjoying it. I'll definitely be reviewing it soon.

2) The Emperor's Blades, by Brian Staveley. Again, I've got an ARC for this in my room, it's my 'read next' book. I've heard a lot of chatter about it and am looking forward to another good fantasy novel.

3) The Relic Guild, by Edward Cox. There isn't much information about this one out yet (no Goodreads page to link to!), but Gollancz describe it: "With its split time-line, superb characters and bewitching setting of a vast city cut off from the realms around it where magic is ruthlessly supressed this is a dark and exciting fantasy set in a city which itself becomes a living, breathing character."

4) The Copper Promise, by Jen Williams. Are you sensing a theme here yet? I think 2014 is going to be a great year for fantasy debuts. I love the cover for this, and the story sounds right up my alley.

5) Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen. Another one I already have a copy of, and am looking forward to reading. It's scheduled to come out in July, so I'll be reviewing it a bit closer to the time.

6) Sing, Sweet Nightingale, by Erica Cameron. Of course, I have to include our own occasional reviewer Erica on this list! I'm excited to read her book which is scheduled to come out in March in the UK.

Those are the debuts which I'm aware of at the moment that really jump out to me. I'm sure there are others, and I know there are several books from previously published authors which I really can't wait to read, either.