Top Ten Tue on Wed

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, aka Jana. It’s simple: each Tuesday is assigned a topic, and you post your top ten list that fits that topic. I’m not a regular, and though I had my post ready, I forgot to post it yesterday! Better late than never, perhaps? This week’s theme is New-to-me authors I discovered in 2023. Here are mine:

Rev Richard Coles, a Church of England clergyman, author of mystery stories (I read A Death in the Parish, it was SUPER), musician, broadcaster… I’ll read more of his.

David Devine (1904–1987) was a South African journalist and defence correspondent, and the author of adventure stories, thrillers, military politics and history books. I read Daughter of the Pangaran, historical fiction set in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the 1820s, about a young woman slave / sex object who stands up to her captor. Engrossing.

Oliver Harris: for an action-packed thriller, try his Ascension, a spy story set in Ascension Island and London.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Japanese author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. I don’t like time travel books – but I liked this!

Peter Kerr is a Scotsman whose book about moving to live on a small homestead in Spain (Snowball Oranges) I enjoyed. It’s in the same genre as Peter Mayle’s A Year in France, etc.

Siba Shakib, Iranian-born, lived in Afghanistan, now in the USA. I bought an Italian translation of Samira and Samir, not realising that the original was in English (I thought it was Arabic). The book is about a girl who was raised as a boy, but very far from the contemporary western gender transition agenda. Beautiful writing.

Ratika Kapur, from India: The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is a terrific, first-person narrative about a dutiful Indian woman bringing up her son alone while her husband is working in Dubai to earn more money. It speeds along at an easy and interesting pace – until it trips you up, and you wonder whether you’ve been reading the last pages aright? The ending has a superb twist.

Áine Uí Fhoghlú, a native Irish-language speaker, wrote Éalú (“Escape”) as one of a series of books aimed at adult Irish-language learners. It’s short, but engaging. I was able to dredge up enough Irish from the depths of my memory to follow the tale, which deals with domestic violence and the vulnerability of immigrants.

The anonymous author of The Reluctant Carer. This man moved home to become full time carer to his elderly parents. It was not easy, though it had its hilarious moments. He tells it like it was. Like it is, for many. An extract from the blurb says it best: “Irresistibly funny, unflinching and deeply moving, this is a love letter to family and friends, to carers and to anyone who has ever packed a small bag intent on staying for just a few days. This is a true story of what it really means to be a carer, and of the ties that bind even tighter when you least expect it.”

Sarah Breen and Emer McLysaght. Yes, that is two people. But they write books together, the Aisling series (“women’s fiction” or “beach reads” or that other horrible phrase suggestive of fowl that I refuse to use). I don’t know how two people write a book, but these women manage it. I’d been hearing about their books for ages, and rather turned up my nose. But eventually I succumbed, and enjoyed Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling! the first in the series, funny and witty. Aisling and the City didn’t amuse me so much.