While You’re Waiting…

So, summer is on the way, vacation approaches, and your TBR (to be read) pile is growing dangerously low.

While you wait for Gianetta Murray’s next chart topper (I dream big!), here are some of the authors who have influenced me and my writing career. If you like my writing, you might want to check some of these out.

First, of course, you have to give a nod to the Golden Age of crime writing. Sure, there’s Christie (as in Agatha), and she’s great. But she’s not my favorite. That honor goes to two writers, Josephine Tey and Ngaio Marsh.

You may have studied one of Tey’s books, Daughter of Time, in a qualitative thinking class. But it’s far from her only book featuring the thoughtful, debonair Scotland Yard detective Alan Grant. I was in love with Mr. Grant as a teenager and there’s still a residual fondness, although I’ve come to question his ability to predict criminality via facial features. 

Marsh was born in New Zealand but her detective Roderick Alleyn is also from Scotland Yard. Her mysteries are intricate, clever, and sometimes  heartbreaking. Plus, his famous artist wife is hoot all on her own. A must read.

In the modern day, try Kate Ellis. Her protagonist Brooklyn Wainwright is a bookbinder in San Francisco, and she’s married to a handsome Brit. (I wonder why I relate?) She also has some whacky ex-commune parents living in wine country. So much room for entertainment there. She also writes the Fixer-Upper series which were made into films on Hallmark.

But if you want action, then J.D. Robb is your writer. Her In Death series takes place in a futuristic New York, where gritty cop Eve Dallas fights crime with the help of  Irish millionaire husband Roarke (some people have all the luck). No one can move a story along better than Robb, who also writes suspenseful romance as Nora Roberts.

And if mystery ain’t your thing, see the sidebar for more of my favorites! (Although I trust you’re buying my book anyway, or you wouldn’t be reading this.)

That’s my list (although I’ve tried to avoid some of the big names, like Stephen King, and there’s so many more!). Who are your favorites? Tell me in the comments and maybe I’ll find a new author.

Happy reading!