J.R Ward is my girl these days. But I confess to suspecting that the success is getting to her head. It feels as though the editors are letting her get away with more and more, because of her high sales, and not pushing her to maintain the quality of writing that drew me in the first time. Could be that the editors just want to crank the books out faster, hard to say.
Anywho, right now, she's my fav, but it doesn't look likely to stay like that.
Two. Patricia Highsmith. I have always heard terrific things about her work and how she was the master of psychological suspense. She wrote the novel upon which Hitchcock's masterpiece (in my view) Strangers On A Train is based. I haven't read that novel yet, but I have read The Talented Mr. Ripley. I saw the film and enjoyed it as a piece of art unto itself, but Highsmith's novel is superb. It is a terrific character study of Ripley, essentially a sociopathic chameleon-like character, easily able to justify committing horrible crimes in order to make the life for himself he deserves. I highly recommend it. I am starting in on Highsmith's short stories, well, shortly.
The second is Flannery O'Connor. I am a big fan of the short story (among my favorite short story authors are Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Richard Ford, John Updike, Paul Theroux) and O'Connor is considered by these masters of the genre to be a giant. I am in the middle of her complete collected short stories and it is easy to see why she is so highly acclaimed. She had a perfect ear for her time and place - - the deep south in the 1940s and 1950s. It takes a writer of great skill to create a comprehensive and vivid world in the span of 6 or 7 pages, inhabit it with characters with whom we can identify (and from whom we will recoil), and to subtly cast light on a truth of the human condition. O'Connor did it consistently.
Oh, and while this isn't a recent discovery to me at all, I say this in the hope that someone not acquainted with this author will discover him: Tim O'Brien. I saw that this is the 20th anniversary of his great collection of stories about the Vietnam War called The Things They Carried. Hard to believe it has been 20 years. The Things They Carried is one of the best short stories I have read, and the rest of the stories are also very strong. O'Brien has written other novels, some having to do with his experiences in Vietnam some not, but you absolutely have to read The Things They Carried. It is MahlerSymphony's pick of the day.
Have recently got into Alex Kava, shes very Patterson, and Bernard Cornwell, write briliant factual (ish) stories
Lisa Black >Takeover is an awesome book
Amanda Kyle Williams>stranger you seek (ditto)Takes place in Atlanta
John Verdon's 2 books are both 10's
Never take life seriously.Nobody gets out alive anyway.
Go Cardinals 2011 World champs/IH8DCUBS
Mary Rebecca H---------2/4/52 -8/20/09 You'll always be missed Sitting and I just started reading Dancing_Doll's work.
I haven't read a good novel in a long time.
Have not read any of Alex Kava, but if she's like James Patterson/Tami Hoag
then I'll keep the name in mind next time I'm browsing for a good read.
I recommend Iris Johansen for mystery/suspense if anyone has not
read her work before.
Jaymal
I dunno why I never read his work until some months ago and I will say WOW!
He has a way of describing things which may shock at first but seriously he is talented. When I read Nat And Sandy Pay The Rent I had to take breaks between paragraphs because I was somehow stunned and I almost cried when I read the end of the story, I could feel the emotions and that was really what amazed me. It was cruel but yet so realistic, he definitely understand his characters and their state of mind.
In the last few months, I've discovered Barbara Erksine. She has wonderful descriptive language, and whilst I am always a sceptical reader, she enables me to put aside my "are you serious?" cynicism, and just enjoy her stories.
Ut incepit fidelis, sic permanet.
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Charles Fraizer, I just finished nightwoods, he also wrote cold mountain & james lee burke is a great read.
i've been reading the The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
and i love his work.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I had avoided John Rechy because I figured I couldn't identify with an LGBT author writing about the LGBT experience. A friend loaned me The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez and I got hooked. I have started reading some of his other works and am captured by his ability and skill.
Robin Hobb, I really enjoyed every book I have read.
