Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Adore & Need More Love!

It’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday – although I’ve left it to the evening to post there are still almost two hours of Tuesday left and that’s what counts! Today’s top ten is all about hidden gems, books I adore but don’t get the wider love that I think they deserve!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Hidden Gems

The Dark Gifts Trilogy

I adore this trilogy by Vic James and I will never stop recommending it to anyone who has the misfortune to ask me! A few of my friends also love this trilogy but I think it really doesn’t get the same level of love that some other fantasy series get. I want Dark Gifts merch! Give me candles! Postcards, a Silyen print I can put on my wall, I will happily take it all!

The Inspector Karen Pirie books

I’ll be honest Val McDermid is hardly underrated or a hidden gem but thanks to the fabulous TV show Wire in the Blood when most people hear Val McDermid they think profiling and Tony Hill and Karen Jordan. Karen Pirie on the other hand solves cold cases with links to Scotland and I actually prefer these books. Broken Ground has only just been released so I’m looking forward to grabbing a copy!

The Sally Lockhart Quartet

Philip Pullman is another author who needs no introduction, but I’ve always felt this quartet has been rather overshadowed by its more well known younger sibling the His Dark Materials Trilogy. Sally definitely deserves some love too!

The Inspector McLean Series

James Oswald is not quite as well know as some Scottish crime writers (see Val for example) I think he is becoming a little more widely known though. The Inspector McLean series mixes crime with a supernatural twist and I love it! He has a new – but I think connected – series about to begin as well which I’m looking forward to!

Moriarty

This may prove controversial as who can improve on the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales. Anthony Horowitz doesn’t improve but I did really enjoy both of the new Sherlock novels Anthony created, Moriarty gets my vote for this last for a twist I really enjoyed, it definitely deserves some more recognition and love!

The Edge of Everything

Jeff Giles is the author behind The Edge of Everything and it’s sequel The Brink of Darkness. A fantasy thriller with bounty hunters from hell – quite literally. I loved the first book but it’s not a book I see talked about a lot, in the UK at least. I’ll even forgive them for changing the cover design between the first and second book’s release and those that know me know I HATE that! Maybe it helps that I prefer the new cover…

YA Books by Rachael Lucas

Both the State of Grace and My Box Shaped Heart deserve so much love. I loved Grace, and while not an expert on Asperger’s at all, I felt it was included in a really positive manner. My Box Shaped Heart covered some really interesting and potentially difficult subjects in a positive way. Praise for Rachael Lucas should be shouted from the rooftop and I cannot wait to see what she publishes next!

The Rivers of London series

I feel like this series doesn’t get a lot of love but maybe I just don’t speak to the right people about it. Recommended to me when I needed to use up an Audible credit, policing meets magic in this series of stories set in London. I love the world building in this series, the lead character Peter Grant is wonderful and I have a whole lot of love for many of the supporting characters, especially Nightingale and Molly. I would highly recommend the audio books to anyone who happens to have an Audible credit going spare, they are so well brought to life!

The Word Is Murder

Anthony Horowitz makes his second appearance with a novel that’s not for everyone but I love the fact Anthony himself is a central character within the story. It’s crime fiction with a bit of a twist and although it might be a bit of a Marmite plot device I’m firmly on the love it side (unlike with actual Marmite). There’s a second book due out in what is now a series and I’m really looking forward to seeing where he goes with it!

The Book Of The Year

This is a book with a confident title! What it actually is is a book filled with random facts from 2017 (a 2018 edition is due out later this year). I love random facts in general so this sort of book is right up my alley anyway. Add to it the fact it’s written by the QI elves behind the No Such Thing As A Fish podcast and you can be sure I’ll have any future edition pre-ordered. A must for any pub quizzers or general lovers of random facts both the books and the podcast deserve to be shouted about! (also the audio book is just like an extended podcast and includes even more randomness!)

Bonus mentions go to the Detective Caelan Small series by Lisa Hartley, The Robert Finlay trilogy by Matt Johnson and the DI Kelly Porter series by Rachel Lynch!

These are some of the books I think deserve more love, a mixture of my two literary faves YA and Crime! Which books do you feel deserve more love? Let me know in the comments!