Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Authors I Have Never Met and What I Would Say If I Did

Sarah J. Maas, for A Court of Mist and Fury. I have a considered point about how the Night Court reframes everything in book one, and I know exactly how it would go. I would open my mouth and say "the bat boys" to a professional novelist. ACOMAF still sits near the top of our top rated fantasy romance books list, which I would also mention, out of order, twice. Then I would ask something about A Court of Splintered Harmony that she is not allowed to answer, and she would smile the way authors smile in October.

Holly Black, for The Cruel Prince. She wrote the modern rulebook for fae romance books, and Jude Duarte taught a generation that the correct response to a cruel fae prince is to out-scheme his entire court. What I would say: thank you for never letting Elfhame be safe. What I would want to ask: how do you write someone that unlikeable and that beloved at once.

Rebecca Yarros, for Fourth Wing. I would plan a thoughtful question about writing dragons with real personalities instead of set dressing. I would then ask whether Tairn would like me. He would not.

Rebecca Ross, for Divine Rivals. Iris and Roman, the typewriters, the letters going through a wardrobe to the one person who should not be reading them. I would apologize for crying on public transport and she would have to pretend that is unusual. It is not.

Sarah A. Parker, for When the Moon Hatched. Dragons die and become moons. I want to know how long she sat on that idea before writing it down, and whether she knew straight away it was the best worldbuilding premise of the decade.

Carissa Broadbent, for The Serpent and the Wings of Night. Oraya is human, raised by a vampire king, and entered in a tournament built to kill her. It is my best argument for why enemies to lovers fantasy books land hardest when both people are genuinely dangerous. I would say thank you, then ask about Raihn in a tone that gives me away instantly.

Jennifer L. Armentrout, for From Blood and Ash. Poppy is forbidden from speaking, touching, or being seen, and the book spends itself dismantling every one of those rules. I would not ask about the twist. I would look at her meaningfully and she would know.

Chloe Gong, for Foul Lady Fortune. 1930s Shanghai, espionage, a marriage of convenience, and an aesthetic nobody else in the genre is working in. I would ask about the research and then quietly want the cover as a print.

Hannah Whitten, for For the Wolf. Second daughters get given to the Wolf in the Wilderwood, and the Wolf turns out to be one tired man in a haunted forest doing his best. I would tell her the forest frightened me more than the romance soothed me, and mean it as a compliment.

Heather Fawcett, for Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries. A cranky academic cataloguing faeries in footnotes is the most specific thing I have ever wanted without knowing it. If you sort by heat, our guide to what spice levels mean puts this one at the gentle end. Worth it anyway.

Here is the honest exception. I have met authors, just not the way the prompt means it. The site takes submissions and indie authors actually use it, which still surprises me. Renee Asher emailed about Savage Monsters two days before it released, which is a level of nerve I admire. That is not a signing line, but an email from the person who wrote the book is the closest thing on my record.

That is my ten. If you wandered over from the linkup: hello, welcome, this whole site is what happens when a reading habit stops being casual. Every book above is cataloged with tropes and ratings, the best romantasy series to binge list is a good next stop, and the romantasy recommendation quiz will match you to one in about a minute. Tell me in the comments which author you have actually met, and whether you managed a full sentence. I read every single one.