There’s something about Catherynne Valente for me. When it doesn’t quite hit for me, I have to be in the right mood to enjoy her style, but a few of her books absolutely destroy me.

When I first read Deathless, I kept reading lines aloud to my ex’s family, who I was on vacation with at the time. I could barely make it through a page.

I still think about “You look like a winter’s night, I could sleep inside the cold of you” a few times a week in the winter. That and “when you love someone, you don’t make them tell war stories”. It might be time for a reread.

I think we’ve been reading different fanfiction 😅

most of what I’ve read has been writers slowing down and filling in everything that the source material rushed past. 10k words on one quiet moment in between plot points. Or AUs where instead of all the drama and action, the characters just work at rival flower shops or whatever.

Octavia Butler, because I’m not sure what I’d do without being able to reread her books

Terry Pratchett, because another comment here mentioned just how many books, all excellent, he wrote

and finally Tamsyn Muir even if she’s not the most pragmatic choice (only a few books out so far), because I need to know how the locked tomb series ends. Plus she writes some of the most rereadable books I’ve ever read.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is one of my favorites, I love a good time loop. I also have a soft spot for Oona Out of Order, though I feel like the only one who really liked it. I know it’s kind of meandering, but that gives this real, lived in feeling to her messed up life that makes the emotions hit harder for me.