We’ve heard you loud and clear: w*iting p*tiently for the next House Andrews offering would be a lot easier if the Horde had new books to devour in the meantime.
Please help your fellow bookworms, and post your book recommendations and/or requests for book suggestions in the comments. Most people seems to be looking for escapism, comfort reads, cosy fun or feel-good fiction, so you may wish to focus on that.
First, a few guidelines! I knoooow, it’s so hard to be a pagethirsty Horde these days, so many rules, such meanie strict moderators. The heart bleeds :P. But this is the 4th or 5th installment of the recommendations thread, so we’ve learned the lessons on making it more efficient and accessible for all:
- Keep it Current:
We’re looking for relatively new reads—ideally nothing published more than a decade or so ago. We know the Horde is well-read on the classics, and we’ve had hundreds of comments for the perennial favorites like Tamora Price, Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey etc in the previous posts. Please let us know about something you’ve read more recently.
We want to make room for fresh finds and maximize discovery!
- One Recommendation Per Person:
Whether it’s a standalone book, a series, or a beloved author, please keep your comment to just one. It’s easier for everyone to read and make up their mind if they’re not overwhelmed by a wall of text mentioning all the Urban Fantasy authors ever.
If you’ve already +1 replied to someone who recommended your preference, please don’t start another thread for the same books or author.
CTR+F is a shortcut that allows you to quickly search a webpage for key words, if you want to check for previous mentions of your favourites. Here’s how to do the same thing on your mobile phone.
- Stay on Target:
If you’re replying to someone who made a specific request, please try to keep your recommendation tailored.
Steering a fellow Horde bookdevourer who wants to read cosy, feel-good LitRPGs towards gritty miliary sci-fi won’t help, as great as your intentions are. We love all genres, but should respect everyone’s comfort preferences. If OP mentions specific triggers they wish to avoid and you can’t remember whether your book rec contains them, please err on the side of caution.
- Suggestions for Ilona
Ilona is looking for a particular type of read, something similar to Kinsmen or Jayne Castle’s St. Helen series. It can be SF or present day. If you are looking for that type of read that’s more recent, Ilona recommends Jennifer Estep and Jessie Mihalik. They are both amazing, and she has read their entire backlist. If you are an author who would like to recommend your own book to Ilona, please label your comment with Author Recommendation.
Looking forward to your suggestions!
This post is gold. Had anyone created a spreadsheet they’re willing to share?
Very late to this party, as I have been reading The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba. It hooks you in and has as many spinning plates as Innkeeper.
i FINALLY made it through this entire post! thank you everyone for all the wonderful suggestions. i’ve got quite the to-read list going now.
my recommendation is “the wrong side of hell” by sonya bateman. first book in the deathspeaker codex series. urban fantasy. a guy discovers he can speak to the dead, and finds there’s a whole world of others he never knew about. werewolves, fae, and those who hunt them and enslave them. a fast-paced story that keeps you reading until the end of the book, which always seems to comes too soon.
This series/author sounds very interesting. Thank you.
I got to the end! Not expecting anyone else to get here, but for anyone who made it to the end of the long list… I highly recommend Julia Vee and Ken Bebelles two-book (with more to come) series about a magical families battling it out in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
For people who liked HL but would appreciate more swords.
Michelle Manus’ Nyx Fortuna series!
After reading these posts I stumbled on a series Dred Chronicles which begins in 2014 so it’s within the 10 year requirement. I am now binge reading previous and newer series. The author is Ann Aguirre. I can not put these down. If you like space drama—these series are for you! Ilona Andrew’s is always my top choice but Ann Aguirre just became my second. She’s that good!
Maybe this is not what the BDH usually goes for, but it is the only series that I discovered in the last few years that really stuck with me.
It’s the Morrigan Crow series by Jessica Townsend. After reading Harry Potter when I was young, this is the first series that gave me a very similar feeling of delight while reading. The world building and magic system are very creative and you never know what to expect next. More of the younger end of YA though, no romance.
“Dark Horse” by Michelle Diener. Here is the blurb from Amazon:
Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she’s made a
powerful ally–a fellow prisoner with whom she’s formed a strong bond. Sazo’s
an artificial intelligence. He’s saved her from captivity and torture, but he’s also
put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided.
Captain Dav Jallan doesn’t know why he and his crew have stumbled across an
almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he’s not going to complain. The only
problem is, everyone on board is dead, except for one strange, new alien being.
She calls herself Rose. She seems small and harmless, but less and less about
her story is adding up, and Dav has a bad feeling his crew, and maybe even the
four planets, are in jeopardy. The Class 5’s owners, the Tecran, look set to start
a war to get it back and Dav suspects Rose isn’t the only alien being who
survived what happened on the Class 5. And whatever else is out there is
playing its own games.
In this race for the truth, he’s going to have to go against his leaders and trust
the dark horse.
I’ve read the whole series, and all the following books are a variation on the plot of the first one. But hey, I re-read your books all the time. If you liked the first one, you can either re-read it or try the next book in the series.