We all have them: our literary idols. I have so many that I don't even know how I could begin to list them all.
I'm going to make an effort to start though, and hopefully pay homage to these great ladies of young adult fantasy in the process.
1. Maggie Stiefvater
The majority of The Winter Court was written when I was having trouble finding a job after I finished grad school. I was feeling a little lost at the time, but BuzzFeed recommended that I pick up Maggie Stiefvater's novels which I was lucky enough to find at my local library (in the suburbs, you never really know what you'll get at the library).
I started with Shiver and I thought it was so perfect that I refuse to read the rest of the series to this day. They're happy and in love. I am not messing with that beautiful mental image.
Next, I moved on to The Raven Boys and the rest of The Raven Cycle series. That is a series that made my heart ache and sing all at the same time. It was the first honest portrayal of grief, depression and anxiety that I had seen and remains one of the best.
Stiefvater has such a way with developing characters that any romance plotlines seem inevitable and natural. That is a level of mastery that I hope to one day reach.
2. Holly Black
The majority of the writing of The Winter Court happened in #NaNoWriMo of 2016, so I'm not actually sure if I had read any of her work before this. I think it's possible that I read Tithe for a high school book club, as my local library doesn't have this title.
However, I became (re?) introduced to Black's work with the release of The Cruel Prince. All of her work involving Faerie perfectly captures the grey morality of the Fae. There's no good and evil in those universes. Or at least, it isn't at all clean cut. I'm drawn to and fascinated by this characterization because it's so foreign to the way that I view the world. Finn gets his radical honesty from me. It's hard for me to imagine people who will smile to your face and then stab you in the back, but that is exactly who the Fae are as a people.
3. Sarah J. Maas
Now, I definitely came to this after I completed the first draft of The Winter Court, but when I picked up A Court of Thorns and Roses, I was immediately hooked. There's just something so entrancing about a self-sacrificing girl who is caught up in things she doesn't quite understand.
I don't love everything about SJM's writing - as I'm getting older, I'm more and more put off by the whole idea of soul mates - but I love that her narratives are so large and all-encompassing. The sheer number of Easter eggs that she's been able to weave through both the ACoTaR and Throne of Glass series is incredible. I don't yet have the memory to be able to make everything a potential plot point later on, but I like that style.
This is definitely going to be an ongoing series, especially as I work more on my vision for subsequent novels.
Let me know who you think who I should add to my reading list, and the authors that inspire you! Let's chat, bookworms!
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