When I finished a book this afternoon and went back to reading an Eloisa James (who is a new-to-me author) I made pledge to myself to read at least one NTMA every month. The TBR pile is toppling, I tend to gravitate to old favorite authors, and I just know the authors I haven't read yet are hidden jewels waiting to be discovered. Are there any authors you haven't read yet?  Gail

PS - does it count as a new-to-me author if I've read an author under her new pseudonym but already read her under her original name??

• January - Virginia Hart, Eloisa James, Nicola Marsh, Elizabeth Bonner
• February - Kylie Brant, Trish Wylie, Michelle Celmer, Michelle Dunaway, Jill Shalvis, Saranne Dawson, Patti Berg, Julie Ortolon
• March  -  Stella MacLean, Elle Kennedy, Cindi Myers, Patricia Thayer, Melinda Wells, Nancy Martin 
• April  -  Kimberly Lang, Trish Morey, Joanne Fluke, Kristi Gold 
• May  -  Tara Janzen, Marie Donovan, Kira Sinclair, Maya Banks, Rhonda Nelson
• June  - Cara Summers, Crystal Green, Maddie James, Anne Marie Winston, Samantha Day, Emily Francis, Kate Hoffmann 
• July  - Jule McBride, Myrna Temte, Mona Gedney, Beverly Barton, Day Leclaire 
• August  - Elizabeth Law, Megan Daniel, Elizabeth Boyle, Martine Berne
• September  - Catherine Spencer, John Sandford, Lynn Raye Harris, Jessica Matthews,
• October  - Janette Kenny, Anne Oliver
• November  - Jill Monroe, Michelle Rowen, Nancy Warren, Lisa Renee Jones, Hope Tarr
• December  -  

I love new authors!  I read Wild, Wild West by Charlene Teglia this weekend.  She was a NTM author and the book was very good!

HI Sarah,

She's new to me, too. Does she do contemporary or historicals? Sounds like this one would be historical but I could be wrong.

I just finished a Hannah Murray Book  and she is new to me - so I'm good for the month! :) 

Contemporary romantica.  It's actually 3 stories in one book but I didn't mind the shorter story length.  She was able to tell a good story in a third of a book.

Charlene Teglia is erotic contemporary romance.  I also read that book this weekend and she was a new to me author as well.  Itr was good although after the build up about the BDSM, I found the sex scenes in the 3rd story kind of lackluster.  Like the scenes from the 1st story should have been for the 3rd couple. I liked it enough to add another of her books to my WL though. 

  I started a book yesterday that's also a new to me author. I can't name it though since I'm using it for a game and haven't revealed it yet. It's more of a fantasy book with some romance.  I bought several of her books w/o trying one first.  So before I get more of the series, I'm reading the 1st for the First in a Series swap. 

And yes I think it counts as a new author if it's a psuedonym.  Usually they use another name so they can alter their style. 

January:  Charlene Teglia.

I've read many new to me authors, esp the last few months of last year - hannah Murry's jane and the sneaky dom, kerrelyn sparks, janet chapman, karen marie moning...shelly laurenston/g.a. aiken...

I have a lot more new to me authors glommed including Nina Bangs,elizabeth hoyt, and a bunch of historical romance authors I haven't read yet but glommed a bunch of their books...

i don't have an official goal on new-to-me authors, but it is something i started tracking in my book journal last year.  when recently i ended up reading a new pseudonym of an author i'd already tried, in the entry i pointed out it was a 'sort of new' author, and counted her as new in the month-end wrapup.

i do have an unofficial goal of reducing the too-large stack of complete series (so far) by new to me authors by trying to get at least one read every month, as well as working down some of the series where i've read the first couple and have been stacking up the newer ones ever since.

here's some of this month's NTM authors so far.  paranormal romance - Terri Garey (Nicki Styx), not bad.  Victoria Laurie (ghost hunter series), mystery, which actually has a main character with very similar abilities as Nicki, i liked better.  (how i keep ending up accidently grouping into the same month similar characters from different author - like last month there were several new to me series with succubi - i don't know.)  fantasy, Joshua Palmatier - i liked.

Ellen, Victoria Laurie's Psychic Eye series is pretty good too...wasn't as wild about the last one but the 2nd was really cute esp  near the beginning.

i've got the first couple of Psychic Eye books, and the library has the rest, but i haven't tried them yet.  i figured since there were only two Ghost Hunter books out at the moment, that was an easier place to start.  at *some* point they've got to make it to the top of TBR, right?  ;)

Great idea, I'm in! I have more than 12 in my TBR, that's for sure! I'm good for January already! Is it ok to list more than one? LOL

January - Lori Foster, Patti O'Shea, Nancy Cane, Zoe Archer, Jet Mykles, Patricia Briggs, Anne Gracie, Rebecca York, Evangeline Anderson

February - Cherry Adair, Shelly Laurenston, Charlaine Harris

March - Linda Howard, Lynsay Sands, Penelope Williamson, Samantha James, Lorraine Heath

April - Liz Carlyle, Laura London, Catherine Mann, Lorelei James, Bianca D'Arc, Susanna Carr

May - Morgan Hawke, Rachel Carrington, Madison Hayes, Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy

June-Marta Acosta, Annaliesse Evans, Jennifer Haymore, Suzanne Brockmann, Monica McCarty, J.L.Langley

July-Sharon Ashwood, Annalise, Allyson James, Xandra Gregory, Fiona Brand

August-Erastes, Suzanne Brockmann, 

September -Sara Reinke, Shannon McKenna, Jory Strong, Madelaine Montague, Beth Williamson, Marliss Melton, Annie Windsor

October-Mackenzie McKade, Theolyn Boese, Autumn Dawn, Chloe Neill, Jenna Black

November

December

I'll be posting more than one new-to-me author each month. I know I read at least one other NTM this month but haven't looked the information up in my reading notebook. It was an old Harlequin Romance, don't know if I should bother adding the author's name as I don't think she even writes any more but I guess she counts as I'd never picked up one of her books before.    Gail

To have a blank posting show up - don't see a delete-message key so I guess it's there forever. I was typing a reply but clicked out of it so something went through anyway.  Still a newbie here!    Gail

I have an extensive TBR and lord knows I have many authors that I have not read yet.  But I have it covered for this month - I have read the Essex series by Eloisa James.  She is an interesting author and has a unique syle for her writting. 

February - Elizabeth Hoyt, Victoria Dahl

Ellen--what kind of book journal? Something on line, or a notebook by the bed?  Just curious. If its online, share the web site! Thanks, Anne

Anne, it's not online, just me using a generic journal to keep track of what i've read.  i got the idea after i saw someone keeping track online, and started mine around the middle of 2003.  at first it was pretty basic, author, title, rating, and a couple of sentences, but now it usually takes me about 15 minutes to write up a book, and i've got the basics, plus where it fits into a series if it does, if it's a new to me author or when i last read a novel by the same author, when i last read something in the series or universe, a description of the book, where/when i got the book, when i started & finished reading it, and how many pages.  it helps if i'm reading a series and i want to remind myself of the older books without needing to reread them all before starting a new book in the series.  i also do a very brief month-end wrapup with things like how many new to me authors, how many re-reads, how many YA, and what my favorite new books (or if there were re-reads, also my overall favorite for the month).

i do a longer year-end wrapup with how many total books read that year, did i re-read anything within the same calendar year (rarely more than a couple, none in 2008), what my overall most & least favorite were, and my favorite new authors discovered that year.

when i finally got to my third volume, i also started making and adding an index to the back when it's full, with just with the author names and the info on when i read them.  it was getting much too time consuming to flip through every page to try to find that info.

that's probably more than you wanted to know.  :)

I've read a couple new authors this month but not romance - both were mysteries. I'm reading my first by Maya Banks though - Colter's Woman. not overwhelmed with it but oh well I'll like go ahead and finish it since it's an easy ready and well has sex in it!

Wow Ellen, that is cool. More than I want to do though. When I was a kid I kept a card file with books I'd read and my comments. I still have it :)  I haven't kept records of books I've read as an adult though, at least not til I joined PBS and started the BIR list here.

Anne

I'm reading Kathleen Woodiwiss - new for me this month.

I've done a bunch of new ones lately myself.  Victoria Dahl, thumbs up, Pam Rosenthal, bleh, Hilary Fields, bleh.  Leda Swann, double bleh:P  And Anna Campbell, triple bleh with whipped cream and a rubber cherry:P  No nuts. 

I just added a new name to my NTM author list: Nicola Marsh. Finished her Harlequin Presents Extra, MISTRES TO THE TYCOON, and.....well, it started off good, since I'd never read this author before I wasn't sure what she'd be like so I was pleasantly surprised; then it got kind of blah, then it got good again. What surprised me most was that the heroine (an artist) was something of a bohemian, dressed in bizarre clothes, like a hippie, and there were characters with a lot of body piercing, colorful mohawk hairdos. I don't see much of that any more, like at the mall and places where younger people congregate, so I was wondering if because the book was set in Australia that those fads were still big there. Then the plot took a nice twist and the book ended well. I'd definitely read her again.  Gail

Her name sounds familiar - does she write medieval hist/rom? If so I think I have a couple of her books. I've read one Pam Rosenthal and liked it, but wasn't tempted to read any other books by her; the plot of her second book didn't appeal to me and I'm not sure if she's written any more than those two.  Gail

Just finished a new-to-me author: Christine Feehan's Dark Desire.

Yes, I know. I'm probably the last in the world to read Christine Feehan. <g>

Gail, Sherron tried her out when she was looking for some action/adventure stuff, and so I ordered a couple that were available in the system - Heart of a Lion, and The Maiden's Revenge.  We were both jonesing for some Marsha Canham style stuff, I think:P  I haven't had a chance to ask Sher what she thought, but Heart of A Lion is pretty cringeworthy stuff, IMO.  Yucky medieval, little girl kidnapped during the "Children's Crusade"  & sold into slavery in the middle east, shades of Batman Begins ninja training stuff - oh, and she's a cross-dresser:P  Hero was supposed to be babysitting when she gets kidnapped & has been searching for her for years, and blah-blah-blah.  I totally hate the badass heroine plot when it's not done well, and this one is just stupid.  Maiden's Revenge, I posted in a knee-jerk reaction to the other, so I haven't read it:P  There's a very slim chance I *might* try to.  If it gets ordered or something and I want to skim it before I send it out.  And that's a maybe.  The Rosenthal - Almost A Gentleman - wasn't completely horrible, but it got really tedious after a while.  I can only take the woman in man clothes thing for so long before I start sawing logs:P