Stuck On What To Read Next? Here Are 6 Authors To Watch In 2020

We’ve told you all about the books that deserve a spot on your must-read list, but what about the authors? Here are six authors to watch in 2020, expect some EXCELLENT stuff from them.

Kate Elizabeth Russell

My Dark Vanessa is the book everyone’s going to be talking about this spring, having sold to the publisher for an almost unheard of seven figures last year. Although Russell first started writing it 20 years ago, the story couldn’t be more of the moment, following a woman who is re-thinking her teenage affair with a teacher in the light of the #MeToo movement. Was it really the love story she convinced herself it was? The writing is fantastic, the plot is filled with tension until the end, and we can’t wait to see what Russell does next.

 

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A post shared by kate elizabeth russell (@kateelizabethrussell) on Apr 8, 2020 at 8:22am PDT

Séamas O’Reilly

Widely regarded as one of the funniest men on Twitter (you’ll find him at @shockproofbeats), Séamas has such a knack for storytelling within 240 characters, we can only imagine what he can do with an entire book. Thankfully, we won’t have to do that for much longer, as his memoir is set to be published in July. Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is an account of his unusual childhood as one of eleven children growing up in rural Northern Ireland in the 1990s, and how his mother’s death changed his relationships with everyone and everything.

Lucy Foley

Lucy Foley has been hailed as a modern-day Agatha Christie. After publishing three historical novels, she turned her hand to murder mysteries with last year’s The Hunting Party and found major success. Her latest, The Guest List, is a whodunnit set on a fictional island off the coast of Ireland, where guests are trapped after a murder at a glamourous wedding. Beach reads have never been so gripping.

 

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A post shared by Lucy Foley (@lucyfoleyauthor) on Apr 2, 2020 at 6:03am PDT

Elaine Feeney

Galway-born poet Elaine Feeney turns her hand to fiction with As You Were, which weave together Ireland’s past and present through stories of women’s fight for rights over their own bodies and institutional failure. At the centre is Sinéad Hynes, a driven young property developer who finds herself in bed at a failing hospital, reliant on the kindness of her fellow patients.

Naoise Dolan

Sally Rooney selected an expert from Dublin author Naoise Dolan’s debut to be published in the literary magazine The Stinging Fly, which is about as impressive an endorsement as you can get. Set amongst expats in Hong Kong, Exciting Times centres on an Irish woman who becomes entangled in a love triangle with Julian, a British banker, and Edith, a Hong Kong-born lawyer. The queer novel (and author) we need right now.

 

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A post shared by Naoise Dolan ☁️ (@naoisedolan) on Nov 22, 2019 at 3:01am PST

Kiley Reid

Kiley Reid’s Such A Fun Age has garnered so much buzz that she’s already working on a film adaption. It takes in what happens after a young black babysitter is racially profiled by a supermarket security guard, who accuses her of abducting the white child she takes care of. Reid explores the issues of race, privilege, and the ‘white savior’ complex while keeping the whole thing immensely readable (really, you’ll probably gobble it up in one sitting). More of this, please.

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• Authors To Watch