Reader Rayna

Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl! Today’s topic is about bookish discoveries that were made last year, whether that be new-to-me authors I discovered, new genres I dipped my toes into, new bookish resources I found, friends made, bookstores visited, etc.

New-to-Me Authors

I actually read a bunch of new-to-me authors last year that I want to continue to read into this year and the future, so let me share a bit about them here:

• Kennedy Ryan – I read three of her books last year, the Skyland series, and loved each book. I’ll get around to posting my reviews of them later in the year, but they were each written so well with love, humor, and care. She’s definitely an author I’m going to pick up again.
• S.A. Chakraborty – My new all-time favorite trilogy of course gets a spot here! The way that the story was written and the world was built around these politics, of love of family, it was just so breathtaking. Chakraborty became an auto-buy author for me!
• Ali Hazelwood – I read a couple of Ali’s books last year – Deep End and Bride – and both were a fun time for different reasons. I find her writing to be engaging while the content to be a mix of entertaining and insightful. Her STEM background offers an interesting plot point in her books for sure!
• Taylor Jenkins Reid – Atmosphere was one of the few books I listened to in full on audio from my library and boy oh boy was it SO good! I had never given one of her books a chance before, but I really enjoyed this one. It had ups and downs and moments that made me gasp. I was fully invested and will be checking out other books of hers in the future!
• Kimberly Lemming – You want a good time and hilarious writing? Kimberly is your girl! I’ve never laughed out loud so much reading books before! She writes very much to the millennial audience, and I love that for us! The romances were also very swoon worthy and just plain fun.
• Becky Chambers – The Monk and Robot duology was something that really touched my heart when I read them last year. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but there was something deeply philosophical that I got out of them, and I’m so glad I read those books. I can’t wait to read more of her books!

Apps

I’ve tried out a few news apps last year, as well, to see how I’d like them. I’m not going to be sticking with all of them, but I am going to keep using at least one of them:

• The StoryGraph – I didn’t really understand how the website worked for a long time, but I’ve been poking at it a lot more toward the end of 2025 and more so this month and I’ve really been liking seeing my stats in terms of pages read each day go up! I think that stat is honestly my favorite to see out of anything so far. Also, I don’t think I tried this for the first time in 2025 but I did really start using it in 2025, so that’s the difference lol
• Fable – This is a book club type app where you can join or create a book club based on your own preferences and read what others are reading or what you want to read. It has a big community aspect, and also has a reading tracking aspect to it. It did have a big scandal/issue earlier in 2025, and I also never found myself to use the app much at all, so it’s one that I decided to drop and uninstall in 2026.
• PangoBooks – It’s like eBay, but for books! It’s honestly been a great app and I’ve gotten a bunch of books I’ve really wanted off of it from other readers, so I highly recommend checking it out if you’re looking for special editions, regular editions, out of print books, etc.
• Book of the Month – This is a monthly book subscription service, but it also has an app, so I’m looping it in under this category. Both my wife and I started it in January of last year and have reached “BFF” status with them, meaning we got one book over the course of 12 months (though we each skipped a month so it took 13 months total lol), so we get a few extra perks. But you basically get to choose from a list of books their team picks out in the month for the one you want to own yourself – a hardcover at a lower price than market value. (No this is not sponsored!) I’m honestly considering stopping for a few months, especially since I’m on the waitlist for the Fairyloot Adult Fantasy and Romantasy book boxes, so that would be a significant increase in funds, and I’m not always wowed by the selection of books, if I’m honest.

So those are ten bookish discoveries I made in 2025! Or before lol

What kinds of discoveries did you make last year that you think others could benefit from? What was your favorite thing you found? Let me know in the comments!