Auto-buy authors

If they write it, we're going to read it. 

We don't need to see the blurb. We barely need to know the title. There are some writers we love (and trust) so much we pick up their books without having to think about it. Here are a few of our instant buys.

Olivie Blake

Olivie Blake seems to be able to write anything, from dark academia (The Atlas Six) to YA romance (My Mechanical Romance, published under Alexene Farol Follmuth). Read one, and she's an instant-buy for life, even for genre devotees who expect to stick to her SFF writing. She's just that good. 


One for my Enemy

by Olivie Blake

Book cover for One for my Enemy

In a magical New York, two families of witches battle for control. The Antonova sisters are beautiful, cunning and ruthless; their mother the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants. Their rivals, the influential Fedorov brothers, serve their crime boss father, whose enterprise dominates the shadows of magical Manhattan. A fraught twelve-year stalemate between the two families breaks, just as internal conflicts could destroy each of them from within. Will anyone survive?

Don't Miss

Discover all of Olivie Blake's writing in our guide to her books.

Read more

David Baldacci

The king of suspense has us hooked on his killer twists. With several series and lots of standalone novels, there's always a new Baldacci to look forward to. 


The 6:20 Man

by David Baldacci

Book cover for The 6:20 Man

A bestselling Richard & Judy book club book, this heart-racing thriller set in the world of high finance is the latest book from David Baldacci. Travis Devine leaves the Army under a cloud of suspicion and turns instead to New York's financial district where greed, jealousy and ambition result in the financial abuse of the masses and the enrichment of an elite few. But on his daily commute on the 6:20 a.m. train, he passes a house where he sees something that sounds alarm signals. His close friend and colleague is the first victim, and as the deaths pile up and the major players show their hands, he must question who he can trust and who he must fight.

Don't Miss

Want to start at the beginning? Take a look at our complete guide to David Baldacci's books in order.

Read more

Hanya Yanagihara

Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel A Little Life catapulted her into the literary spotlight. A writer of modern epics with real emotional heft, she has a deservedly large and fiercely devoted following (*raises hand*) waiting to snap up whatever she does next.


To Paradise

by Hanya Yanagihara

Book cover for To Paradise

Taking you from an alternate nineteenth-century America to 1990s New York, before coming to land in a totalitarian 2093, riven by plagues, To Paradise is a ‘masterpiece’ (don’t just take my word for it, this is from The Observer). Yanagihara weaves the three carefully created worlds together to devastating effect.

Ken Follett

From spy dramas to terrifying visions of the future via historical fiction, Ken Follett's incredible range means we can never quite predict what his next book will be (other than brilliant and added to our TBR, of course).


The Armour of Light

by Ken Follett

Book cover for The Armour of Light

1792. A tyrannical government is determined to make England a mighty commercial empire. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his rise to power, and with dissent rife, France’s neighbours are on high alert. Unprecedented industrial change sweeps the land, making the lives of the workers in Kingbridge’s prosperous cloth mills a misery. 

Now, as international conflict nears, a story of a small group of Kingsbridge people – including spinner Sal Clitheroe, weaver David Shoveller and Kit, Sal’s inventive and headstrong son – will come to define the struggle of a generation as they seek enlightenment and fight for a future free from oppression . . .

Don't Miss

Travel back to the Middle Ages with the Kingsbridge novels.

Read more

Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah's books are known for their explorations of hope, and the vital and unique magic of female friendships.


The Four Winds

by Kristin Hannah

Book cover for The Four Winds

Surely a future American classic, Kristin Hannah’s sweeping bestseller is set in drought-riven Depression-era Texas. Elsa must decide whether to fight for the land she loves or travel west to California in search of a better life. A story of survival, hope and the lengths we go to for the people we love.

Don't Miss

New to Kristin Hannah’s books? Here’s where to start.

Read more

Cormac McCarthy

From the dark dystopia of The Road to the anti-Western Blood Meridian and the riveting No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy's writing is courageous and uncompromising. His legions of fans had their patience rewarded when he released a duo of books late in 2022, after a sixteen year wait.


The Passenger and Stella Maris

Book cover for The Passenger and Stella Maris

The Passenger begins with a sunken jet, nine passengers and an absent body. It is the story of a salvage diver, who is devastated by loss, afraid of deep water, pursued for a tangled conspiracy which he cannot understand and looking forward to a death that he cannot reconcile with God. Stella Maris tells the tale of a twenty-year-old mathematician, who is taken into hospital with forty thousand dollars stashed in a plastic bag and just one request: she doesn't want to discuss her brother.

Don't Miss

'Something of a literary outlaw': a guide to the work of Cormac McCarthy.

Read more

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes complex characters with great empathy. It's been ten years since her last novel, but short story, essay, memoir – we read it all.


Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Book cover for Americanah

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria and reignite their passion – for each other and for their homeland.