Authors To Read If You're A Writer

As I started applying myself in my writing I've discovered how my reading experience has changed. It's become something of an occupational hazard and makes for a strange situation as I critique books that, as they're already published, are already many steps ahead of me. However, I'm not always critiquing. Today, I just want to share two authors whose work I appreciate and may be unknown to you. Not only do I like the stories, I can appreciate the writing and they have helped me with my own works in progress.

Firstly, Gloria Whelan.

My first Whelan I ever read was Listening for Lions when I was maybe nine. (Are you sure you weren't eight or ten, Cordy? :P) I have read many of her books since then and I'm currently suffering because I mistakenly became involved in a trilogy of hers that I'm not sure she's going to complete. (She's 92 and she was last published in 2014.) Anyway, Whelan is skilled in the art of the small, yet fitting, description. She is one of my favorites for painting a scene quickly and expertly. One of my favorite lines of hers reads as follows:

"Just then, the moon rose, throwing a handful of gold coins in a path across the sea." ~Small Acts of Amazing Courage

Isn't that lovely?  Simple but a perfectly captured scene in only one sentence. Just don't read Small Acts of Amazing Courage because...it's part of the doomed trilogy I spoke of. :'/

Secondly, Eloise Javis McGraw.
I have only read two or three of her books but I am already impressed with the flow of her stories. There is a very clean feel to her books. McGraw can leave you hanging and suspicious without leaving you feeling frustrated and bored because of it. But most importantly her characters live and breath in the mind's eye. For example:

“He grinned down at Mara, and her retort died on her lips. As he turned to murmur something to Nekonkh, she struggled to regain her composure. What was it about his smile? Its warmth? Its sudden intimacy? It rushed to the head like strong wine." ~Mara, Daughter of the Nile

"It's sudden intimacy"--giving a smile something of an emotion rather than a texture; e.g. soft, rugged, smooth, you are instantly in the mind of this young woman unexpectedly attracted to this individual.

Well, that has to be all for today. Have you read any books from the authors I mentioned?

Yours truly,
Cordy