In 2017 I shared Favorite Book Features on my favorite books. This year I’d like to start a new series—features on my favorite authors! I’m going to return to my favorite books shelf and look into some of my favorite authors. I’ll share about their books I’ve read and why they’re an awesome author. First up is none other than Kiera Cass!

Kiera Cass is the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of the Selection Series. She graduated from Radford University and lives in Virginia with her husband and two kids. In addition to the Selection Series (The Selection, The Elite, The One, The Heir, The Crown, and two story collections set in the world of The Selection), she is the author of The Siren. She also has an untitled book coming out sometime this year.

The original trilogy of the Selection series are my favorite books behind Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The books are about America Singer, a girl who was born low into the caste system of Illéa, the country that was created after the United States ended. But all of that changes when she is whisked away to participate in the Selection, a competition to win the prince’s hand in marriage. These books are romantic and suspenseful. Plus it is an amazing dystopian story, which is my favorite genre. I can’t recommend these books enough. You can read my Favorite Book Feature on The Selection here.

I did not enjoy The Siren as much as I did the Selection series, but this book is still full of Cass’s beautiful writing and is an interesting retelling. While the Selection series is based on Cinderella and the book of Esther in the Bible, The Siren is based on the Little Mermaid. It follows Kahlen, a siren who is forced to serve the Ocean and who falls in love with a human. Cass first self-published this book before the Selection series was published, and it was updated and republished in 2016. I met her when she came to Dayton on tour for this book.

Kiera Cass is one of my favorite authors for several reasons. First of all, she just blew me away back when I first read The Selection with her twist on the dystopian genre. She made a beautiful romance novel, based on one of my favorite fairy tales and one of my favorite books of the Bible, and set it in a dystopian future. Dystopian books have always been my favorites, with the revolutions and the ordinary people stepping up to save the world. The Selection does not disappoint. Reading this series (which I’ve done five times) is like getting a hug from your best friend. I turn back to them over and over again.

The other main reason I love Cass is because of our conversation when I got the chance to meet her. I had recently become a Christian and was going through a period in which I wasn’t writing anything because I didn’t know how to anymore. I really admire how open Cass is on social media about her faith, and so during the Q&A I asked her how she handles being both a writer and a Christian. She told me to stay true to my faith and write what I’m most comfortable with. As a person, she is really nice and encouraging. She remembered me and my question when I went through the signing line and continued to talk to me. The very next week I started writing Somewhere Only We Know.

Kiera Cass will always be an important author to me. From this blog’s very first post to Somewhere Only We Know to starting a new book now, I will never forget her advice and her books. I can’t wait to see what she writes next!

Have you read any of Kiera Cass’s books? I’d love to know what you think!