Tell Me Something Tuesday: What Underrated Books or Authors Would You Recommend?

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings in order to discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging (and some slightly more personal matters throw in for good measure). After Heidi stopped blogging (apparently for good), five of us took over as hosts while providing new questions. The current team is composed of Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Roberta at Offbeat YA. This week's question is...

WHAT UNDERRATED BOOKS OR AUTHORS WOULD YOU RECOMMEND?

I have quite a few - which makes sense, since Offbeat YA was born out of my desire to spotlight books that mostly fly under the radar and/or are quirky and not exactly fitting the mainstream mold (hence my blog's name). For this post, I decided to limit myself to books/series that have less than 1,000 ratings on Goodreads to date, or I would have written an encyclopedia 😅(that's why some of my 5-star reads aren't on this list, while a number of 4.5 ones are). The books are in alphabetical order according to the author's surname*. The titles redirects you to Goodreads, but you can find a link to my reviews under each synopsis. Brace yourselves...

*(Also, please note: I would have liked to use a snippet from my reviews for each book along with the synopsis, but this post would have gotten too long - which it already is LOL - and summarising my thoughts would have been too much work. I apologise in advance for the mammoth post...😅).

YOUNG ADULT

Girls of Little Hope by Sam Beckbessinger & Dale Halvorsen (supernatural/contemporary)

Three girls went into the woods. Only two came back, covered in blood and with no memory of what happened. Or did they?

Being fifteen is tough, tougher when you live in a boring-ass small town like Little Hope, California (population 8,302) in 1996. Donna, Rae and Kat keep each other sane with the fervour of teen girl friendships, zine-making and some amateur sleuthing into the town’s most enduring mysteries: a lost gold mine, and why little Ronnie Gaskins burned his parents alive a decade ago.

Their hunt will lead them to a hidden cave from which only two of them return alive. Donna the troublemaker can’t remember anything. Rae seems to be trying to escape her memories of what happened, while her close-minded religious family presses her for answers. And Kat? Sweet, wannabe writer Kat who rebelled against her mom’s beauty pageant dreams by getting fat? She’s missing. Dead. Or terribly traumatised, out there in the woods, alone.

As the police circle and Kat’s frantic mother Marybeth starts doing some investigating of her own, Rae and Donna will have to return to the cave where they discover a secret so shattering that no-one who encounters it will ever be the same. 

>>> Read my review.

The Art of Escaping by Erin Callahan (contemporary)

Seventeen-year-old Mattie is hiding her obsession with Harry Houdini and Dorothy Dietrich from everyone, including her best friend Stella. When Stella takes off to boarding school for the summer, all of Mattie’s anxieties bubble to the surface, leaving her feeling adrift. To distract herself, she seeks out Miyu, the reclusive daughter of a world-renowned escape artist whose life and career were snuffed out by a tragic plane crash.

With Miyu’s help, Mattie secretly transforms herself into a burgeoning escapologist and performance artist. Away from the curious eyes of her peers, she thrives in her new world of lock picking, straitjackets, and aquarium escapes. But when Will, a popular varsity athlete from her high school, discovers her act at an underground venue, she fears that her double life is about to be exposed. But instead of outing her, Will tells Mattie something he’s never told anyone before and the two of them find out that not all secrets can remain secret forever.

>>> Read my review.

Luna-C by Jutta Goetze (contemporary)

Luna-C is madness for music, for performing. Luna-C is two friends, one dream, one man. It's an obsession and a gift, a sacrifice and a celebration. Luna-C is the story of a band, and the people in it.

The world of the Melbourne music scene is a dazzling and energetic background to this rich and absorbing novel about two country girls wanting to make it as singers in an inner-city band. Phoebe and Dale are best friends, but can their friendship survive when only one of them will make it to the top?

>>> Read my review.

Deadgirl series by B.C. Johnson (afterlife/contemporary/urban fantasy)

Lucy Day, 15 years old, is murdered on her very first date. Not one to take that kind of thing lying down, she awakens a day later with a seemingly human body and more than a little confusion. Lucy tries to return to her normal life, but the afterlife keeps getting in the way.

Zack, her crush-maybe-boyfriend, isn't exactly excited that she ditched him on their first date. Oh, and Abraham -- Lucy’s personal Grim Reaper -- begins hunting her, dead-set on righting the error that dropped her back into the spongy flesh of a living girl. Lucy must put her mangled life back together, escape re-death, and learn to control her burgeoning powers while staying one step ahead of Abraham.

But when she learns the devastating price of coming back from the dead, Lucy is forced to make the hardest decision of her re-life -- can she really sacrifice her loved ones to stay out of the grave?

>>> Read my review for Book 1 (the ones for the rest of the series are linked in the same post).

Riven by B.C. Johnson (previously titled The Bad Rescue of Devon Streeter) (sci-fi/supernatural/urban fantasy)

Devon's a teenage medic. Bloom's a wannabe gunslinger. Just two best friends hanging at the end of the world.

When Earth and another world smashed together, everything went sideways. Some people survived, some inhumans too, and they all made for bad neighbors. Fighting for scraps on the face of a changed world, Devon and Bloom have to face alien magic, inhuman monsters, and the inescapable fact that the Merge is going to change them. Deviate them into…something else.

But when circumstance flings Devon and Bloom apart, can they find each other across the wild wastelands?

Will they recognize each other when they do?

>>> Read my review.

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls by Lauren Karcz (contemporary with a twist)

Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn’t been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year.

Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings.

Despite Mercedes’s creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate.

At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn’t ever before. But Mercedes can’t take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can’t live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality.

>>> Read my review.

The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (contemporary with a twist)

Rose Colter is almost home, but she can't go back there yet. When her car breaks down in the Nevada desert, the silence of the night is broken by a radio broadcast of a voicemail message from her best friend, Gaby. A message Rose has listened to countless times over the past year. The last one Gaby left before she died.

So Rose follows the lights from the closest radio tower to Lotus Valley, a small town where prophets are a dime a dozen, secrets lurk in every shadow, and the diner pie is legendary. And according to Cassie Cyrene, the town's third most accurate prophet, they've been waiting for her. Because Rose's arrival is part of a looming prophecy, one that says a flood will destroy Lotus Valley in just three days' time.

Rose believes if the prophecy comes true then it will confirm her worst fear--the PTSD she was diagnosed with after Gaby's death has changed her in ways she can't face. So with help from new friends, Rose sets out to stop the flood, but her connection to it, and to this strange little town, runs deeper than she could've imagined.

>>> Read my review (please note: I wrote a mini review for this, but I plan on doing a "regular" one ultimately...For now, this is it).

Dying with Her Cheer Pants On by Seanan McGuire (supernatural/urban fantasy)

Despite its humble origins, there is no more challenging or physically dangerous teen sport in the world than cheerleading. Cheerleaders are seriously injured and even killed at a higher rate than other high school sports. Their stunts are performed in skimpy uniforms without the benefit of proper safety equipment…and yet they love them, glittery eyeshadow, spirit bows, and all.

And then there are the Fighting Pumpkins, who take that injury rate as a challenge. Students of Johnson’s Crossing High School, they answer to a higher calling than the pyramid and the basket toss, pursuing the pep rally that is rising up against mysteries and monsters, kicking gods with the pointed toes of professional athletes chasing a collegiate career.

Meet Jude, half-vampire squad leader; Laurie, who can compel anyone to do as she asks; Heather, occasionally recreationally dead; Marti, strong enough to provide a foundation for any stunt; Colleen, who knows the rule book so well she may as well have written it; and Steph, who may or may not be the goddess of the harvest. The rest of the squad is ready to support them, and braced for the chaos of the big game, which may have a big body count. Prepare to jump high, yell loud, and look pretty with the Fighting Pumpkins, those glorious girls in the orange and green, whose high kicks could still be enough to save the world.

And if they’re not, it isn’t going to be for lack of trying.

>>> Read my review.

(Note: this one can only be bought directly from Subterranean Press, an imprint that offers special/limited editions - the ebook isn't pricey though).

This Side of Salvation by Jeri Smith-Ready (contemporary)

Everyone mourns differently. When his older brother was killed, David got angry. As in, fist-meets-someone-else’s-face furious. But his parents? They got religious. David’s still figuring out his relationship with a higher power, but there’s one thing he does know for sure: The closer he gets to new-girl Bailey, the better, brighter, happier, more he feels.

Then his parents start cutting all their worldly ties to prepare for the Rush, the divine moment when the faithful will be whisked off to Heaven…and they want David to do the same. David’s torn. There’s a big difference between living in the moment and giving up his best friend, varsity baseball, and Bailey—especially Bailey—in hope of salvation.

But when he comes home late from prom, and late for the Rush, to find that his parents have vanished, David is in more trouble than he ever could have imagined…

>>> Read my review.

You Fed Us To the Roses by Carlie St. George (supernatural/afterlife/urban fantasy)

Final girls who take care of each other. Dead boys still breathing. Ghosts who whisper secrets you can never share. Angels beyond the grave, yet not of heaven. Wolves who wear human skins.

Featuring ten contemporary dark fantasy and horror stories, You Fed Us To the Roses is a visceral, triumphant collection by Carlie St. George that you won't want to miss.

Stop by for the murder...and stick around for the feels.

>>> Read my review (please note: at some point, I decided to only write mini reviews for anthologies, so that's what you get here).

Wake the Wild Creatures* by Nova Ren Suma (contemporary with a twist)

*(Please note: I'm sure this book will have a lot more than 1,000 ratings in time, since Suma is an established author - but it's still fairly new, so for now it doesn't)

Three years ago, Talia lived happily in the ruins of the Neves, a once-grand hotel in the wilds of the Catskill Mountains, with her mother Pola and their community of like-minded women. Some came to the Neves to escape cruel men, others to hide from the law, but all found safety and connection in their haven high above civilization, cloaked by a mysterious mist that kept intruders away. But as their numbers grew, complications followed, and everything came crashing down the night electric lights pierced the forest. Uniformed men arrested Pola, calling her a murderer and a fugitive, and Talia was taken away. 

Now sixteen, Talia has been forced to live with family she barely knows and fit into a world scarred by misogyny, capitalism, disconnection from nature…everything the women of the Neves stood against. She has one goal: to return to the Neves. But as Talia awaits a signal from her mother, questions arise. Who betrayed her community, and what is she avoiding about her own role in its collapse? Is it truly magic that keeps the hotel so hidden? And what does it mean to embrace being her mother’s daughter? With the help of an unexpected ally, Talia must find her way to answers, face a mother who’s often kept her at arm’s length, and try to reach the refuge she lost—if the mist hasn’t swallowed her path home.

>>> Read my review.

And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky (contemporary)

Keek and her boyfriend just had their Worst Fight Ever; her best friend heinously betrayed her; her parents are divorcing; and her mom’s across the country caring for her newborn cousin, who may or may not make it home from the hospital. To top it all off, Keek’s got the plague. (Well, the chicken pox.) Now she’s holed up at her grandmother’s technologically barren house until further notice. Not quite the summer vacation Keek had in mind.

With only an old typewriter and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar for solace and guidance, Keek’s alone with her swirling thoughts. But one thing’s clear through her feverish haze—she’s got to figure out why things went wrong so she can make them right.

>>> Read my review.

ADULT

Myriad by Joshua David Bellin (sci-fi/thriller)

Agent Miriam Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency that undertakes short-term time travel to erase crimes before they occur. Haunted by the memory of her twin brother’s unsolved murder at the age of six, Miriam thinks of herself as Myriad—an incarnation of the many lives she’s lived in her journeys to rearrange the past.

When a routine assignment goes wrong and Miriam commits a murder she was meant to avert, she is thrown into the midst of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of LifeTime. Along with her partner Vax, Miriam flees into the past in an attempt to unravel the truth before LifeTime agents catch up with her.

But then her brother’s killer reappears, twenty years to the day since he first struck. And he’s not through with the twin who survived, not by a long shot.

>>> Read my review.

The Never-Ending End of the World by Ann Christy (sci-fi/mystery)

Coco Wells hasn’t seen another living person since she was a teenager. All of Manhattan is reliving the same few seconds, minutes, or hours on a loop…and they have been for years. Everything looks normal from a distance, but up close it’s a nightmare.

Coco is a survivor. She scavenges for food, reads, and—most importantly—avoids loopers. They ignore her, but only as long as she’s silent. She’s learned the painful lesson that a broken loop can mean death.

After eight years of solitude, learning to survive and precisely timing the loops that weave around the city, Coco wonders what lies beyond New York and what has become of the rest of the world.

As she leaves home for the first time, one question haunts her above all:

“Am I the only one left?”

>>> Read my review.

The Pecan Children by Quinn Connor (contemporary with a twist/supernatural/mystery)

In a small southern pecan town, the annual harvest is a time of both celebration and heartbreak. Even as families are forced to sell their orchards and move away, Lil Clearwater, keeper of a secret covenant with her land, swears she never will. When her twin Sasha returns to the dwindling town in hopes of reconnecting with the girl her heart never forgot, the sisters struggle to bridge their differences and share the immense burden of protecting their home from hungry forces intent on uprooting everything they love.

But there is rot hiding deep beneath the surface. Ghostly fires light up the night, and troubling local folklore is revealed to be all too true. Confronted with the phantoms of their pasts and the devastating threat to their future, the sisters come to the stark realization that in the kudzu-choked South, nothing is ever as it appears.

>>> Read my review.

The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen (sci-fi)

Three years after her best friend Peggy went missing, Harper Starling is lost. Lost in her dead-end job, lost in her grief. All she has are regrets and reruns of her favorite science fiction show, Infinite Voyage.

Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Voyage. But the Argonaut is just that…fictional. Until the TV hero himself appears and spirits Harper away from her former best friend. Traveling through time, he explains that Peggy used to travel with him but is now under the thrall of an alien enemy known as the Incarnate—one that has destroyed countless solar systems.

Then he leaves Harper in 1971.

Stranded in the past, Harper must find a way to end the Incarnate’s thrall…without the help of the Argonaut. But the cosmos are nothing like the technicolor stars of the TV show she loves, and if Harper can’t find it in herself to believe—in the Argonaut, in Peggy, and most of all, in herself—she’ll be the Incarnate’s next casualty, along with the rest of the universe.

>>> Read my review.

Unbreakable by Mira Grant (supernatural/urban fantasy)

The girls of Unbreakable Starlight were part of an ancient tradition of magical warriors defending the Earth from the forces of the Outside. They knew their powers and their place, and they planned to fight to the very end. They just didn't think the end would come so very soon.

And they never dreamt that when the dust settled, two of their members would be the last magical protectors in the world.

For Piper, her time as a member of Unbreakable Starlight was the best part of her life, the first and only time that she had been truly happy. She'd had friends, she'd had powers, and she'd had her animal companion to make sure that she understood the patterns she saw in all things. Until it all came crashing down.

For Yuina, whose sister died on the night of the assault that killed most of the world's magical protectors, forgetting what she used to be is all that's mattered to her for years. She's been trying her best to toe the line and be the good little symbol of a forbidden calling that her government wants her to be, and she'll keep trying even if it kills her.

But magical protectors existed for a reason, and even if they've all died and the heralds who used to invite replacements to the fight have been forced into hiding. And if the magical protectors aren't holding the line against the Outside, who is?

Lines exist because somebody drew them, and now, with the world left undefended, the lines are getting blurred. Soon enough, something's going to break.

>>> Read my review (please note: at some point, I decided to only write mini reviews for anthologies, so that's what you get here).

(Note: this one can only be bought directly from Subterranean Press, an imprint that offers special/limited editions - the ebook isn't pricey though).

The Way Up is Death by Dan Hanks (supernatural/mystery)

When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.

As a grieving teacher, a reclusive artist, and a narcissistic celebrity children’s author lead the others in trying to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone…is up.

And so begins a race to the top, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares, as the group fights to hold onto its humanity, while the twisted horror of why they’re here grows ever more apparent – and death stalks their every move.

>>> Read my review.

Whirly World by Brandon Jones (afterlife/mystery)

Theme-park blogger Jason Green is dead and his spirit is stuck inside Whirly World, his favorite place to be. What should be a dream come true turns into an abstract nightmare as Jason confronts malevolent forces trapping him there. Desperate to escape, he has to befriend the other ten ghosts inhabiting this afterlife, from a disgruntled hostess crushed under a revolving stage, to a bereft security guard that still thinks it's 1983, and combine their strange powers to dig up the park's mysterious past.

>>> Read my review.

The Between duology by Ryan Leslie (multiverse/supernatural/sci-fi)

While landscaping his backyard, ever-conscientious Paul Prentice discovers an iron door buried in the soil. His childhood friend and perpetual source of mischief, Jay Lightsey, pushes them to explore what's beneath.

When the door slams shut above them, Paul and Jay are trapped in a between-worlds place of Escher-like rooms and horror story monsters, all with a mysterious connection to a command-line, dungeon explorer computer game from the early '80s called The Between.

Paul and Jay find themselves filling roles in a story that seems to play out over and over again. But in this world, where their roles warp their minds, the biggest threat to survival may not be the Koŝmaro, risen from the Between's depths to hunt them; the biggest danger may be each other.

>>> Read my review for Book 1 (the one for Book 2 is linked in the same post).

Colossus by Ryan Leslie (multiverse/sci-fi/thriller)

Economics professor Clay West has always explained the world through the lens of his profession. But after his girlfriend Karla takes Dying Wish—a drug that supposedly reveals the nature of reality moments before it claims your life—Clay is devastated. No amount of rationalization can explain Karla's actions.

Distraught, Clay joins a mission into the dark emptiness of space where answers are promised to reside. But when the ship begins to malfunction, Clay and the surviving crew members suspect there's more to the mission than they've been told. They've been lied to, and they're drifting into dead space.

Clay's memories of Karla haunt him even more than the ship's chaos, and there's something wrong with his memories: he has too many. The ship's Al tells Clay his false memories are a normal side-effect of the hibernation, but to Clay, the memories suggest something far more insidious.

He's been on this ship before...

>>> Read my review.

Laughter at the Academy by Seanan McGuire (pretty much every genre)

From fairy tale forest to gloomy gothic moor, from gleaming epidemiologist’s lab to the sandy shores of Neverland, Seanan McGuire’s short fiction has been surprising, delighting, confusing, and transporting her readers since 2009. Now, for the first time, that fiction has been gathered together in one place, ready to be enjoyed one twisting, tangled tale at a time. Her work crosses genres and subverts expectations.

Meet the mad scientists of Laughter at the Academy and The Tolling of Pavlov’s Bells. Glory in the potential of a Halloween that never ends. Follow two very different alphabets in Frontier ABCs and From A to Z in the Book of Changes. Get Lost, dress yourself In Skeleton Leaves, and remember how to fly. All this and more is waiting for you within the pages of this decade-spanning collection, including several pieces that have never before been reprinted. Stories about mermaids, robots, dolls, and Deep Ones are all here, ready for you to dive in.

This is a box of strange surprises dredged up from the depths of the sea, each one polished and prepared for your enjoyment. So take a chance, and allow yourself to be surprised.

Enjoy.

>>> Read my review (please note: at some point, I decided to only write mini reviews for anthologies, so that's what you get here).

(Note: this one can only be bought directly from Subterranean Press, an imprint that offers special/limited editions - the ebook isn't pricey though).

The Proper Thing and Other Stories by Seanan McGuire (pretty much every genre)

From the end of the world to the beginning, with a nice charcuterie plate to sustain us on the way, it’s time for another journey through the eccentric, eclectic short fiction of Seanan McGuire. From dangerous holidays to the beauty of the library, from the power of cheese to the power of love, this volume will take you from the past to the future, sometimes on the same page.

Learn about the insecurities of the superheroic world, and how hard some people will work to survive the end of absolutely everything. Discover what everyone knows, and watch what happens when the cultural foundations are pulled from under your favorite cuisine. See what people will do when all else is lost, and watch what happens on the day the music dies.

And when all that is through, visit our magical cheese shop for something truly delicious, impossible and unique. We have a little something for everyone in our box of delights. Don’t be afraid—just reach in, and choose a treat to improve and enhance your day.

We’ve been waiting for another trip to the store on the corner, where they sell Wensleydale and wishes side by side. Come along now, let’s go.

>>> Read my review (please note: at some point, I decided to only write mini reviews for anthologies, so that's what you get here).

(Note: this one can only be bought directly from Subterranean Press, an imprint that offers special/limited editions - the ebook isn't pricey though).

Well, that's it for now. Did you enjoy this post? Would you like to participate in the meme on a regular or semi-regular basis, and get emailed the prompt list? Just head over here and fill in Jen's form! (Of course, you can jump in anytime you like - you are under no obligation to actually do all the posts, or even most of them, just because you signed up, and you can remove yourself from the list at any time). And if you're interested in participating in a more casual manner, or only in commenting, here is the TMST prompt list for the rest of December:

• Dec 9th: Which superpower do you wish you had? (a question I submitted)
• Dec 16th: Have you been disappointed by the end of a series? If so, did you read that author again?
• Dec 23rd: What's a song that always makes you want to dance?
• Dec 30th: What are your favorite books/audiobooks that you read in 2025?

I'll be back for the meme on December 9th, and it will be my last TMST post for the year (maybe I'll answer the last questions of the month along with the January ones in a round-up post, who knows. Right now, I'm more inclined to take a new hiatus next month...We'll see).

Now tell me something...which books or authors deserve more attention in your opinion? Did I manage to interest you in any of mine?