Ugh, I hadn't heard anything about Elizabeth Moon's failblog post - just done some googling and I'm really disappointed by what I found. My bad :(

Anyway, I'm going to be reading some of the reccs people have made above, thanks for making the space for people to talk about good books! I've not managed and McMaster Bujold despite having people rave about her writing all the time, so she is a must.