Website: https://changespell.com/
I've frequently called Doranna Durgin "the best author you've never heard of," because - sad but true - even really good authors can get lost in the pubishers' "midlist."
Although Durgin more than meets the three criteria for my "favorite authors" - plot, pacing and characters are all perfect for my readerly tastes - for me, the thing that stands out most in her books are the characters. As with anyone who reads a lot of books, details of the plot and setting may fade over time, but the characters remain old friends that I can't wait to revisit. When I think of Durgin's books, I don't think of this title or that title, or even a particular plot. No, I think, "Kelyn!" (Wolverine's Daughter). Or "Jess!" (Dun Lady's Jess and the other Changespell books). "Garrie, Trevarr, and Sklayne" (The Reckoners series), "Kimmer & Rio" (The Rules/Hunter Agency series), "Brenna, Gil and Druid" (A Feral Darkness). I could go on and on, but you'd get bored, probably. Without knowing these people, it's like attending the school reunion of a spouse - endless conversations about people you don't know and events you had no part of.
In most of these "favorite author" posts, I try to give you a suggestion about where to start - a particular book or series that might be a good introduction. But with Doranna Durgin, I'm having a hard time picking one. My standard answer to the age-old question "which of her books do you like best?" is always, "the one I'm reading." Whichever one that is at any given moment. That said, though, most of her series definitely have to be read in order. So if you're looking for an unusual blend of contemporary fantasy and traditional fantasy, start with Dun Lady's Jess. If you're looking for contemporary action romance (with kick-ass women), you can read the first Kimmer & Rio book, Exception to the Rules, or either of the stand alones, Survival Instinct or Hidden Steel. If contemporary urban fantasy is your gig, you've got several choices: The Reckoners, A Feral Darkness (stand alone), or Jaguar Night, the first of the Sentinel series she writes for Harlequin. (You can technically read them in any order, but Jaguar Night gives the best set up for the Sentinels/Atrum Core universe she's created.) There are more, but any of those will give you a good sense of the "flavor" of her writing style. And plus, you know, they're good books!
Durgin has been writing for more than 20 years, in several genres. Her books are uniformly excellent, but many are now out of print - from the original publishers, that is. The lucky thing is, most of the publishers she's worked with release the rights when they stop printing a book, so the publishing rights have reverted to her. Now that we're in the age of independent and self-publishing, she's re-publishing them. Some of them are straight-up self-published, but she also wrote several books for Harlequin's discontinued Silhouette "Bombshell" line about kick-ass heroines who find romance and love in the course of saving the world, or at least a small piece of it. Most of these have been republished as well, most recently Survival Instinct, about a former grifter who needs to call on her skills one more time to save a kidnapped child. In terms of "traditional" publishing, she has an ongoing series (Sentinels) in the Harlequin "Nocturne" line of category romances.
She's had a fallow period recently, so I'm slowly replacing my old originally-published paperbacks of her books with her republished e-book versions that are better suited to my aging eyes.