Reading Year In Review 2022

2022 was not easy. I mean, I doubt it was really easy for anybody - but I feel like it was the continuation of a marathon I started in 2020 but the rehydration stations got further and further apart. This was reflected in my reading this past year.  Yes, I managed to hit my reading goal of 100 books for the first time since 2019 and that was in large part to glomming through two suspense series, thank you Lawrence Block and Marcia Muller. Beyond that? My reading was seriously all over the place.  Here are how the grades broke down:

A Grades = 4

B Grades = 36

C Grades = 37

D Grades = 18

F Grades = 1

DNF = 4

The good news first, my F Grades and DNFs were way down. The bad news? I read 8 more D grades than in 2021, my B and C grades were once again in a dead heat, and my A grades were down (I never have a ton of these, but 4 is low even for yours truly). My resolution for 2023? I think I'm going to take a sabbatical from contest judging.  While there is one contest read reflected in my Best Of, remember those 8 more D grades I had?  Yeah, all 8 were contest reads. Hope springs eternal, but I'd like to spend the next year digging out quality reads in my own TBR. We'll see how long I stick with that! 

I'm perpetually behind on my reading, so my Best Of list reflects what I read during 2022, not just what was published in 2022.  Title links will take you to full reviews:

The Summer of Lost Letters (2021) and Eight Nights of Flirting (2022) by Hannah Reynolds (Contemporary YA) - Teen romances with Jewish main characters, incredible world-building on Nantucket Island, and uncovered family secrets running through both. I hope Reynolds continues to write books in this world because these were a revelation for me this past year.

Seven Days in June (2021) by Tia Williams (Contemporary) - It's dark, it's angsty, it leans more to the women's fiction end of the spectrum, but I was sucked in by the characters, the writing, and all the messy problematic "stuff." I was engrossed and could not put this down.

Big Chicas Don't Cry (2022) by Annette Chavez Macias (Contemporary) - I was sucked into the world-building and fell HARD for the Garcia cousins to the point where they now live rent-free in my brain. It's definitely women's fiction, but there are strong romantic elements here and Macias wrung out every drop of emotion from my cold, black heart. I cried y'all.

Claiming Her Legacy (2022) by Linda Goodnight (Historical Western) - This wasn't a perfect book for me, but I fell in love with the heroine, there's still plenty of grit even with the small town setting, and the romantic tension was very well done (I yearned for the first kiss!).  The heroine has two sisters, please Dear Lord, let this series continue.

Beyond Innocence (2001) by Emma Holly (Historical, Victorian) - A lot of folks in Romancelandia like to talk genre history and canon and what that all means, and this book, while not perfect, is making my Best Of list for all those reasons.  What Holly did here with the relationship between the hero and his gay younger brother is fantastic. Trailblazing in 2001, and it was published by a major NY house (Penguin / Berkley). 

The Highlander's Inconvenient Bride (2021) by Terri Brisbin (Medieval) - My one contest read of the year that blew the doors off for me, and when it didn't final I decided I needed to take a break from judging contests for a while. The heroine's growth arc is fantastic and Brisbin really makes her couple work for their happy ending. 

Best Friend to Doctor Right (2020) by Ann McIntosh (Contemporary) - This is a perfect example of a book that didn't blow the doors off, but it was such a comforting, cozy read that McIntosh is now on my list of "comfort read" authors with a host of her Harlequin series brethren. Lovely characters, beautiful setting, and an evil mother character who stays off page and isn't "forgiven" in the end.

Eight Million Ways to Die (1982) by Lawrence Block (Suspense) - I rang in 2022 working my way through Block's Matthew Scudder series but didn't blog about any of them. Why? They're grim-dark AF and the series started in the late 1970s, so just insert every single trigger warning you can think of. I have a strong constitution for crime novels of a certain age, but some of the books in this series even left me questioning my sanity (Why am I reading this? Why am I enjoying this?!).  Anyway, this is book five in the series and the gold standard for me. The New York City setting is well drawn and Scudder is very early in his sobriety, which gives the mystery some added punch.

Like a Sister (2022) by Kellye Garrett (Suspense) - I am utter trash for suspense novels that explore the seedy side of celebrity and Garrett sets this one around the death of a social media influencer, who could have starred on Growing Up Hip Hop. I loved the heroine in this one, the victim's estranged sister, who has a complicated relationship with her family but knows immediately her sister wasn't "just another overdose." 

Listen to Me (2022) by Tess Gerritsen (Suspense) - After a five year hiatus, Gerritsen gave readers another Rizzoli/Isles story this year, and it was really well done. While Jane is trying to figure out why someone would brutally murder a nurse who had zero skeletons in her closet, her mother is snooping on her oddly behaving new neighbors and trying to convince everyone that the troubled girl from the next street over didn't just "run away."

The Nurse's Secret (2022) by Amanda Skenandore (Historical Suspense) - The world-building in this story is fantastic and I fell into it hard.  Pick-pocket heroine witnesses a murder and the cops think she did it.  She needs to lay low for a while and finagles her way into the new nursing program at Bellevue Hospital. However it's not all fun and games. Nursing is hard work and it seems the killer may have followed in her tracks...

Wham! George Michael & Me (2019) by Andrew Ridgeley (Nonfiction / Memoir) - It's not a tell-all and that's what makes this book so enjoyable. Ridgeley tells the story of his friendship with George, first meeting him in school, discovering their mutual love of music, the formation of Wham!, and becoming some of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s. Read it for the friendship, stay for the nostalgic revisiting of a memorable British pop era.

2022 was a reading year that started and ended with me struggling with fatigue and slumps, but somewhere in the middle I managed to get through some memorable reads. Not all of these were A reads for me, and certainly I had quibbles, but each of these books were ones that "stuck" with me in a positive way. And truly, as we look ahead to 2023, I'm counting that as a victory.