Reading Year in Review 2023

2023 is dead. I would say long live - but let's be honest, it's a year I think a number of us would like to put behind us.  I spent a good chunk of 2023 just wanting to crawl into bed and stay there - mainly because my ability to compartmentalize took a long walk off a short pier.  I also completely threw over my health and well-being - so 2024 will be the year I knuckle down, make long overdue doctor's appointments and get serious about better habits.  All this adds up to a rather rocky reading year, as it was difficult for me to sustain any real momentum. My goal every year is to get through 100 books and well, I got to 81 in 2023.  Not great, but not a dumpster fire either.  Here are how the grades broke down:

A Grades = 5

B Grades = 35

C Grades = 25

D Grades = 10

F Grades = 0

DNF = 6

Even though I read fewer books this year than last, I'm happier with my grade spread this year. My A grades were low (honestly, they're always low...) but for the first time in 2 years my B and C grades are not in a dead heat!  My D grades were down and I didn't have a single F grade. Deciding to take a break from contest judging paid dividends. 

I am perpetually behind on my reading, so a reminder that my Best Of 2023 list features titles I read in 2023.  Publication dates vary.  Now, on to the books!

Title links take you to full reviews

Meant-To-Be Family by Marion Lennox (Contemporary category romance, 2015) - A heartbreaking second chance gem from Lennox who infuses tragic realism (infertility, death of a child) to spin a hard-fought emotionally satisfying happy-ever-after. I was rung out in the best possible way when I finished the last sentence.

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson (Historical fiction, 2023)  - Yes, we really did need another World War II historical fiction novel. Thompson mines the true story of the Bethnal Green Library that operated in an unfinished tube station during the war. Two dynamite heroines, and a story that is equal parts triumph and heart-break. Oh, and did I mention both heroines get happy ever afters?  Y'all know how I feel about "long" books - at over 400 pages I didn't want this one to end. It's my number one with a bullet for 2023.

Desert Phoenix by Suzette Bruggeman (Historical fiction, 2023) - Based on a true story and set in a backwater Nevada mining town, a young German immigrant left for dead falls in love with a prostitute 12 years his senior.  A dynamite Hero In Pursuit story, it needs to be read simply for how the author handles consent. It's pure gold. This one reminded me a lot of the sagas that were so popular in the 1970s/1980s but without many of the problematic elements those stories featured. It's a big sweeping story that I got completely lost in.

Pretty Little Wife and The Replacement Wife by Darby Kane (Contemporary suspense, 2020 and 2021) - I burned through Kane's backlist in 2023 and the first two books, both stand-alones, were my favorites.  Pretty Little Wife features a missing husband, which comes as a shock to his wife who left his body in a place where it was sure to be found.  The Replacement Wife takes gaslighting to new heights thanks to a twisty suspense thread and the heroine's instability isn't because she's gorking herself out on booze and pills (shocking, I know).

Hide by Tracy Clark (Contemporary police procedural / thriller, 2023) - The first in a new series from Clark, our detective heroine returns from an administrative leave to a new precinct, new partner, and a new case that soon morphs into the hunt for a serial killer. A gripping story that mines current events (the first victim was last seen at a Defund the Police rally) and features dynamite world-building. 

The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth (Domestic suspense, 2023) - A disquieting domestic suspense novel that pulled me out of month-long reading slump. The mystery of why a couples' new home along the rocky coast came so cheap is answered when they learn the hard way that an area near their property is a "favorite" spot for people choosing to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff. The heroine's husband has managed to talk down several people already, until the day he doesn't - and the heroine thinks she sees her husband push the woman off the cliff.  But surely, that can't be right?

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates (Contemporary suspense / horror, 2023) - Folks, this is horror adjacent so that's your warning that the gore level in this one is high. The heroine and her boyfriend are on their way to a secluded lodge in the Rocky Mountains when their tour bus gets stuck due to inclement weather.  Soon they and their fellow travelers find refuge in a secluded hunting cabin to wait out the storm - and that's when the bodies start dropping.  Part locked room, part survivalist story, this one kept me on the edge of my seat. 

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin (Contemporary suspense, 2021) - This was a great listen on audiobook given that the story follows a true crime podcaster.  The heroine decides her next series will cover a rape trial in a small coastal town, which will put her listeners "in the jury box." She's not in town long though before she's distracted by a stalker, someone who wants to look into a "suicide" of a young woman 20 years earlier. This was a very difficult book to read and I was seething with anger by the end of it (content warnings for rape, gang rape, rape culture and slut-shaming) - but hot damn, it's amazing. 

Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman (Contemporary hardboiled / crime, 2023) - A book where everybody is a villain. Hero, ex-military and a cop, from a family of cops (all with checkered pasts and presents) finds himself with a mysterious new boss when he takes on the roll of "fixer" for the department. Everyone is skating edges here or just flat-out crossing every line they come to. The world-building is breathtakingly fantastic, there's soapy edges (the hero has a Secret Baby because of course he does...) and to be frank it scratched the itch I've had since finishing Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series. I'm hoping there's a book two in the near future.

Down the Drain by Julia Fox (Memoir, 2023) - Sex, drugs and rock n' roll.  OK, mostly sex and drugs. This is one of those seedy underbelly memoirs, and honestly Fox kind of scares the sh*t out of me.  Here's the thing though, she can write her face off.  This is one of the best celebrity memoirs I've read from a writing standpoint, and by all accounts, Fox didn't use a ghostwriter.  Also the world-building here is fantastic, Fox transports the reader to New York City in the 1990s/2000s. 

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears (Memoir, 2023) - Is this well-written? Quite frankly, no. But it's like reading the literary equivalent to a primal scream. There's a raw honesty to Britney's memoir, that largely focusses on her 13-year conservatorship, that is riveting, impossible to dismiss or ignore. This is a dynamite listen on audiobook thanks to Michelle Williams' narration. Her ability to convey emotional vulnerability and rage in her reading is superb. If she doesn't win a Grammy for her performance it'll be a tragedy. 

Do I wish I had read more in 2023? Yes. But I certainly can't complain too much as I found a number of quality reads.  Only five of these were A grades, but these were all books that were memorable enough to stick with me.  Also, looking back, 9 out of the 12 books mentioned here were ones I got from the library (either The Day Job or another jurisdiction that I have access to). Did I find myself on wait lists? Yes. Did I rightly care? No. 75% of the quality reads I had in 2023 came from that most American of institutions - the public library.  Support your local library folks - we're doing the Lord's work.