Lisa

2023 was a good year for reading. I smashed my reading goal of 40 books. By the end of the year, I racked up a whopping 58 books! In the end that was more than 10 full days of listening and nearly 10,000 pages of reading. Thank you to the Milwaukee Public Library for the major assist (also, please follow their phenomenal socials).

According to Goodreads, my average book score for the year was a measly 3.2 stars. Three stars isn’t a bad review, in my opinion, but nothing that I’d go out of my way to recommend.

But I would recommend a few reads off my 2023 list. Here are my top picks of the year—the ones that earned four or five stars. I suggest you add to your TBR for the year ahead.

One Night on the Island by Josie Silver

I read a good amount of romance this year—more than a dozen titles—but One Night on the Island is my favorite of the bunch. It’s by Josie Silver, author of one of the best holiday romances of all time: One Day in December (I named it a top Christmas read last month).

This book has all you could ask for in a cozy read: a burnt-out woman taking a break from publishing (hey, that was me!) and heading off to Ireland (also me!). The ending wasn’t how I’d write it, but it was still a good one that will make you smile.

The Farewell Tour by Stephanie Clifford

In 2023, I went on a bit of a country kick. I spent weeks listening to Tammy Wynette. I visited Nashville and loved every second. I even asked myself if my outfit was yee-haw enough before going to the Grand Ole Opry (it wasn’t).

The Farewell Tour spoke so much to this phase of my year, but it was so much more. This book followed an artist in the same vein as Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn and how she rose to fame—even later in life. But The Farewell Tour was about so much more than fame. It was about reckoning with your past, forging your own path and facing the future—even if it’s uncertain. I loved every second and think it deserves all five stars.

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis

Fiona Davis does such a wonderful job portraying women. In every novel of hers, she paints brilliant portraits of complicated fictional people in equally complicated (though very much real) times.

In The Chelsea Girls, Davis manages to transform a part of history I don’t find particularly appealing—the Cold War and the Red Scare—into a riveting tale of talent and friendship. This is a must for any historical fiction fanatic.

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

I love a gothic thriller, and I am forever on the hunt for one that hits all the marks for me: gloomy atmosphere, characters with mysterious pasts, supernatural (or supernatural-seeming) elements and a vaguely unsettling feel. The Only One Left managed to tick all the boxes.

Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith

This book was a slow burn. I’ll admit, it took me a moment to warm to it, but as the drama developed—and later took an entirely different path—I couldn’t stop listening to it.

What starts as a family drama of one type soon unfurls into something much bigger and profound. And the ending is superb.

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu does historical fiction-turned-scary so well. She takes parts of history that we think we know, like the sinking of the Titanic in The Deep and the Donner Party in The Hunger, and turns them into something that’s somehow more eerie.

She does the same in The Fervor. This book of Katsu’s is perhaps the most affecting as it bends and twists the already horrific story of the Japanese internment camps in the US. It sounds dark—and it is—but it’s hauntingly readable.

November wasn’t a big reading month for me. It was a big month for all sorts of other things, though, like accepting a new job offer, tying up loose ends at Taste of Home, selling hoops and readying our home for the holidays. However, I did squeeze in four books between all the hoopla.

The Haar by David Sondergren • ★★★☆☆

I found myself craving a change of pace after reading several rom-coms and domestic thrillers last month or so. I was craving something new. I picked up The Haar after seeing it recommended on BookTok a while back, and I blitzed through it in just three days.

Muriel’s small Scottish village of Witchhaven is being taken over by a greedy American investor hoping to build a golf course. She’s one of the few remaining residents refusing to give up her home. Because the rich are often evil, the investor starts taking drastic and sometimes violent measures to intimidate the folks who refuse to budge—including Muriel. Well, things change when she finds—for lack of a better term—a glob on the beach.

It’s The Fog meets The Shape of Water. I enjoyed it—especially for the $2.99 price, however, it’s likely not for everyone.

Back in a Spell by Lana Harper • ★★★☆☆

This is the third installment in the Witches of Thistle Grove series. Back in a Spell is all about Nina Blackmoore.

The previous installments all painted the Blackmoore family as being a clan of villains, but I appreciated how Back in a Spell made a distinction between the actually evil family members and the younger generation. It gave the family—and the universe this takes place in—a bit more depth.

And unlike the previous two books in this series—Payback’s a Witch and From Bad to Cursed—this was very much about the protagonist and their internal struggles rather than some outside issue to be tackled. That switch makes me feel like the installments to come in this series will continue to be varied.

My Name’s Yours, What’s Alaska? by Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 • 🎧 • ★★★☆☆

Did you know Spotify has audiobooks now? I’m pretty impressed with the selection thus far—especially for newer reads. For example, Lessons in Chemistry has a six-month wait at my library. I can get it right away on Spotify! (This is in no way a dig at the library—I love MPL!)

Despite the ability to listen to these hot releases right away with Spotify, I decided to kick off my listening on the platform with Alaska’s memoir.

It was honestly delightful, and that’s in large part due to their performance of the book. If you’re a Drag Race fan, this is a good one to pick up.

Lease on Love by Falon Ballard • 🎧 • ★★☆☆☆

I try to time my reads right for the year. That means all the spooky reads in early fall and plenty of Christmasy romances in December. I picked up Lease on Love based on a Buzzfeed list of Thanksgiving-adjacent books.

I sort of wish I would have just skipped ahead to holiday romance mode. The characters in Lease on Love were just so flat to me, and the protagonist, Sadie, was unlikeable. Sadie’s inner monologue was all about knowing how hot she was and how much she loved vanilla lattes and how nerdy her roommate was for liking Lord of the Rings.

Also, if I have to read or hear the phrase “kitchen peninsula” one more time, I’ll scream. Why did this architectural feature get mentioned multiple times per chapter?

If this wasn’t an audiobook I could power through during craft fair prep, I would have stopped midway.

As always, you can follow along with my progress and see what I’ve read over on Goodreads! Also, if you’re an audiobook fan, I encourage you to try Libro.fm—you can support your favorite small bookstore while downloading your next listen.