Favorite Books of 2023
Disclaimer: This post is in no way photography related.
Every now and then, I’ll post about something a little more personal. This one is for all my fellow book lovers.
In 2023, I finally hit my 100 book goal, and surpassed it….I am currently on number 106. Every morning, I get up a little early and spend time reading before I get to work. My other goal this year was to branch out on genres. I mostly read psychological thrillers, historical fiction, and true crime, but threw in a few autobiographies, business books, and some other miscellaneous genres I would not normally gravitate to. I also do a lot of books that have been made into movies or series (the book is almost ALWAYS better).
Without further ado, Here are my TOP FIFTEEN favorites from the year, with a few honorable mentions since fifteen out of 100 just isn’t enough!
15. THE GRACE YEAR by Kim Liggett (2020)
No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.
In Garner County, girls are banished for their sixteenth year to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage.
But not all of them will make it home alive.
Tierney James dreams of a better life―but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that there’s more to fear about the grace year than the brutal elements and the poachers in the woods.
Their greatest threat may very well be each other.
With sharp prose and gritty realism, Liggett's The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.
Not going to lie, this one isn’t something I would pick out based off the cover description, but it came recommended in my reading group. I spent awhile being utterly confused by the setting and timeline, but ultimately came to realize, it doesn’t matter if this happened 1000 years in the past or future. For something out of my norm, I recommend this as pick number fifteen.
14. HEART BONES by Colleen Hoover (2020)
Life and a dismal last name are the only two things Beyah's parents ever gave her. After carving her path all on her own, Beyah is well on her way to bigger and better things, thanks to no one but herself. With only two short months separating her from the future she's built and the past she desperately wants to leave behind, an unexpected death leaves Beyah with no place to go during the interim.
Forced to reach out to her last resort, Beyah has to spend the remainder of her summer on a peninsula in Texas with a father she barely knows. Beyah's plan is to keep her head down and let the summer slip by seamlessly, but her new neighbor Samson throws a wrench in that plan.
Samson and Beyah have nothing in common on the surface.
She comes from a life of poverty and neglect; he comes from a family of wealth and privilege. But one thing they do have in common is that they're both drawn to sad things. Which means they're drawn to each other.
Beyah and Samson agree to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling. What Beyah doesn't realize is that a rip current is coming, and it's about to drag her heart out to sea.
This was one of my early reads from the year, but sticks out as a favorite. I have read a lot of Colleen Hoover, and with November 9th will always be my favorite, this one ranks up as my second pick of hers.
13. KRAMPUS THE YULE LORD, by Brom (2012)
Santa Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a murderer, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood. You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming for your head.... I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide....
—from Krampus
The author and artist of The Child Thief returns with a modern fabulist tale of Krampus, the Lord of Yule and the dark enemy of Santa Claus.
One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward, taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets back to earth, a magical sack that thrusts the down-on-his-luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus. But the lines between good and evil become blurred as Jesse's new master reveals many dark secrets about the cherry-cheeked Santa Claus, including how half a millennium ago the jolly old saint imprisoned Krampus and usurped his magic.
Now Santa's time is running short, for the Yule Lord is determined to have his retribution and reclaim Yuletide. If Jesse can survive this ancient feud, he might have the chance to redeem himself in his family's eyes, to save his own broken dreams... and to help bring the magic of Yule to the impoverished folk of Boone County.
My Christmas read for this year…..I have a yearly tradition of watching “Krampus” and decided I should read the book. While in no way does this follow the movie, it is the inspiration for it. If you like mythology and horror, this one is for you. It has some truly beautiful written passages and well developed characters and plot. If you ever wondered who Krampus is, where Santa came from, or how he delivers all those presents, this one is for you!
12. THE AMISH WIFE by Gregg Olsen (2024)
In 1977, in an Ohio Amish community, pregnant wife and mother Ida Stutzman perished during a barn fire. The coroner’s report: natural causes. Ida’s husband, Eli, was never considered a suspect. But when he eventually rejected the faith and took his son, Danny, with him, murder followed.
What really happened to Ida? The dubious circumstances of the tragic blaze were willfully ignored and Eli’s shifting narratives disregarded. Could Eli’s subsequent cross-country journey of death—including that of his own son—have been prevented if just one person came forward with what they knew about the real Eli Stutzman?
The questions haunted Gregg Olsen and Ida’s brother Daniel Gingerich for decades. At Daniel’s urging, Olsen now returns to Amish Country and to Eli’s crimes first exposed in Olsen’s Abandoned Prayers, one of which has remained a mystery until now. With the help of aging witnesses and shocking long-buried letters, Olsen finally uncovers the disturbing truth—about Ida’s murder and the conspiracy of silence and secrets that kept it hidden for forty-five years.
I love true crime, and I read a lot of Olsen’s books. When I saw his new book was about a crime in Dalton, Ohio, it sucked me right in. This was early released as a Prime Reads and won’t be available for everyone until January….but oh my goodness, get this book. That is all I can say.
11. SAVING NOAH by Lucinda Berry (2020)
Meet Noah - an A-honor-roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren't any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim-team practice. He's sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile sexual-rehabilitation center.
His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won't allow Noah back into their home. In a series of shocking and shattering revelations, Adrianne is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. Just how far will she go to protect her son?
Saving Noah challenges everything you think you know about teenage sexual offenders. It will keep you up at night long after you've finished, questioning beliefs you once thought were true.
I’ll be the first to admit, this book isn’t for everyone. It is controversial. It is a tough read. But I do think the raw truths it exposes and subsequent deep thinking you’ll experience are what make this a truly great read and one I highly recommend.
10. CARNOSAUR by Harry Adam Knight (1984)
Nothing much ever happens in the sleepy English town of Warchester. So when a farmer is found savagely killed in some sort of animal attack, it’s a big story for local reporter David Pascal. The rich and eccentric Sir Darren Penward tells the police an escaped Siberian tiger from his private zoo is to blame, but Pascal isn’t so sure. Especially when one witness describes something impossible: an enormous and deadly creature that has been extinct for sixty million years. What exactly is Penward hiding behind the walls of his massive estate? And can Pascal uncover the truth before Penward’s creatures escape to wreak murder and havoc on the unsuspecting populace?
Don’t get me wrong. I love Jurassic Park. Seriously, one of the biggest fans. But the book and movie are far different. And don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Crichton as well. But, Knight wrote this book six years before Crichton, who clearly and undeniably takes parts of this book and his ideas from it. Carnosaur is a must read for JP fans. Personally, I liked it better….shhhhhh.
9. THE PIANTIST by Wladyslaw Szpilman
On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside―so loudly that he couldn't hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.
Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.
MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankel
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
I had to put both of these up for number nine. I loved each equally well, and they share the same genre. Each are true stories of survival from WWII. You have probably heard of The Pianist due to the movie released in 2003, but you probably haven’t heard Frankel’s story. Both are equally compelling and a must read for everyone. I took pages of quotes away from each of these. I also spent hours upon hours trying to find the journals of Wilm Hosenfeld (The Pianist), but to no avail. His story told within Szpilman’s is one of the most intriguing and powerful of all WWII stories I have heard.
8. KYLAND by Mia Sheridan (2023)
Tenleigh Falyn struggles each day to survive in the small, poverty-stricken mining town where she lives with her sister and mentally ill mother. Her dream of winning the yearly Tyton Coal scholarship is all that keeps her going. With it, she would get a free ride to a college of her choice and finally escape the harshness of this life. Secure a career that could one day get her family out of Dennville.
But Kyland Barrett has worked just as tirelessly to win this scholarship, desperate to leave behind the town that has brought him so much pain. Through near-starvation, deep loneliness, and against all odds, he'll let nothing stand in his way―certainly not the girl who's his main competition.
Then, one moment changes everything. Tenleigh and Kyland find themselves turning from strangers to friends, then tipping dangerously close to love. They're both determined not to form any lasting attachment, but the longer they're together, the more hopeless it seems.
Only one of them gets to win. Only one of them gets to leave. And when that day comes, what happens to the one left behind?
I’m not one for romance, but I do love Mia Sheridan. Her character development is second to none. And this one will teach you so much about love, sacrifices, and longterm hope.
7. GATHERING DARK by Candice Fox (2021)
A convicted killer. A gifted thief. A vicious ganglord. A disillusioned cop. Together they’re a missing girl’s only hope.
Dr. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected pediatric surgeon, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She’s determined to keep her nose clean and win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line.
Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a multi-million dollar mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one.
It’s been 10 years since Jessica arrested Blair for cold-blooded murder. So when Jessica opens the door to the disgraced doctor late one night she expects abuse, maybe even violence. What comes next is a plea for help....
You’ll fall in love with all the characters in this one. If you want a great straight up crime novel, this is a good one to grab.
6. THE ARRANGEMENT (SERIES) by Kiersten Modglin (2021)
Ainsley Greenburg is a fixer. It’s what she prides herself on.
So when Ainsley realizes her marriage is at its breaking point, she makes a decision to repair it, no matter the cost. Approaching her husband to propose the arrangement is supposed to be the hard part, but Peter agrees to the salacious plan almost immediately.
The rules are simple:
They will each date someone new once a week.
They will never discuss what happens on the dates.
Soon, though, the rules are broken, turning terrible mistakes into unspeakable consequences.
When the only person they can count on to keep their darkest secret is each other, new questions and deceits surface. Can they truly trust the person they share a life with, or will the vicious lies that have mounted over the years destroy everything they’ve built?
Once, Peter and Ainsley vowed to stand together forever, but as they push boundaries of deception, suspicion, and temptation, each begins to wonder if ’til death do us part may come sooner than they’d intended.
This one is part of a three book series, and you might as well just get them all (The Arrangement, The Amendment, The Atonement). This was definitely my favorite series in 2023.
5. FINAL GIRL SUPPORT GROUP by Grady Hendrix (2021)
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized - someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
If you are a fan of horror movies, you’re going to fall in love with this book. I don’t even need to say more.
4. RISE AND FALL OF THE DINOSAURS by Steve Brusatte (2018)
In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.
Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers - themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period - into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs' peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth's history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a "sixth extinction".
Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research - which he calls "a new golden age of discovery" - and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.
An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs' epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.
This may be a science book, but it is written in a way that anyone can enjoy. The author includes plenty of personal stories. And yes, I do love dinosaurs more than most, but I think even if you like them a little, you’ll enjoy this one.
A group of house mice struggle to survive a long and strange winter. The humans are gone, the sun is rarely seen, and a cold, dark rain befouls everything it touches.
The mice, long dependent on humans for food, stubbornly cling to their old ways, looting the nearby abandoned houses for any scraps they can find. Once, there was plenty to eat, but now the scavengers return empty-handed, or not at all.
Food is scarce, but danger is everywhere. Poison and traps wait for the unwary in dark cupboards, and a gang of feral cats relentlessly chase the mice whenever the rodents leave the safety of their nest. Now there are even rumors a hawk has come to join the hunt.
Ok, so I’ll admit. This was my first graphic novel. The art is absolutely stunning and the storyline is great. I am anxiously anticipating a sequel to be announced.
2. THOUSAND BOY KISSES by Tillie Cole (2016)
One kiss lasts a moment. But a thousand kisses can last a lifetime.
One boy. One girl. A bond that is forged in an instant and cherished for a decade. A bond that neither time nor distance can break. A bond that will last forever. Or so they believe.
When 17-year-old Rune Kristiansen returns from his native Norway to the sleepy town of Blossom Grove, Georgia, where he befriended Poppy Litchfield as a child, he has just one thing on his mind: Why had the girl who was one half of his soul, who promised to wait faithfully for his return, cut him off without a word of explanation?
Rune's heart was broken two years ago when Poppy fell silent. When he discovers the truth, he finds that the greatest heartache is yet to come.
This YA novel is enjoyed by plenty of 20+ years olds across the world. Grab your tissues, it is a tearjerker. I don’t normally cry for anything, but I’m not afraid to admit, the tears were streaming by the end of this one.
And my personal favorite of the year, coming in at number one is EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE by Benjamin Stevenson
Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.
I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.
Who was it?
Let’s get started.
EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE
My brother
My stepsister
My wife
My father
My mother
My sister-in-law
My uncle
My stepfather
My aunt
Me
This book is just so witty. Think Clue meets Knives Out, and that is this book. This Whodunit mystery is laid out in such a smart way, with a very unique style of storytelling and narrator. There are a lot of characters - you may want a notecard to write them down and keep track. I love anything with dark humor, and this one was everything I was hoping it would be.