My Best Books of 2023

I read so many incredible books in 2023 that I couldn’t make a top ten list so here are the top 15 books I read in 2023! I would love to hear about your favourite book of the year.

I finally read A Dowry of Blood in 2023 and I can confidently say that I understand the hype! It is so beautifully written and could have so easily be overwrought but I thought S.T. Gibson towed that line perfectly. There are so many quotable moments and it is a book I need to reread at some points so I can annotate it. It is the kind of book that should be studied! It is epistolary, which can make it difficult to get a full scope of the world and the characters, but Gibson manage to do it so well. It is a reimagining of the story of Dracula’s brides, told from the POV of his first wife Constanta, though he is never actually named. There is something so powerful in that!

“You liked me best when I was like an oil painting; perfectly arranged and silent.”

“You could have kissed me or slit my throat and either would have made as much sense.”

“Even loneliness, hollow and cold, becomes so familiar it starts to feel like a friend.”

House of Roots and Ruin has to be on this list for the simply reason that it gave me whiplash more than any other book I read this year. There were so many twist and turns and some deeply disturbing moments that I did not see coming. I also reread House of Salt and Sorrows this year and the sequel is better in my opinion and they do feel so different in tone. While book one is atmospheric and eerie, book two is wild and disturbing. It was a bit of slow start for me but there is this one moment that got me and I could not put the book down. It is one of the books that I have thought about most since reading it.

Something Wild and Wonderful has solidified Anita Kelly as an auto-buy author for me! There is something about the characters that they write that I just connect with. I also love that this book is set in the same universe and Love and Other Disasters. I am currently reading an eARC of their 2024 release, How You Get the Girl, and it is also in the same universe! I read Something Wild and Wonderful in the summer and I think it was the only book I read this year that had me staying up into the late hours of the night finishing it. I was reading through tears- not because it was sad but because it was so damn sweet. I am definitely someone who is more likely to cry happy tears than sad one! Alexei and Ben just have so much chemistry and the ways the interact with one another felt very authentic.

Only for the Week is maybe the messiest romance I read in 2023 but I ate it up and I found my new favourite book boyfriend. This is the book that made me realize why I like romances centered around romance as much as I do. It is because there is so much potential for outside conflict while the couple themselves remain solid. That is certainly the case in this book even though Janelle and Rome have to hide the fact that they are hooking up. It is a he falls first story and boy does he! I am hoping that Natasha Bishop will write more books following this friend group because we definitely got hints at different romances developing between some of the side characters.

I am not going to lie, it is the cover of The Book That Wouldn’t Burn that first caught my attention. I then entered a giveaway for a signed copy and somehow I won! I am so glad that I did because I do not think I would have ever got around to reading this otherwise and I would have been missing out. This is a love letter to libraries at the end of the day and I am truly in awe of it. I have a feeling it is very different from everything else that Mark Lawrence writes but I am open to trying another series by him while I impatiently wait for the sequel, The Book That Broke the World.

Ashes of the Sun is what I would call SciFi/fantasy and I have never read anything else quite like it. It is dual POV and we are following a brother and a sister who were separated when they were children and are on different sides of a rebellion.I was on the edge of my seat waiting for their reunion! I also enjoyed both of their POVs equally, which is a hard things to pull off. They both have unique and memorable side characters and it made it difficult to know which side to root for. I think that this is one of the best found family books I read in 2023, which is an easy way to win me over. Some of the banter was hysterical! What really one me over is just how fun this book is. I tried to read something else after Ashes of the Sun but I could not stop thinking about it so I just read the sequel instead. That is unheard for me! That said, I have yet to read the last book because I am not ready to move on from these characters but I have a feeling I will get to it soon because I need to know how this ends because we have definitely been building up to something over the course of the last two books.

I think that Radiance might be my favourite fantasy romance? It is going to be a difficult one to beat! I read some incredible fantasy romance in 2023, including The Serpent and the Wings of Night series (which I loved!), but I found myself comparing them all to Radiance and none of them measured up! The chemistry was off the charts! Are there other books with the disgust to love trope? Because it was everything! I loved seeing these two hit it off during their first meeting despite the fact that their are both wildly unattracted to one another. They have a political marriage and a strong friendship that slowly develops into something more and I ate it up! Just talking about this book makes me want to reread it. I also thought that the fantasy elements were equally as well done as the romance. There was a lot of great political and familial discussion and what I really need to do is continue on with the series!

I read some amazing contemporary romance in 2023 (see Only for the Week and Something Wild and Wonderful!) but nothing could top Reel by Kennedy Ryan. 2023 was the year I finally got around to reading something by her and now I am a huge fan and will eventually read her entire backlist. I know I said Rome was my new book boyfriend but Canon is up there as well! Much like Only for the Week, this book starts off messy (for very similar reasons as in Only for the Week now that I think about it!) but it takes a more serious tone and I would say it is the most romantic book I have read in years.

I don’t think I have talked about The Queen of Blood on the blog yet because I read it in December and it took me by complete surprise! To the point that I marathoned the entire series which is something I have not done in years! I should have known this would work for me because it is incredibly atmospheric, has a creepy forest, and a school setting with a competition element. It might also have my favourite magic system of the year! There are deadly spirits who derive power from things like air, fire, water, etc and there are women who are able to control these spirits and protect the people. The dynamic between our main character and the spirits was what really kept me turning the pages! The rest of the series goes in a direction I didn’t see coming and we are introduced to a new perspective that I also enjoyed. The third book was still great but was my least favourite of the three! I am now a huge fan of Sarah Beth Durst!

The Mead Mishaps series might be the series I talked about most in 2023! There were just so many opportunities for me to recommend it or bring it up and I jumped at the chance to do so. The second book, That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf was technically my favourite and if you only read one book in the series make it this one! I just think it had the tropes and type of hero that appeals to me the most- he was such a cinnamon roll! It can be so difficult to capture humour in fiction but Kimberly Lemming is a master of it. The only problem is that I think I started my monster romance journey with the best series out there and I am struggling to find any that hold a candle to it! Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I have read three books from Olivia Atwater at this point and I just fall more and more in love with her writing and her characters. The Witchwood Knot is my favourite because it feels like it was written for me. I always say this but there was a moment where our main character walks into the house and it bites her and my first though was “Oh yeah, I am going to like this” and I did! There is an undead cat familiar named Oliver, so that is probably the easiest way to win me over. I also love haunted house stories but what made this one unique is that it was not haunted by ghosts but my fae! There is also a super slow burn romance that I wasn’t sure about at first but I totally bought into by the end and I cannot wait to see how that relationship develops as the series continues on.

I did not read a ton of graphic novels in 2023 but the ones I did read were incredible with The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich being my favourite. It is now my favourite graphic novel of all time and one I will reread whenever I need a warm hug. In fact, I plan to sneak in a little reread this month because there is a buddy read on the Once Upon a Readathon discord and how could I not join? This book is just so “cheesy” in the best way and I am smiling as I type this because that’s what it does to me!

I finally read the entire Wayfarer series in 2023 and it was a delight! The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet has been one of my favourite books for years but I just never continued on with the series and I am so happy that I finally got around to it. All the books were excellent and Becky Chambers is an auto-buy author for me, but the last book, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within was something special. There was something so charming about it and I felt it encapsulated everything that I love about the series. It is wholesome with being saccharine and I understand that Becky Chamber’s messages can be a little on the nose but I kind of love that about her. She has something to say and she makes sure that you get it!

Are we at all surprised that Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries is this high on my list? I read in twice in one year, which is something I have never done before. In fact, I am gearing up to read it for a third time before the sequel comes out on the 16th.

Daughter of the Forest