2023: The Year in Reviews

If you’re reading this, welcome, and Happy New Year 🎉🎇🎊 If the best you can say is you’re glad 2023 is in the rearview mirror, well, give yourself a pat on the back for persevering. You made it through another year, and that’s something worth acknowledging as an accomplishment in itself.

Throughout the year, I’ve read some amazing books, and I love to celebrate those that left a lasting impression. Some made me laugh, warmed my heart, gave me the spooky shivers, threw out some great plot twists, and one in particular (Rafts) made me cry, which is never a bad thing. I hope you’ve found some of the best reads of your life in 2023.

Here’s looking forward to 2024! May we all continue to work to fight censorship and book banning, keep our LGBTQIA+ family, friends, and youth safe, strive for peace, and fight for equity for all.

Warmest regards,

Lisa ~

The Best of 2023

 

Fantasy:

Liar City by Allie Theron – There is a world out there that equates kindness with weakness, that regards compassion and empathy as “woke”-ness rather than the essential traits that compose the best of us. That world sets the foundation for Allie Therin’s Liar City, a modern day alternate Seattle where empaths are feared at best, believed monsters the world would be better off without at worst.

The Eidolon by K.D. Edwards – I didn’t know this book was so necessary or how much I needed its story until I’d finished it and then sat there with a full heart, jangled nerves, some recalled grief, and time to process it all. The Eidolon ties in so integrally with the events in The Hourglass Throne that it shouldn’t be read as a standalone. But, perhaps more essentially, it paves a way for Anna, Max, and Quinn to flourish. They won’t be doing it alone, though, not in this family. I’m particularly anxious to know how Layne Dawncreek will influence things going forward.

Inscrutable. That’s how things end, and I am unapologetically addicted.

OKPsyche by Anya Johanna Deniro – There are some books you read, some you experience, and then there are books like OKPsyche, which I read not to understand the speculative aspects of but to absorb the author’s thoughts and emotions. Anya Johanna DeNiro has penned a stream of consciousness opus to an unnamed transgender woman and, in the process, made me think, made me feel, and made me realize that I have never approached any point in my life where I was required to muster the level of courage and strength it takes to begin life again as who I truly am rather than who everyone else expects me to be.

Rafts by Utunu – How to explain my love for this book . . .

It wrecked me. It touched my heart and broke it unapologetically. It transcended the strictest definitions of the Romance genre and became romantic in spectacularly agonizing and beautiful ways. It is joyful. It is erotic. It is playful. And it is profoundly unsubtle in its intention. Utunu is an eloquent storyteller, his voice soft and reassuring, his writing evocative and provocative. Rafts is a book I consumed as much as read as much as suffered. Every moment and every emotion was so worth it.

SciFi/Horror:

Body After Body by Briar Ripley Page- Body After Body is one of the finest horror novels I’ve read in years. Maybe ever. Briar Ripley Page was inspired by music, and they transformed that inspiration into a story that shocks, provokes, and repulses. It drew me in, sent me on a twisted journey, and then used the human condition to keep me hooked as I empathized with their characters’ conflicts. This book is a full-throated homage to the genres it represents, unique in its substance and delivered descriptively, sometimes gruesomely (beware of cannibalism). Briar Ripley Page catapulted their way to the top of my list of favorite new finds.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle – Chuck Tingle’s Camp Damascus is a masterpiece of Horror. As a fan of the genre, I don’t say that lightly or use the term indiscriminately. This book examines grooming and indoctrination from the point of view of the incurious, those who fear to interrogate the world around them outside the purview of an ancient mythology that repeatedly contradicts itself, a mythology that was conceived many millennia before man had the capacity to conceptualize the vastness of life and its multitudes. The book isn’t anti-religion, though; it’s an examination of a distorted version of faith, of love, of imposing beliefs on others without their consent, and what that means for Rose Darling.

A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper – Hailey Piper gifts readers with a positively lush, deliciously macabre, and exquisitely unhinged story in her latest offering, A Light Most Hateful. What begins as a typical night in a small Appalachian town turns sinister in a matter of moments. Where the tale goes from there is unexpected and offers up some outstanding anxiety from one page to the next. Piper’s writing is sublime, ethereal, vivid, and she clinches every scene and mood with precision.

Contemporary Romance:

Finding Mr. Fabulous by Con Riley – For a man who has purportedly never “done feelings,” Rex Heligan has an awful lot of them in Finding Mr. Fabulous, like an itch he can’t scratch because it’s beyond his reach. And he has even more of them when he comes back to Kara-Enys, his legacy, to discover how close Pops and Dev Singh-Smith have become in such a short time. The conundrum is, obviously, how Rex gets Dev to stay. The beauty of this story is them both discovering they want the same thing. The glory is in watching them get there. Con Riley is my Doctor Feelgood. Her books are my drug of choice, and I’m addicted to them in normal amounts—meaning I never want to be cured of my helpless love for the stories she tells.

A Wedding in a Week by Con Riley – The lushness of emotion and detail abound in A Wedding in a Week. There is more than a story of two people falling in love at play. As in life, there are chaoses that interrupt the flow of days, things that Stef and Marc face together as a team, and accept help when it’s needed and offered. It’s the building of community and family alike around them that exponentially increases the warmth and gentleness of the story. It’s the stakes in everyday life that are high, but become more manageable with someone strong to depend on.

A Wedding in a Week is the sort of love story Con Riley does so well, and has been doing consistently for many years.

Historical Romance:

Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel – This book is gorgeous, lush and lyrical, its prose vivid and its characters calculating. Natasha Siegel prefaces her spectacular debut novel, Solomon’s Crown, by ensuring readers understand it is a fictionalized portrayal of the relationship that existed between Richard the Lionheart and King Philip II. Speculation that they did indeed have a romantic connection—which is based upon personal observations that they shared meals from the same dish and slept together when in each other’s company—are acknowledged, but is overshadowed by the fact that, in the end, they were bitter rivals and political enemies

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles – The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen is transportive historical fiction and quintessential KJ Charles. The sense of time and place are gorgeously illustrated, at times bucolic, idyllic, while at others depicting the dangers and pitfalls of a being an outsider on close-knit turf. This book is dazzling, from the moment Gareth and Joss meet, using aliases, to the moment they part and then are reunited under bitterly divisive circumstances. This is a story about Gareth learning and, more crucially, earning his place as a Marshman. It’s a story about them both learning what it means to lean on and trust someone, and to be leaned on and trusted.

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian – We Could Be So Good is a story about wanting to live out loud when society demands you be silent. It’s a story about wanting to find your light when society demands you remain in the shadows. Nick grapples so hard with who he is that he’s determined to be alone forever even as Andy burrows under Nick’s doubts and fears and cuddles up against his need and longing to be Andy’s someone special. Andy has some fragile places too, which Nick shores up simply by being Nick. He shows his affection with food, and it’s a language that’s unmistakable.

This book is as heart-melting and soul-stirring as it could possibly be. A happy ending for two men, one of whom was certain he would never have one.

Romantasy:

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske – If you haven’t begun this trilogy yet, please, for the love of all that’s reading, treat yourself. Freya Marske went all-in on the magic realism and incorporated it with classic doses of suspense and danger, then added a bit of found family to invest her readers in the unlikely alliances and subsequent friendships between her characters. Edwin, Robin, Maud, Violet, Adelaide, Jack, and Alan are the axis around which the story spins. It is them against the powers-that-be, which is a fraught place, and their mission often seems futile in the face of those who seek to ensure evil prevails over good.

Unknown by Jordan L. Hawk – Widdershins is legendary for knowing its own. It’s a place sorcerers, humans, and those who are not quite human call home, and a place where eldritch horrors visit their wrath upon the heads of those they deem a threat. Except vampires. Apparently, vampires don’t exist (hahaha, are we sure about that, Sebastian?). Jordan L. Hawk has done everything right as he’s handed the town over to its new keepers while Whyborne and Griffin are off in Egypt. Something tells me they’ll be making an appearance sooner rather than later, though, and I’m thoroughly psyched for it. The fourth and final Book of the Bound is still out there somewhere. Who possesses the Book of Blood and what their intentions are with it remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: much like the truth, its use is sure to be rarely pure or ever simple.

Mystery/Suspense:

And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling – Moehling reveals his perpetrator in the blurb, which is not often the case in a mystery novel, but it works seductively in And There He Kept Her because readers get portions of the story from Emmett Burr’s point of view. The procedural—the investigation, the lack of solid clues, the suspicious death of a key witness, the drug ring, and Packard’s own personal investment—unfolds as a deliberate means of suspense as readers anticipate when the law will catch up to what we know is Emmett’s and Carl’s long-hidden corruption. The crimes committed are the height of gruesome, the stuff of nightmares, and the utter horror that habitual predators are made of.

The Adventures of Holloway Holmes by Gregory Ashe – The Adventures of Holloway Holmes is a superb mystery series that pays homage to one of the greatest fictional detectives ever conceived, but does so in a thoroughly modern and original way. Jack Moreno and Holloway Holmes could never be accused of taking the path of least resistance. If there is trouble to be found, they will find it. And, in some cases, if there’s none to be found, they will make it. It’s not that they choose chaos; it’s more that chaos finds them where the paths of their ancestors once met.

Historical Fantasy:

The Reanimator’s Soul by Kara Jorgensen – There were more than a few touching moments in The Reanimator’s Soul in which we watch Oliver Barlow struggle. Those moments serve to enrich the emotional connection to him and let readers in on the connection between him and Felipe Galvan in ways that give their romance a different sort of substance. The magic that exists in this early 20th century world contrasts with and complements the setting. It can be a spot of perfection in an imperfect world. It can also be a deadly imperfection in the hands of those who see harm as help. I love everything about what Kara Jorgensen communicates in this story and through these characters, up to and including the fact that relationships can be tested from within and without and be strengthened by those challenges.

Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton – David R. Slayton is a spellcrafter. He dreams up ultra-rich fantasy worlds and then peoples them with characters who engage, enthrall, and entertain in full measure. Dark Moon, Shallow Sea begins in a deconstructed world, a time and a place in which the goddess of the moon has been murdered, the voice of the god of the sun makes pawns of his worshipers, and the sacrifice of one will ensure the redemption of many. The yin can’t prevail without the yang, the circle of the sun and the moon must be unbroken, and the ones who will lie to remain in power must yield. If you love character-driven fantasy set in a world rife with danger and treachery, magic and mythology, Dark Moon, Shallow Sea delivers.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White – If it wasn’t evident that Andrew Joseph White is seemingly uninterested in writing gentle fiction with his debut novel, Hell Followed with Us (one of the best books I read in 2022), The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is indisputable proof he savors telling stories that center his transgender characters in challenging environments. And then convinces readers that fighting to be who they are, against the push-back of a society that repudiates them, can be accomplished in some thoroughly gruesome and engaging ways.

This book is not for the squeamish. Although it’s not categorized as such, it’s a horror novel. Body horror, both on-page and the ideation of, is significant to its plot, so be forewarned there are characters who do not go gently into that good night.

Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros – If you’ve never had occasion to read a book that left you reflecting on how far you’d have to be pushed to become uncivilized, where that threshold is and what would make you cross it, maybe you haven’t read a book like Wrath Becomes Her. Aden Polydoros revisits World War II in this brilliant and sincere story of retribution, wrapped up in a young woman who is more humane than the monster she was created to be. And more human than the enemy bent on the genocide of her people. Aden Polydoros composes his stories so artfully that they captivate as well as educate, and this one is by far and away one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree – Baldree says he didn’t intend to write Bookshops & Bonedust as his sophomore novel, but I can’t begin to summarize all the ways in which I’m overjoyed he did. Meeting a younger Viv, a Viv still hungry for adventure, years before she met and fell head over heels in love with Tandri, is abundant with those small, quiet moments that made her “story past the story” in Legends & Lattes so irresistible. This novel is the coziest of fantasies, the story of a woman whose life, up to then, had been unrooted and without the warmth of friendship, discovering that through reading, through books, she could forge deep and meaningful connections between words on the page and guidance in life, and those books would serve to connect her to friends she couldn’t possibly have expected. They remade her into someone she couldn’t have imagined becoming in her own fantasies. Viv learns through stories that being “menacing for a living” might not be half so dangerous as caring for someone. It took Tandri to make Viv want to try.