Favourite Books of 2023
{This article contains affiliate links. The books Artificial Wisdom and A Girl Beyond Closed Doors were gifted to me by Literally PR in exchange for an honest review and a place on the book tour.}
Hello Readers,
I know I’ve been very lax in my monthly book wrap ups this year but the format I was doing them just began to not work for me. But I’m going to try and figure out a way in which I can bring back some sort of wrap up so I can share the books I’ve been reading throughout the year aside from simply listing them on the Yearly TBR page. Once I’ve figured it out, I’ll be sure to share.
But that’s not what you’re here for; you’re here to find out what my favourite books of 2023 are. From the 70 books I’ve read this year, the ones that made the list were the ones that stood out to me from all the rest. The ones which grabbed me from page one, pulled me into their worlds and stayed with me long after I finished them.
From these 12, it’s difficult to pick which one is my absolute favourite because they are all so different. I love each and every one of them for the author’s writing style, their characters, their plots and the worlds they have built and chosen to share. I’m going to give you the synopsis of each one, rather than share my thoughts on them; just know that I loved every moment and every word and I’d highly recommend all of these.
{Just a note on the picture included: There’s some books that are part of a series in this list, I’ve pictured my favourite book of that series, which is why the third book of The Inheritance Games series is pictured instead of the first}
So in no particular order, here’s my favourite books of 2023:
The Inheritance Games Series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes {The Inheritance Games / The Hawthorne Legacy / The Final Gambit / The Brothers Hawthorne}
“Avery has a plan: keep her head down, work hard for a better future. Then an eccentric billionaire dies, leaving her almost his entire fortune. And no one, least of all Avery, knows why.
Now she must move into the mansion she’s inherited. It’s filled with secrets and codes, and the old man’s surviving relatives - a family hell-bent on discovering why Avery got “their” money.
Soon she is caught in a deadly game that everyone in the strange family is playing. But just how far will they go to keep their fortune?”
A Girl Beyond Closed Doors by Jessica Taylor-Bearman
“After twelve years of being trapped in the world of one room by the M.E Monster, Jessica’s dreams start ro come true. She’s pregnant! But Jessica has to adjust to being a disabled mum in an inaccessible world and face the critics who doubt her abilities. Balancing parenthood and chronic illness, expectations versus reality, Jessica discovers alternative happy endings are possible…”
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
“For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History. The walled city by the sea, where father and daughter take refuge when the Nazis invade Paris. And a future which draws her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth.”
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, a lesser god, and an immortal trying to undo the mistakes her made hundreds of years ago.
Theirs is a world in which who die in glory return as gods. A world transformed by BioChromatic magic; a power based on an essence known as breath, which can only be collected, one unit at a time, from individual people.
But it’s worth it: by using breath and drawing upon the colour in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be performed…”
Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth
“Antigone filled with inevitable doom, heart-break and one final act of courage. Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the Archive, where the genes of the dead are stored, humanity will end. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but Antigone's parents were murdered, leaving her father's throne vacant.
As her militant uncle Kreon rises to claim it, all Antigone feels is rage. When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest. But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.”
The Tea Monk and Robot Series by Becky Chambers {A Psalm for the Wild-Built / A Prayer for the Crown-Shy}
“It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools. Centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honour the old promise of checking in. The robot has one question: “What do people need?”
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how, They’re going to need to ask it a lot.”
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
“In 1912, eighteen-year-old Edwin St. Andrew crosses the Atlantic, exiled from English polite society. In British Columbia, he enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and for a split second all is darkness, the notes of a violin echoing unnaturally through the air. The experience shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later, Olive Llewellyn, a famous writer, is travelling all over Earth, far away from her home in the second moon colony. Within the next of Olive’s bestselling novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City’s hired to investigate an anomaly in time, he uncovers a series of lives upended: the son of an English aristocrat driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to so something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.”
“Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song
But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she derserves.
What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.”
Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver
“It’s 2050, a decade after a heatwave that killed four hundred million across the Persian Gulf, including journalist Marcus Tully’s wife. Now he must uncover the truth: was the disaster natural? Or is the weather now a weapon of genocide?
A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse. A former US President campaigns against the first AI politician for the position, but someone is trying to sway the outcome.
Can Tully unravel the truth in time? Will humanity ulitmately choose salvation over freedom?”
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
“Amina al-Sirafi has survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retreat peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.
But, when she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse, she jumps at the chance for one final advetnure with her old crew that will make her a legend and offers a fortune that will secure her and her family’s future forever.
Yet the deeper Amina dives, the higher the stakes - for there’s always risk in waiting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savour just a bit more power… and the price might be your very soul.”
The Empyrean Series by Rebecca Yarros {Fourth Wing / Iron Flame}
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general - her tough-as-talons mother - has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away… because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter - like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless ringleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Everyone at Basgiath has an agenda, so sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.”
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
“Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.
It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.
But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden - one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party - can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.
The only way to break the cycle is to identify her killer. But each time the day begins again, Aidan wakes in a the body of a different guest. And someone is desperate to stop him ever escaping Blackheath…”
So those are all my favourite books from this past year. I’m looking forward to the coming year and the new books I’ll discover and hopefully love along the way.
I’d love to know some of your favourite books from 2023, so please feel free to leave me a comment telling me all about them.
Stay Safe. Read A Book.
L x
