The Best Novels of 2023

Hi friends! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It’s time for my favorite annual blog post, looking back on the best things I read this year as well as reflecting on my reading life in general. I’ve learned over the years that there are definitely things that change from year to year in terms of what I read and how much I read, and it’s always a helpful exercise to look back on those things. Because I actually have quite a few 5 star books for the year, I’m breaking this reflection into two parts. Today I’ll share the best fiction novels I read this year and in a couple of days I’ll share a post with the best non-fiction titles I read this year. So if you’re looking for book recommendations, you will get plenty here over these couple days!

There were 3 things that were different in my reading life this year that really impacted what I read and how I did so. The first, as anyone who has followed me at all this year knows, was that this was the first year I’ve ever done an official reading challenge. I participated in The Book Girl’s Guide Read Around America challenge in 2023 and it was a blast. Their hope was that people select one book per region (every month focused on a different 5 state region) and I decided to do one book per state. I typically read around 70 books a year so I figured I could easily do the 50 states (plus 2 US territories). I absolutely loved this challenge for a couple of reasons. One, I loved that while there was a category (a book set in Texas for example) the category was so broad it gave me a ton of freedom to choose a book I thought I’d enjoy. And I did pretty darn well, there weren’t very many states where I chose a novel that ended up with only 2 stars. People asked all the time where I got my ideas and if you do any googling you will find a ton of lists of “books set in New Jersey” for example. The Book Girls sent a curated list every month of titles that take place in the states the next month will focus on so most of my ideas came from there but I did a lot of google searching as well. If you want to see the list of all 50 books I read for this specific challenge you can find them here.

Another reason I loved this challenge was that it forced me to pick up some books I never in a million years would have otherwise read. I often go for the new, buzzy and popular titles and this challenge had me reading books written several decades ago which was such a wonderful experience. Books I’d kind of always wanted to read but probably wouldn’t actually have made time to do so all of a sudden rose to the top of the list, and this challenge helped me discover a couple new authors I absolutely want to read more from.

The second thing that was different this year is that I set a ridiculous goal of reading 100 books this year. I’d never done that before, and wanted to try. I will say I did it, but I will also say I probably won’t set my sights on that particular goal again for awhile. It was a lot of books and there were weeks where I felt pressured to read faster just to stay on pace. It made reading feel too much like a job than a hobby, which isn’t what we’re going for at all! I have friends who regularly pass the 200 books a year mark which is fantastic for them! But I realized that I think my sweet spot is between 65 and 75 books a year—still a lot but not so many that I’m overwhelmed by the task ahead of me, at least in this season where too many people still need me and my attention all the time!

The third thing that changed was a direct result of the above ridiculous goal. I realized in August I wasn’t going to hit 100 books if I was only reading physical books, I had to venture into the audio book world so I could read while driving, doing laundry, cooking and walking. I used to say I didn’t care for audio books, but this year showed me that if the story is right they can be a fabulous and delightful way to read while still taking care of life stuff. I will absolutely continue using them in 2024 (especially because I have some knitting goals for the near year and audio is a great way to do a craft at the same time!) If any of those are on my list today I’ll let you know if it’s a book I listened to.

And I guess a 4th thing I did a little different this year was I added a new way of tracking what I read. In addition to writing down the title and date finished in my book journal I’ve kept for over a decade, and marking them on Goodreads, I kept a document on my phone of all the books I finished in the order I enjoyed them. So I added the first book I read and then when I finished my second book I asked myself if I liked it better or worse than the first one and put them in order according to how much I loved a title. So when I write below that a book was my 5th favorite of the year, I mean that literally, I tracked them in order of how I felt about them which was such a fun way to look at what I read! (And made compiling this post really easy, my top books are already in order!)

So with those random reflections, here are the novels I loved so so much this year. I ended up with 11 5-star books in 2023, which is a lot, but I realized I truly loved these books and I didn’t need to give them a lower score just to have a smaller list to share with you. So if you’re looking for books to read, keep reading!

My number one book of the year, my favorite reading experience, the book I keep thinking about was my Georgia pick—Gone With the Wind. I read this back in February and it stayed at the top of my list all year long. I thought the story telling was incredible, the way I was truly swept into another time and another place and wanted to stay in that world with these characters beyond the last pages of the book really made this one a wonderful reading experience. I hadn’t ever seen the movie in it’s entirety nor had I read it before, so Scarlett and Rhett were new to me, and Melanie Wilkes is a woman I will never forget for her goodness and love she never failed to show. I wrote a lengthier review on Good Reads which you can read here

My second favorite novel of the year ended up being a very obscure novel no one has probably ever heard of but was my New Hampshire book. Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God by Joe Coomer was a beautiful novel written in 1995 about 3 strangers who end up living together on a houseboat in the New Hampshire harbors, each of them running from something painful in her past. The strength and resilience of these three women, one 17 years old, one in her early 30s and one nearing the end of her life, and the way they form a family was so well told, I loved these characters and I always love a theme of “found family” in a novel. An absolute 5 star book.

Up next was my third favorite of the year, my Pennsylvania book, Harry’s Trees by Jon Cohen. At 34 years old, Harry, a lifelong lover of trees, finds himself a widower when his wife dies in a freak accident. He has worked a desk job for the forest service for years, but one day grief compels him to leave behind his desk job and he ends up accidentally embarking on an adventure that changes not only his own life but the lives of a delightful cast of characters. He meets a young girl who has also lost someone she loves, and she’s convinced Harry is the key to finding a connection with her deceased father once again. As they form an unlikely friendship they embark on an adventure intertwined with fairy tales that is truly beautiful. Harry’s Trees is a story of healing, adventure, generosity, and second chances.

Next up is one I shared about on social media very recently because I just finished this one, my Minnesota book, Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. I fell in love with his writing when I read This Tender Land a few years ago so I knew I’d love Ordinary Grace, and I did. Set in a small Minnesota town in 1961, it’s a coming of age summer for Frank Drum, the son of the town minister, younger brother of a beautiful and piano prodigy sister and older brother of a boy who stutters when he tries to speak. It’s a summer where death visits Frank’s small town in various ways which thrusts him into an adult world of secrets, betrayals, lies, and grief. While the topic of death is heavy, this didn’t feel like an oppressive read, it felt strangely hopeful and full of faith in a God who is still near to us when we are facing our worst nightmares.

My next 5-star book is actually the very first book I read this year and it’s stayed at the top of the list all year long. Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark was a beautiful story set in Maine about two grown women later in their lives who have been best friends since girlhood. Agnes is a very famous children’s book author who also writes an incredibly popular fiction series under a pseudonym. No one knows she’s the one behind it. Polly lived a life of faithful and quiet service of her family and her professor husband. The two are co-owners (along with a couple of other folks) of a piece of land in Maine, Fellowship Point. One of them wants to dissolve the trust and sell the land, and one isn’t so sure. It’s a story of secrets that have been buried a long time, of love, loss, career and home. But more than anything it’s the story of a friendship that has been broken and put back together again and what it means to have a friendship in your 70s who has been by your side for your entire life. I still remember the last line of the book and it still gives me chills when I think of it. I loved this story.

My sixth favorite book of the year was my Alabama book—Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber. I read this one back in March and it stayed toward the top of my list all year. This is the story of a small town in Alabama where Anna Kate is forced to return to in order to bury her beloved grandmother, Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Cafe, a town institution. Anna Kate’s plans were to have a funeral, sell the cafe and get out of town as quickly as possible, but when she arrives she learns the stipulations in the will state the cafe cannot be sold until Anna Kate has spent a certain number of weeks working there. She tries to avoid forming connections with her father’s side of the family, a side her mother ran from with her when she was young, but something about this town, the people in it, and this mysterious blackbird pie she keeps hearing people talk about begin to form some roots in her heart that will forever change her life. A lovely story about grief, family, small towns, and some magic thrown in made this a delightful read.

My next recommendation is one I did not read for any particular state, it was an audio book I listened to this fall because I always love this author. Hello Stranger by Katherine Center was just a fun story to get lost in for a few days and it dealt with a topic I literally did not know existed, face blindness. Sadie is a portrait artist who is in the running for a major competition when she’s in an accident that leaves her unable to recognize people’s faces. As she looks at people she describes them as a bunch of random parts but her brain can’t put them together to recognize the person. She can recognize folks sometimes by voice, scent, dress/fashion/style, height and where they appear in her life but she can’t “see” their face. Which is a major problem for a portrait artist! She meets two men who seem very different from one another, both who help her out in two different situations, and she’s worried she’s falling for both of them. This was a story with characters I really enjoyed and I loved learning about how Sadie learned to navigate the world around her with this new challenge life threw at her.

My 8th most loved book of the year was my Maryland book—Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. I read this at the recommendation of my friend Sarah, and it was a perfect coming of age story set in Baltimore in the 1970s. Mary Jane is a 14 year old only child who is shy, book-ish, and sings in the church choir with her mother. She gets a summer nanny job for a family with one little girl and her life will never be the same. What she finds when she starts work is a life of chaos on the inside of this seemingly perfect house. It’s an absolute mess both literally and figuratively. The husband is a psychiatrist who spends his entire summer on one client, a rock star who is trying to sober up and who ends up moving into the home with his movie star wife to receive counseling treatment while avoiding the public eye. Throughout her time with this family of now 4 adults and one little girl Mary Jane introduces them to meal planning, laundry rotations and organization while she’s introduced to the world of the 70’s sex, drugs and rock and roll. I adored this book and loved seeing how these characters all worked on each other to expand all their views on family.

Book number 9 was my Oklahoma book—Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham. This one is an historical fiction novel about an event I have literally never heard of, the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921. Told in a dual time line this one starts in modern day when a teenage girl finds a literal skeleton on her family’s property during a renovation project in the backyard. She wants to know more, to solve the mystery of who this person was and what happened to them and embarks on a summer of discovery that introduces her a history of her family’s property she never knew. The alternate timeline takes place a hundred years earlier and follows the story of people whose lives will be forever changed in the racially charged world of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Based on the true story of a horrific 24 hours in Tulsa this novel opened my eyes to an event in history my education never introduced me to. I think this one is technically a young adult novel, aimed at older teens, but it was wonderfully written and the story was so engaging I couldn’t put it down.

Five star book number 10 was my Alaska novel—Jimmy Bluefeather by Kim Heacox. What stood out to me about this one was the way the author managed to capture the inner monologue of a 95 year old man who says he over thinks everything. Keb Wisting is the last living man in the Southeastern Alaskan village who knows how to carve canoes by hand from fallen trees. He now suffers with all the aches and pains of living in a 95 year old body when his 17 year old basketball-prodigy grandson has a career ending logging accident. James is depressed and feels as if his life is now over and meaningless when Keb decides to begin carving one final canoe. He enlists James’ help and together, with the assistance of some incredibly kooky characters from their small village town they hand carve one last canoe and then embark on the most incredible voyage through the inlets of southeast Alaska. As they journey together they find healing, peace, and an entire town of people who desperately want to help make one old man’s dream of a final journey with his grandson a reality. This was a beautiful novel of Alaskan stories, folklore, family, and passing along of wisdom and identity. I absolutely loved it.

My final 5-star novel of the year was my Hawaii book—Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman. I have realized that historical fiction is probably my favorite of all the genres. Give me some fictional characters set in real-world events to open up my eyes to what it might have been like to live through them and I’m all the way in. Radar Girls is based on the real life Women’s Air Raid Defense that existed in Hawaii during WW2. After the attack on Pearl Harbor the military does everything it can to avoid another attack, including enlisting and training crews of women to keep an eye on and plot the location of every aircraft that makes an appearance around the Hawaiian Islands. These women have to put aside personal differences, fear and heartache of having loved ones on the front lines, and the incredible sexism that was often shown to them as many men didn’t believe they were up to the job. So many WWII books take place in Europe, this one shows a very different and also pivotal side of the war, giving us a look of the terror and resilience of these beautiful islands in the aftermath of one of the worst attacks on American soil in history.

Stay tuned for a list of my favorite non-fiction books of the year as well as some runner up novels I also loved!