THE TOP 10 BOOKS I READ IN 2023

Good morning, folks! It’s time again for my annual list of the 10 best books that I read. This year was my most prolific yet. I’ve finished 84 books as of the time I’m writing this post. It could increase slightly, but I’m pretty much done for the year. And though I read so many books, there weren’t that many to choose from to pick my top 10. It seems the…likability of the books I read this year wasn’t as high as usual. Despite that, there were still plenty of books that I greatly enjoyed.

One of my picks this year was a huge surprise. This book was so good I added it to this list at the very last minute. Usually, December is a wind-down month for me; I either read less books or pick only books that I’ve read before. But this last-minute book is part of a series I didn’t want to postpone until next year. And boy, was that a good choice. The book is Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson. It was absolutely earth-shattering in my opinion. I liked it so much I couldn’t not include it in this list. And it damn near beat all my other picks. Here’s the full list:

STATUS UPDATE: END OF YEAR HIATUS AND NEW PROJECT

Good morning, everyone! I just wanted to pop in after going two consecutive weeks without any new posts. This isn’t the first time I take a break from my blog. I usually wait at least until late November, though. I admit I’ve been writing less book reviews than I used to, but I haven’t yet run out of new ones to post. I simply have been busy these past few weeks. There’s a project I decided to start, and it has all but consumed me.

Considering that I’m a very avid reader, it likely isn’t hard to guess what my project is. Yep, I’m writing a novel (or will be doing it soon). I guess what they say about “read enough books, eventually you'll want to write one” is true. I had what I think is an amazing idea recently, and I couldn’t stop the desire to develop it. I won’t say what it is yet, but I hope that I will sometime next year. I’ve already come up with a bunch of characters, and the protagonist has me completely invested. At the moment, I’m working on a plot outline. This means I can’t finish in time for NaNoWriMo, but I wasn’t aiming for that anyway. The event did give me the impetus to start now, though. I would like to have a completed first draft by year’s end. Even as I write this, ideas are cropping up in my head.

There are only a few weeks left in the year, so I’ll post no more book reviews while I work on my project. The exception is my annual “Top Ten Reads” list, which I’m already preparing. On another subject, I am still debating where to restart my social media presence. Twitter’s a no-go, of course, so I’ve pretty much abandoned that account. I’ll leave it as is instead of deleting it. Maybe I’ll move to Threads by Meta. Now that it’s possible to have more than one account (and to open one without needing Instagram), I may create a Threads profile soon. I’ll update my About Page when I do. For now, this is all. I’ll be back the second week of December with the ten best books I read this year.

BOOK REVIEW: THE STAR THIEF BY JAMIE GRAY

Title: The Star Thief

Author: Jamie Grey

Genre: Science Fiction, romance

Published on: December 29, 2013

Experience the romance and adventure of the best selling futuristic romance.

Stealing another galactic secret will get her arrested, but playing by the rules might just get her killed.

At twenty-three, Renna Carrizal is the most notorious thief in the galaxy. There's just one problem - all she wants is to get out of the business.

But after Renna rescues an injured boy on her final job, she finds herself on the run from the mob instead of enjoying retirement. She unwittingly becomes ensnared by MYTH, the empire's top-secret galactic protection agency, who offer her a choice - either help them on their latest mission, or spend the rest of her life on a prison ship.

Forced to work under the watchful eye of handsome but arrogant Captain Finn, Renna learns the former mercenary-turned-space marine has a few dirty secrets himself. As Renna works to discover the truth about Finn's past and keep the tantalizing man at arm's length, she unearths a plot to create an unstoppable army. The target? The human star fleet.

Now Renna must pull off the biggest job of her career - saving the galaxy. And maybe even herself.

I haven’t read many space opera novels. They’re a fascinating sci-fi subgenre for me, especially when done right like Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. After I came across The Star Thief, I thought it sounded cool. The protagonist is 23-year-old Renna Carrizal, and she’s perhaps the best thief in the galaxy. The novel doesn’t specify how far into the future the story is set, only that it’s several centuries after our time. Renna is introduced while she’s in the middle of an assignment. Someone hired her to steal some tech prototype. Renna is able to find it, of course. When she’s about to leave, Renna gets into a snag. She is forced to outrun the building’s guards with extra cargo that she hadn’t anticipated.

Just when Renna thinks she’s made it away, an unknown group shows up. They’re not the goons Renna just stole from. These newcomers seem to be some sort of paramilitary unit. Renna can’t help but think of them as ninjas, especially as they use swords. She tells the reader that swords went out of fashion eons ago. They’re highly effective in the hands of these guys, though. The squad make short work of the goons and take Renna hostage. Of course, Renna tries to escape and almost manages it...until she sees who sent the ninja soldiers after her.

BOOK REVIEW: SHADOW AND BONE BY LEIGH BARDUGO

Title: Shadow and Bone

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Published on: May 7, 2013 by Square Fish

Discover the adventure that started it all and meet Alina, Mal, and the Darkling in Shadow and Bone from #1 bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo.

Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold―a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite―and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. He believes Alina can summon a force capable of destroying the Shadow Fold and reuniting their war-ravaged country, but only if she can master her untamed gift.

As the threat to the kingdom mounts and Alina unlocks the secrets of her past, she will make a dangerous discovery that could threaten all she loves and the very future of a nation.

Welcome to Ravka . . . a world of science and superstition where nothing is what it seems.

I’ve come across this book a few times, yet hadn’t got around to reading it. I didn’t think I was missing much. Boy, was I wrong. Shadow and Bone turned out to be a lot more entertaining than I expected. It’s part of the Grishaverse, which is about as popular as Harry Potter or the Twilight novels. The protagonist is Alina Starkov, a mapmaker who lives in the fictional kingdom of Ravka. She’s seventeen and has been working for the Army for about a year. Alina’s childhood best friend, Malyen “Mal” Oretsev, is also in the Army. He’s a tracker rather than a mapmaker.

There’s something that has afflicted the land of Ravka for generations. It’s called the Shadow Fold, a sort of dark magical sea infested with monsters. One day, Alina and her regiment must cross the Fold and get to the other side. They use skiffs for this purpose. Among the crew are several Grisha, the elite members of the Second Army. The Grisha have special powers. Some of them have control over wind, which is how they propel the skiffs. Others have control over fire, which provides light and protection.

BOOK REVIEW: A GOOD KILLING BY ALLISON LEOTTA

Title: A Good Killing

Author: Allison Leotta

Genre: Mystery, thriller

Published on: May 12, 2015 by Gallery Books

Former federal prosecutor and critically acclaimed author Allison Leotta’s spellbinding thriller follows prosecutor Anna Curtis as she heads home to Michigan to defend her sister in a case that will bring her to her knees.

How far would you go to save your sister?

Anna Curtis is back in her hometown just outside of Detroit. Newly single after calling off her wedding, Anna isn’t home to lick her wounds. She’s returned to support her sister, Jody, who has been wrongfully accused of murder after their old high school coach, a local hero, dies in a suspicious car crash.

But maybe Jody isn’t so innocent after all. The police are convinced that Jody was having an affair with the married coach and killed him out of jealousy. As Anna investigates with the help of her childhood friend Cooper Bolden, an Afghan War veteran with a secret of his own, she slowly peels back the facade of her all-American town and discovers that no one is telling the truth about the coach, not even the people she thought she knew best. When the town rallies against them, threatening not just Jody’s liberty but both sisters’ lives, Anna resolves to do everything she can to save her sister and defend the only family she has left.

In her best book yet, Leotta, “the female John Grisham” (The Providence Journal), explores the limits of vigilante justice, the bonds of sisterhood, and the price of the truth.

Everything has changed in the fourth book of the Anna Curtis series. She's the main protagonist, an Assistant U.S. Attorney from D.C. Speak of the Devil had a shocking development that completely altered Anna's life. It left me rather bummed. For almost three books, the series had been building a romance between Anna and Jack Bailey. The latter is the head of the Homicide Unit at the USAO. The two were an inch away from getting married. It turns out that Jack's deceased wife, Nina Flores, was alive after all. She faked her death to protect her family and bring down an extremely dangerous criminal. Nina still loves Jack, so with her back in the picture, Anna felt she couldn't go forward with the wedding.

A call from a high school friend gives Anna an excuse to get away from D.C. for a bit. She returns to Holly Grove, her hometown. Anna has no idea what awaits her, though. She soon learns that Jody, her younger sister, is in trouble. Jody has played a small role in the two books she's appeared in so far. Now, Jody shares protagonist status with Anna. Things start with a local tragedy. Owen Fowler, a beloved high school coach and pillar of the community, is found dead. He was inside his car when it crashed into the school gym. The police find the circumstances suspicious. Knowing of Jody's relationship with the coach, they want to bring her in for questioning.