Best Books from 2023

Book Summary

In the middle of the 1811 winter social season, Virginia’s planters and their families gathered at the capital for the General Assembly. Just after Christmas, six hundred people packed into the theater for a show.

Newly widowed Sally is in a third-floor box. Cecily is in the colored gallery, happy to briefly escape bad circumstances at home. Stagehand Jack is backstage hoping to earn a permanent job. Blacksmith Gilbert is on the other side of town, trying to make enough money, first to buy his freedom and then to be able to take his wife to the theater.

In the middle of the performance, the theater catches fire. The decisions by Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert will impact their futures as well as the lives of countless others.

Based on the true story of a fire in Richmond, Virginia’s theater in 1811, this compelling novel moves from tragedy to redemption as the lives of four people instantly become forever intertwined.

Book Summary

The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. June’s mother disappeared, leaving her to be raised by her grandmother. But now, June is seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. She always knew it was coming for her.

After her grandmother’s death, cryptic clues lead to more questions. When a door appears, is it a hallucination, or should she walk through it? Could the world on the other side contain the answers she’s spent her whole life searching for?

Book Summary

Kerala, on India’s southern coast, is a slender, coastal state with almost 373 miles of Arabian Sea coast and beaches. Being surrounded by water makes this a popular tourist destination. But for the family at the heart of this novel, being surrounded by water has plagued three generations. In every generation, at least one person dies by drowning.

This new literary fiction epic is a tale of love, faith, and medicine in which the family is seeking answers to this strange secret. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life.

Book Summary

It’s 2017 when Angela discovers a letter containing a life-shattering confession. She’s determined to find the recipient, and her search leads her to Toronto’s underground illegal 1970s abortion network, known only as Jane. 

In 1971, before she went to medical school, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was a typical teenager. However, when she became pregnant, she was sent to a home for “fallen” women and forced to give up her baby for adoption. She never recovered from the trauma and vowed to spend her career providing women choices. 

In 1980, Natalie was twenty and had just discovered a shocking family secret that changed everything. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant amid the other chaos in her life, she needs someone to turn to and finds Jane. She works alongside Dr. Turner but continues to be haunted by lies.

Book Summary

Ashlyn Greer is a rare-book dealer who loves the smell of old paper, ink, and leather. Old volumes appeal to all of her senses, including a sense the rest of us don’t have. She is gifted with the unique ability to feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners.

When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound, unpublished volumes with no evidence of how they came to be, she gets wrapped up in a decades-old literary mystery. Each volume bears a curious inscription, as well as the emotional fingerprints of the authors, Hemi and Belle. The books tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the closer she comes to bringing closure to their love story, and to the unfinished chapters of her own life.

Book Summary

In the late 1700s, women were expected to be seen and not heard. But, midwife Martha puts what is right over society’s expectations. When the Kennebec River freezes, a man is entombed in the ice. Martha is called to determine the cause of death.

Months earlier, the man had been accused of rape, and Martha believes he has now been murdered. But, the local physician disagrees and declares the death an accident.

Over the winter, Martha continues to investigate every angle as the trial approaches. The diary she uses to log every birth and death becomes a key component and soon implicates those she loves, leaving Martha with an impossible decision.

Book Summary

Clover had an unusual childhood, with her Kindergarten teacher passing away during a reading of Peter Rabbit. Then, her parents passed away while traveling, and she started a new life with her grandfather in New York City. She continued to be fascinated by death and was studying different cultural traditions abroad when she received the terrible news that her grandfather had passed away alone in his office.

Clover commits to preventing others from dying alone by becoming a death doula. She only takes one patient at a time, so can be more present for her clients than hospice workers. Whether she’s only holding their hand or hearing their regrets about life, she is present to honor them in their last moments. Her only friend is actually her grandfather’s friend, Leo, who is very concerned that when he is gone, Clover will be alone. Between his friendship-matchmaking and a fiesty new client, can Clover shift her life focus outside of work from the dying to a new life of her own?

Book Summary

This historical novel is based on the real-life and memoir of a 15th-century female physician in China. Tan Yunxian was raised in the Ming Dynasty era by her grandmother, also a physician, who taught her the art of Chinese medicine. Additionally, she learned about female conditions from her best friend, Meiling, who was training to be a midwife. While Yunxian was on the path to success in her own right, she was still sent into an arranged marriage.

Her new mother-in-law was a traditionalist who forbade her from seeing Meiling and stopped her from helping the girls and women in their household. Instead, she is supposed to be a “proper wife,” learning poetry, embroidering foot-binding slippers, and staying within the walls of their compound.

How did Yunxian break free and go on to treat women from all classes of society and create remedies that are still used over 500 years later? Lisa See tells her compelling life story in this novel.

Book Summary

This novel transports you to 1940s rural Colorado and the home of teenager Victoria Nash. Despite her young age, she runs the household as the sole female in a family of troubled men. One day, she meets Wilson Moon, a mysterious young drifter who has been displaced from his tribal land. Their sudden and passionate connection is full of danger and secrets.

Victoria ends up fleeing to the harsh mountain wilderness in a small hut, where she struggles against impossible conditions. As the Gunnison River rises and threatens her homeland, she begins a quest to fight for all she has lost.

Book Summary

Kate hasn’t recovered from losing her husband, Cameron, two years ago. She’s back to work, but not at peak performance. Her best friend is trying to get her back on the dating scene, but she’s already overwhelmed trying to care for herself and her young son.

When Kate and her boss, Hugh, are on a flight to a quick business meeting, they have to land in Byron Bay due to a massive storm. The time away may be exactly what she needs to move into the next stage of healing.

While the title of this novel, and even the first couple of chapters, sound like a rom-com, don’t go in expecting that vibe throughout. It gets quite deep and covers some very serious, hard, heart-wrenching topics. While it’s not exactly a dual-time, some chapters take you back to Kate’s life with her husband. You’ll tear up as many times as you laugh out loud. There are romantic elements, but it’s also squarely a story about grief and loss.

Book Summary

House of Eve alternates perspectives of our main characters in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Ruby’s story is told in first person perspective as she tries to become the first person in her lower-income family to attend higher education. However, her plans are threatened when she begins to fall for a Jewish boy.

Eleanor’s story is told from the third person perspective as she arrives in D.C. with equal parts ambition and secrets. Like Ruby, Eleanor’s plans are changed when she falls for a man, William, at Howard University. William is from one of Washington’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents are picky about who is good enough to join them.

While this setup feels like a romance novel, this is a fast-moving historical fiction novel that will take you into a piece of history you may know little about. Don’t miss the author’s note at the end!

Book Summary

Clementine has been protecting her heart ever since the worst day of her life. She wants to find love, but she’s scared to get hurt. But then she meets a man with kind eyes, a Southern drawl, and a taste for lemon pies. He’s precisely the kind of man she’d fall for… if only he didn’t exist seven years in the past.

Her late aunt always told her that her apartment was a pinch in time – a place where moments blend together like watercolors. And it seems she was right. When she finds this man standing in the kitchen and realizes she’s living seven years in his future, she knows she shouldn’t let her heart get involved. But she just might anyway.

Book Summary

On Memorial Day in 1958, the residents of Jewel, Minnesota, are shocked to discover the dead body of the town’s most powerful citizen, wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn. Sheriff Brody Dern must investigate, but he’s still carrying the physical and emotional scars of his military service, which complicate his career.

The townspeople have a prime suspect before Dern even has the autopsy report. Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran, has recently come back to town with a Japanese wife. But does the couple’s return have anything to do with this case?

The River We Remember explores midcentury life in America and highlights how countless small towns were affected by the WWII scars that remained well after the last shots were fired.

Book Summary

This suspenseful saga is set both during the war and in present-day Việt Nam. Trang and Quỳnh are sisters from a rural village, and like many in the region, their parents are struggling to survive. In 1969, the daughters take the desperate step of becoming “bar girls” in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money.

Trang becomes involved with a charming helicopter pilot named Dan. Decades later, we’ll see Dan return to Việt Nam with his wife in an attempt to heal from his PTSD and reckon with secrets from his past.

Also, in the present day, we’ll meet Phong as he tries to find his parents, a Black American soldier, and a Vietnamese woman. He was abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, and grew up being called names because he was a “child of the enemy”. He dreams of finding a way to America in hopes of a better life for his family.

Book Summary

Popular podcaster Alix Summers and an unassuming woman called Josie Fair don’t know each other, but discover that they are both celebrating their 45th birthdays at a local pub. When they bump into each other again outside Alix’s children’s school, Josie pitches an idea for the podcast.

While Alix finds something about Josie unsettling, her complicated life is ideal for the podcast and Alix doesn’t want to miss out on the story. But, before she knows it, Josie is fully entangled in her life. But then, Josie disappears as quickly as she arrived on Alix’s birthday. Unfortunately, she left a terrible legacy behind and Alix is now the subject of her own true crime podcast.

Book Summary

Nineteen-year-old Marion’s dreams come true when she’s cast as a member of the Rockettes, Radio City Music Hall’s precision dance troupe. It’s an honor for any dancer to be selected for the role and given the opportunity to perform at the Art Deco masterpiece of a theater that is Radio City. But Marion soon learns that, behind the scenes, the days are long and the rehearsals grueling.

One night, in 1956, a bomb explodes in the theater. It’s suspected to be the work of the infamous “Big Apple Bomber” who has been planting bombs in crowded places around the city for the past sixteen years. The police still have no leads, leaving citizens living in fear. At Marion’s urging, the police agree to try psychological profiling, a radical new technique at the time.

While the Rockettes are trained to stay in line, Marion realizes that to help catch the bomber, she’ll have to stand out.

Book Summary

Sadie is a talented portrait artist, who is finally getting the recognition she deserves as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition. Before her death, her mom was a finalist in the same competition, so Sadie is full of emotions about the new painting she must produce as part of the contest.
However, in one moment, everything changes for Sadie. The only constant is her beloved dog, Peanut. With both her work and her family in chaos, how will Sadie overcome the hardest period in her life?

Book Summary

Lucy is a 26-year-old teacher’s aide hoping to adopt her student, seven-year-old Christopher. He tragically lost his parents, but she needs to be in a better financial situation for both the actual adoption process to be approved and to take care of Christopher long-term.

She’s always found comfort in books, especially the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. The author stopped writing and became reclusive years ago, but she still regularly re-reads his work. Just when Lucy is about to give up on adopting Christopher, Jack Masterson re-emerges and announces a new book. However, it’s not a standard release. Four contestants will get to come to the real Clock Island and compete for a chance to win the single copy in existence, which is worth at least six figures.

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel tells the story of the friendship between two powerful and influential women in American history.

Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, was one of the first black female activists. Through her work as both an activist and an educator, she helped lay a foundation for the civil rights movement. Eleanor Roosevelt shared Mary’s passion for education and women’s rights, and was eager to make her acquaintance. The two became fast friends and confidantes.

After Eleanor’s husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was elected president in 1932, the two women began to collaborate even more closely. She became quite a controversial First Lady for pursuing her own agenda, separate from FDR, and particularly for her outspoken stance on civil rights.

When Elanor begins to receive threats as a result of her close relationship with Mary, both women use it as motivation to fight even harder for equality.

Book Summary

Weyward weaves together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, using a bit of magical realism along the way.

In 1619, Altha is awaiting trial after being accused of using witchcraft to murder a local farmer. She knows that she’ll need to use all her deep knowledge of the natural world if she wants to remain free.

In 1942, the world is at war. Violet longs for the education her brother receives in their grandfather’s crumbling estate, but as a girl, she’s not entitled to knowledge. Her mother was rumored to have gone mad, and the only connection Violet has to her is a locket and the word Weyward carved into the wooden floor.

In 2019, Kate is fleeing London in the dark and heading to Weyward Cottage. She inherited the ramshackle home with its overgrown garden from an aunt she barely knew. It’s given her the much-needed opportunity to escape her abusive boyfriend. However, she doesn’t know that the cottage has secrets dating back to the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

Book Summary

Fans of Finlay Donovan and Dial A for Aunties will love 60-year-old Vera Wong. She’s a self-proclaimed tea expert and a meddling matchmaker for her son. 

When she wakes up one morning to find a dead man in her tea shop, she decides to add detective to her resume. She’s convinced she’ll do a better job than the police, anyway, so she might as well catch the killer herself.

Book Summary

This novel centers around Hollis, a popular food blogger who loses her husband to a car accident. The fight she had with him right before he drove away drives an even deeper wedge between her and her teenage daughter, Caroline.

After learning about a trend called a “Five-Star Weekend,” where one woman organizes a trip for her best friends from each phase of life, Hollis decides to host her own. But gathering her best friend from each decade from childhood through midlife doesn’t turn out to be the joyful Hallmark movie she’d envisioned. But it will definitely be a weekend she’ll never forget.

Book Summary

Set during the summer of 2020, Lara’s three adult daughters have returned home to quarantine at the family’s northern Michigan cherry orchard. As they pick cherries and go about running the family business in isolation, the sisters beg their mother to tell them the story of her long-ago romance with celebrity Peter Duke. When Lara was in her early 20s, she and Peter shared the stage during a Michigan summer stock theater run of the play Our Town.

Lara begins the story with her very first experience on stage in high school and works her way forward through her brief but eventful theater career. As the girls learn more about their mother’s life, they are forced to reconsider everything they thought they knew about her and their father.

Book Summary

In the Chicken Hill neighborhood of Pottsville, Pennslyvania workers uncovered a skelton in 1972. But who the skelton belonged to and how it got buried are only two of the secrets of this dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side.

One of the residents, Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood’s quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town’s first dance hall.

When the state came to Chicken Hill looking for a deaf black child so they could institutionalize him, Chona rallied the community to protect him. This is the story of one neighborhood that struggled to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community.

Book Summary

The recurring character, Holly, is on her own at the Finders Keepers detective agency. When she gets a call from Penny asking for help finding her missing daughter Bonnie, Holly is reluctant to take the case. She’s supposed to be on leave because her partner Pete is out with COVID, and her mom just died. But the desperation in Penny’s voice makes Holly take the job.

Just down the street from where Bonnie disappeared, Professors Rodney and Emily Harris are hiding a secret in their basement. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But is this savvy, elderly couple really related to Bonnie’s case?

Book Summary

Charlie greets the women in his family, including his wife and four daughters, by saying “Hello, Beautiful” and truly sees something special in each of them. Unfortunately, Charlie is resented by his wife, Rose, because he’s an alcoholic, which also impacts his ability to provide for the family.

Their oldest daughter, Julie, is smart and ambitious. When she meets William, whose family couldn’t be more different than her own, he’s at college on a basketball scholarship. For William, the sport has been his saving grace and a substitute for the love of family. At least until he meets Julie and her family embraces him in their family unit when they become a couple. Once that happens, the family refuses to give up on him.

While you’ll get some fall vibes when Julie heads to college, Hello Beautiful also follows the characters for nearly four decades. The book begins in the main character’s childhood, in the 1960s, and spans into their middle age years.