Listing my favourite books and audiobooks of the year is a task I look forward to as much as I dread it. I hate having to choose. My philosophy in life is often why choose when you can have both (yes, I write almost the same sentence every year and also yes, it doesn’t work in every situation). At the same time, going over every book I read, every audiobook I listened to, brings back feelings and memories of some of the best highlights of the past twelve months and that’s the part I love.

Before I get to the list itself, which only includes books in English, let me take a moment to celebrate the one book that has had the most impact on my life in 2023: La Voie du Sud by the very talented Marguerite Grimaud. It’s in French, it’s a romance and a debut novel, and it’s very special to me for so many reasons, the main one being that the author is none other than my wife. I’m obviously biased but I believe that if I read and reviewed in French and if the author wasn’t someone I love, this book would still top my best-books-of-the-year list. It’s sweet, it’s hot, it’s funny and it’s smart, and, maybe most importantly to me, it’s well-written.

*Putting my reviewer cap back on* This year, I’ve loved many romance novels, got beautifully lost in spec fic, and fell in love with more than one debut novel. Some authors appear several times, either here and/or in my audiobook selection (which I’ll post very soon too), such as Milena McKay, whose books always touch something deep in my soul, or Rachel Lacey‘s who is a safe bet when I want a heartwarming story with lovely characters and whose entire catalogue exists in audio too now. Others are brand new names to me and I can’t wait to see where they take me next: Virginia Black (whom I also had the pleasure to meet last summer) and Macon Leigh are definitely authors I know will from now on be on my must-read list. And others may not publish as often as some in this community but each of their books is a gem. Clare Ashton, Anna Burke, Cari Hunter, in three very different genres, all made my heart beat faster in 2023.

As in previous years, I’m not ranking the books that made my year, so here they are in chronological order of when I reviewed them. Click on the titles to read the reviews.

To these I’ll add two books that were released in 2022 but that I read and loved this year: Make You Mine This Christmas by Lizzie Huxley-Jones and Reflector by C.X. Myers.

I’m aware this list is awfully white and I need to do better—by the way, if you haven’t read this thread by Macon Leigh, you should. I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions but here’s one for 2024, make room between ARCs for all these books by BIPOC authors I’ve been meaning to read. Also, if you’re a BIPOC author with a new book coming out in 2024 and you’ve been wondering whether to bother sending me a review request, please do. If you’re a reader and have recommendations of books I should read or authors I should reach out to, please let me know. I’ll do the work on my own as well but your help is always appreciated. Thank you.

Let me know in the comments what your favourite books were in 2023 and if there are some you’re already looking forward to in 2024!

Photo by Gaman Alice on Unsplash