15 Best Books of 2023

If you don’t know yet, this series, the whole Grishaverse made me fan of Leigh Bardugo and it was sad to say goodbye to the series with the end of Rule of Wolves. But what an end! It is most epic and most memorable ending I read so far. It made me want to have more books is this series. The previous book, King of Scars was mainly build up with shocking twists but this was all action, adventure, and adrenaline. And it was amazing to see Kaz once again.

The Woman With the Cure is inspiring historical fiction based on race to find the cure for polio and a female doctor who dedicated her life to fight against polio and had been the backbone to the discovery of the polio vaccine. Spanning from 1940 to 1960 The Woman With the Cure covers– the beginning of the Polio outbreak in the U.S. that kept worsening over time until the vaccine was discovered, and how long it took for Dorothy to climb ladders in a male-dominated science field that took too long to appreciate her mind and knowledge and still not to fullest. What I loved most is, while this story focused on Dorothy it also includes women from many walks of life, mothers, nurses, doctors, wives of scientists, women scientists, assistants, and statisticians… who all played important role, showed tremendous courage and strength in their own way… like the author said it easily could be “Women with the Cure”.

Entertaining, sexy, and adorable hate-to-love workplace romance. The best thing about this was banter, office and family drama, all kind of crazy games Lucy and Joshua played throughout the book, and also the chemistry between them.

Moving and beautifully written historical fiction on the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley. It was amazing to read the parallel life story of mother and daughter that showed they have so many things in common and how deep the connection was even though they never got to know each other. Their love of literature, zeal for language, radical feminist beliefs, and challenges they faced in their lives during the 18th and 19th centuries are genuinely inspiring. I still haven’t read Frankenstein but I plan to read it pretty soon just because of this.

Ana Huang was new to me author in 2023 and she is also most read author in 2023. This series might not be perfect but it made me hooked on smutty billionaire romance and somehow I can’t resist books in this genre now. This was my most favorite book in whole Twisted Series. It is slow-burn and swoon-worthy last book in Twisted series featuring Stella and Christian story. While I liked the plot and romance in this my most favorite thing about this book is Christian. I can’t get him out of my head. As Rhys said in Twisted Games and also Dante and Kai said in King of Sins, “he is a wolf in expensive clothing.”

The Daydreams is emotive and realistic character-driven reunion contemporary fiction that revolves around four friends Kat, Summer, Liana, and Noah who met on the set of the teen musical TV show The Daydream as teenagers in 2004 but live show at the end of the second season changed their lives. I honestly didn’t expect I would love this and even less expected it to turn out one of the best books of 2023. What I loved most was the writing, all the emotions, theme and layers, twists and turns, and above all highly flawed characters and redemption arc.

Super immersive feminist historical fiction set in Regency London that revolves around two unmarried twin sisters in their forties who gets involved in a series of rescue adventures that saves women and children from dangerous and life-threatening situations. Many themes and layers, darker and grave situations, all the action and adventure- it was all amazing but what I loved most here is Augusta, the main character. She sure made it to most memorable character list.

Entertaining, heart-melting, swoon-worthy M/M romance with the right amount of drama, comedy, romance, friendship, family, and politics. There was so much in the book than just romance and for that if I have to list all the best romance I read so far, this will be on the top. (I didn’t like the movie that much.)

This is my most favorite book in series so far and also an impressive classic horror mystery. My most favorite things in the book was the setting of Dartmoor and the story behind hound, a family curse, the legend of the black sheep of the Baskerville family that started the curse, the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, and also how Sherlock solved the mystery.

This was different from all YA Fantasy I have rad so far and it turned out amazingly different. Love character introduction. This world is most beautiful and imaginative. It amazing to read about fourteenth-century Russia filled with history, myths, and folklore.

Again I didn’t expect to love this book until I actually read it. This is absolute masterpiece. Atmospheric, thought-provoking, and outrageous historical fantasy that bares the soul of women and queer people’s situation in the Victorian era. I loved touching, emotive, descriptive, and often graphic writing and above all I loved all girls, themes and layers and paranormal aspect.

This was a mesmerizing sequel that answered many questions I had in first book. Loved Vasya and it was amazing to see her growing in this book. It was amazing to see how her siblings were doing in Moscow. All the politics, action, and twists and turns, and a little more about Vasya’s family were fabulous to read.

Another book with most epic and memorable conclusion of the series. Loved every part and every aspect of this book. Politics, history, folklore, religion, and culture of 1380s Russia, battles, characters, development, emotions, twist and turns.. it was all mindblowing. I sure will read anything this author writes in the future. If you still haven’t finished this series, I dare to say you’re missing out on a brilliant book.

Atmospheric,  creepy, dark, and blood-chilling haunted house horror with family drama, another book I didn’t expect to enjoy this much and also to make it to this list. If you have asked me when I was in the middle of the book, I would have said this would be max 4 stars but author managed to make me change my mind. Absolutely loved Margaret’s back story, how she is dealing with house, The House itself, story of ghosts but above all I enjoyed all the revelations about the creature in the basement and what happened to Margaret’s husband and also how she got herself out of the tricky situation.

I was super excited for this series and especially for Dante’s story ever since I finished Twisted Lies and I have to say this didn’t disappoint me. It’s captivating tale of love, power, desires, and dysfunctional family and relationships. What makes this better is less Twisted smut (that was more frequent in Twisted series), even better characters and their development, and swoon-worthy romance.