A. L. Brooks' 3 favorite reads in 2023

As with all of Ashton’s books, the characterization goes deep, and even more so in this one as glimpses of the past hint at the troubles obvious in the present.

The mystery that weaves through the story has an edge of darkness that’s deliciously paced, and the love story and its queer representation is sublime. Set in her beloved Wales, Ashton portrays without remorse some of the less pleasant aspects of a small community, where everyone knows (or thinks they do) everyone else’s business.

There are fantastic twists and turns, and the ending is beyond satisfying. The audio version is impossible to stop listening to – the narrator, Lucy Rayner, captures every nuance, grabbing hold of your imagination as the drama unfolds and not letting it go.

I’m a sucker for a sapphic historical romance! I love all the secret glances and tortured moments that play such a part of stories set in times long before now.

This one, while a relatively short novel, packs a mighty punch. Kallmaker’s two main characters are so very different, yet so obviously right for each other from the moment it becomes a possibility. Set against the backdrop of the colonization of the West in America, there’s realistic yet not too heavy brutality, acerbic observations on the vast gulf between the sexes at that time, and authentic settings and action.

This is a gorgeous and realistic sapphic romance that deals with grief and a person’s struggle to live again after loss in a way that had me shaking my head every few pages as it’s the author’s debut novel and is staggeringly well-written.

The two main characters are at very different places in their lives. One is a widow, raising her autistic son alone, with all the challenges that represents. The other is younger, more gregarious, and at first they seem an unlikely match. But the skilfully woven story pulls them slowly together in ways which are completely believable and authentic.