The best books of 2023

This list is part of the best books of 2023.

Join 1,708 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Cat Jordan I this book because...

Heather Fawcett utterly enchanted me with this first novel in her Emily Wilde series.

Much like her protagonist, a brilliant yet fundamentally flawed professor of Dryadology, I felt like I fell through a portal into an imaginative and provocative land. 

Charming yet not twee, funny yet not without gravitas. From the setting description to the characters, the world became so real to me I didn’t want to leave it. Fortunately, there is a sequel coming!

By Heather Fawcett,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.

“A darkly gorgeous fantasy that sparkles with snow and magic.”—Sangu Mandanna, author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of Little Monsters

Cat Jordan I this book because...

This book reminded me of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, a complicated family drama much like we see in “Little Monsters.” I love characters with false narratives, ones whose external voices don’t match their inner voices at all.

They lie to themselves, they lie to us. This is the kind of book that makes you relieved not to live in it yet perversely guilty for sharing in it. The Gardners are a dysfunctional family, and I found myself staying up late every night to discover all the secrets that created their complex dynamics.

By Adrienne Brodeur,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Little Monsters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Gorgeous, gripping, I couldn't put it down' RUTH OZEKI

'Beautiful, lyrical and unvarnished, Adrienne Brodeur's Little Monsters delivers its powerful emotional punches so subtly that they sneak up on you and leave you floored' MIRANDA COWLEY HELLER, author of THE PAPER PALACE

A riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families and long-buried secrets

Ken and Abby Gardner were raised in a remote home on Cape Cod. As adults, their relationship is strained, but their lives are still deeply intertwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family, but when his wife walks in on him in…


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My 3rd favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of The Things We Do to Our Friends

Cat Jordan I this book because...

First of all, the setting: Edinburgh, Scotland. I could feel the fog, you know? I could feel the heaviness of it, the density. Next, the college setting itself: exclusive, privileged, filled with the kinds of people you might long to be, with the things – cars, money, clothes – that you envy.

Oh, the drama they live, the toxic friendships they share! This novel pulls you straight into the circle you’ve always wanted to be in and won’t let you go, even when you realize what you have to do to stay there.

By Heather Darwent,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Things We Do to Our Friends as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Satisfyingly dark, cleverly plotted and pleasingly Donna Tarttish' Emma Flint, Little Deaths
'Seamlessly blends Gone Girl and Promising Young Woman. Smart, sophisticated, seductive' S J Watson, Before I Go To Sleep
'A deeply compelling story of friendships turned rotten' Rosemary Hennigan, The Truth Will Out

*Sunday Times Bestseller*
*Shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year 2023*
*Longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize*
*Top Ten eBook bestseller*
*One of Cosmopolitan's Best Books for 2023*
*One of Apple's Best of the Month*
*One of FT's Best New Debut Fiction*
*Heat Book of the Week*

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In there, them, us, it's…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Eight Days on Planet Earth

By Cat Jordan,

Book cover of Eight Days on Planet Earth

What is my book about?

A heart-wrenching romance full of twists that are sure to bring tears to readers' eyes.

On the hot summer day, Matty's dad leaves for good, a strange girl suddenly appears in the empty field next to the Jones farm-the very field in rural Pennsylvania where a spaceship supposedly landed fifty years ago. She is uniquely beautiful, sweet, and smart, and she tells Matty she's waiting for her spaceship to pick her up and return her to her home planet.

As Matty unravels the mystery of the girl in the field, he realizes there is far more to her than he first imagined. And if he can learn to believe in what he can't see: the universe, aliens...love...then maybe the impossible is possible, after all.