The best books of 2023

This list is part of the best books of 2023.

Join 1,707 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Shadowdays

Jill Hand Why did I love this book?

Layers of deception are gradually peeled away, revealing the shocking truth. This beautifully crafted novel superbly employs misdirection in the tale of Melissa Sweet, a critical care nurse struggling to get back on her feet after causing the death of an infant.

Then, a series of brutal acts of violence occur as Melissa desperately tries to discover who targeted her loved ones. I read compulsively to the end when the answer wowed me.

By Polly Schattel,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

On the dark side of town, what's past is never really past. And what's buried is never really dead.

Melissa Sweet is in a delicate state. She's a clinical nurse in a small southern town who, after a career-ending accident and the accusations of foul play that followed, is just now starting to put her life back together. She's got her mom, her troubled brother, and her fiancé Jack to keep her grounded, and right now she's taking life one uneasy day at a time. But tormented by a harrowing act of violence, she makes an impulsive move that changes…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster

Jill Hand Why did I love this book?

I love reading about true crime. This extensively researched, gripping account of a San Francisco man who embarked on a horrific murder spree in the winter of 1926 ticked all the boxes for a terrifying thrill ride.

Before there was Ted Bundy, before there was Jeffrey Dahmer, Earle Leonard Nelson was the monster who haunted the public's darkest nightmares.

I'm a former newspaper reporter who covered many crime stories, but never one like this. For a true account of murder and mayhem, Bestial delivers the goods.

By Harold Schechter,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Known for meticulously researched and brilliantly detailed accounts of horrific true crime legends, Harold Schechter takes readers inside the very heart and mind of true evil. As an infant, Earle Leonard Nelson possessed the power to unsettle his elders. As a child he was unnaturally obsessed with the Bible; before he reached puberty, he had an insatiable, aberrant sex drive. By his teens, even Earle's own family had reason to fear him. But no one in the bone-chilling winter of 1926 could have predicted his degeneracy would erupt into a sixteen-month frenzy of savage rape, barbaric murder, and unimaginable defilement…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Hidden Pictures

Jill Hand Why did I love this book?

When recovering addict Mallory Quinn is given the job of live-in nanny for a shy little boy who loves to draw, she soon begins to notice that things aren't quite right.

Despite her employers' generosity and her new surroundings in a picture-perfect upscale community, Mallory senses that her young charge's parents are hiding something from her, something that could turn out to be deadly.

I love mysteries, particularly those of the paranoic, things-are-not-what-they-seem variety. Hidden Pictures kept me guessing until the mind-blowing big reveal.

By Jason Rekulak,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Hidden Pictures as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER · OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY A PRODUCER OF THE BATMAN

“I loved it." —Stephen King

From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

White Oaks

By Jill Hand,

Book cover of White Oaks

What is my book about?

Aimee Trapnell reluctantly leaves her apartment on Manhattan’s Central Park West to return to her childhood home in Georgia for her father’s ninetieth birthday. Also on hand are her two brothers, wily Marsh and ne’er-do-well Trainor. With a forty-billion-dollar inheritance at stake, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the old man happy.

To their shock, they learn that their father wants to kill someone for his birthday. He doesn’t care who it is. He just wants to know what it’s like to commit murder.