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 A Shadow in Moscow: A Cold War Novel

Stephanie Landsem Why did I love this book?

Shadow Over Moscow was an immediate buy for this 1980s girl – the Cold War, 1980s spy intrigue, and a story of a mother and daughter set against the monolithic USSR.

As a teenager in the 80s, I visited East Berlin and East Germany twice before the downfall of the Iron Curtain. As a history major, I signed up for every Russian class my school offered. This compelling novel brought me back to the time when the USSR and the US dominated the world stage, and we teetered on the precipice of nuclear war. And the story itself resonated so strongly in my mother’s heart.

The relationship between this mother and daughter, fraught with deep love, lies, and looming fear, was extraordinarily well-done –filled with emotion and truth. It is a book for everyone who remembers the politics and fear of the 1980s and for every mother who wants to be the heroine her daughter needs.

By Katherine Reay,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Shadow in Moscow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the thick of the Cold War, a betrayal at the highest level risks the lives of two courageous female spies: MI6's best Soviet agent and the CIA's newest Moscow recruit.

Vienna, 1954

After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing within the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Inspired by her daughter's birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of The German Wife

Stephanie Landsem Why did I love this book?

I grew up loving the culture and language of Germany and my own German heritage. Still, I've always been haunted by the question of how so many Germans went along with -- or at the very least allowed -- Adolph Hitler to carry out his horrific plan for world domination and genocide.

The German Wife is a deeply moving story that answers the question of how one family was inexorably ensnared by the Nazi party and forced into compliance with evil.

The parallel story in this dual-timeline novel was an equally compelling view of the complicity of the United States in the 1950s arms race. Both storylines were thought-provoking, and the ending was equally heartbreaking and hopeful.

My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Remarkably Bright Creatures

Stephanie Landsem Why did I love this book?

This book was a delight from start to finish. Although the majority of my reading is historical fiction, the setting of this contemporary novel in the Pacific Northwest – where I grew up – and the character of Marcellus, a Giant Pacific Octopus, intrigued me so much I couldn’t resist.

Oh, how I loved Marcellus! The friendship between Marcellus and Tova, an elderly widow mopping floors at the aquarium, is wholly original and heartwarming.

Then there was Cameron, a loveable oaf of a twenty-something desperately in need of a grandma, who grabbed my heart and didn’t let go. This is a luminous story of friendship and love the crosses even the boundaries of species!

By Shelby Van Pelt,

Why should I read it?

41 authors picked Remarkably Bright Creatures as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK 'Full of heart and humour . . . I loved it.' Ruth Hogan 'Will stay with you for a long time.' Anstey Harris 'I defy you to put it down once you've started' Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped her cope. One night she meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium who…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Book cover of Code Name Edelweiss

What is my book about?

Based on a true story, unknown until recent years: How a lone Jewish lawyer and a handful of amateur spies discovered and foiled Adolf Hitler’s plan to take over Hollywood.

Leon Lewis is a Jewish lawyer who has watched Adolf Hitler’s rise to power―and the increase in anti-Semitism in America―with growing alarm. He believes Nazi agents are working to seize control of Hollywood. The trouble is that authorities scoff at his dire warnings.

When single mother Liesl loses her job at MGM, her only choice is to work with Leon Lewis and the mysterious Agent Thirteen to spy on her friends and neighbors in her German-American community. What Leon Lewis and his spies find is more chilling―and more dangerous―than any of them suspected.

Book cover of A Shadow in Moscow: A Cold War Novel
Book cover of The German Wife
Book cover of Remarkably Bright Creatures

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