Terry Madden's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I love historical fiction, and this book checked all the boxes. It is set in an interesting time period that jumps from the Salem witch trials to a hundred years later.

The characters drew me in, especially our heroine, Isobel, who believes her synesthesia is a hereditary curse passed on to her from her ancestors, who were witches. When she meets up with Nathaniel Hawthorne, their relationship transforms her in ways both good and bad.

She is complicated and must navigate the societal prison women have lived through historically. I also found it interesting to delve into a community in which descendants of the Salem witches and their accusers still must live together. I love the writing, the characters, and the world. It drew me in and transported me.

Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Well, take that idea and turn it into a novel. I could not stop reading.

The "wizard" in this low-tech world is a stranded anthropologist from an advanced race of humans who settled on this planet thousands of years before. When the local princess calls upon him to destroy a monster, they build a friendship that changes them both.

I so loved this setup and the way Tchaikovsky unfolded it. It's one of my favorite science fiction reads in a while.

I have a long-standing interest in both Simulation Theory and a new theory championed by Robert Lanza, a foremost stem cell researcher, called Biocentrism. This theory has ample scientific evidence to support the idea that reality is a product of consciousness, not the other way around.

In this novel, Lanza reveals his theory in an entertaining and understandable way. The characters explore the tenets of the theory, especially the idea of life after death. If you want your mind to be blown, you should explore Biocentrism. This novel is an excellent introduction to this theory.