During 2023 I read and reviewed 44 ARCs and honestly, choosing my top five was not easy. Not because there were too many good ones, there were some great ones, but I didn’t have five that blew me away. It’s been a little bit of a disappointing year if I’m being honest, well other than the five I’m going to talk about in this post.
A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak by Laura Taylor Namey
When this landed in my inbox, I couldn’t resist. I haven’t read the first book (I bought it a few days ago), but they can technically be read as standalones so it’s fine. This was my second highest rated ARC of the year and it was probably my favourite read out of them all. I thought the way in which Flora’s grief was written was beautiful and so well done.
Synopsis: Winchester, England, has always been home for Flora, but when her mother dies after a long illness, Flora feels untethered. Her family expects her to apply to university and take a larger role in their tea-shop business, but Flora isn’t so sure. More than ever, she’s the chaotic “hurricane” in her household, and she doesn’t always know how to manage her stormy emotions.
So she decides to escape to Miami without telling anyone—especially her longtime friend Gordon Wallace.
But Flora’s tropical change of scenery doesn’t cast away her self-doubt. When it comes to university, she has no idea which passions she should follow. That’s also true in romance. Flora’s summer abroad lands her in the flashbulb world of teen influencer Baz Marín, a Miami Cuban who shares her love for photography. But Flora’s more conflicted than ever when she begins to see future architect Gordon in a new light.
And Don’t Look Back by Rebecca Barrow
Surprisingly, this is the only non-contemporary romance on this post. Usually, this post is full of fantasy books, but there isn’t a single one this year. It’s been a real struggle. However, this is a really great thriller and is my only five star ARC of the year. This rating may have been a little too positive looking back, but I did really enjoy it. The ending stayed with me for a while.
Synopsis: Harlow Ford has spent her entire life running, caught in her mother’s wake as they flit from town to town, hiding from a presence that Harlow isn’t even sure is real. In each new place, Harlow takes on a new name and personality, and each time they run, she leaves another piece of herself behind.
When Harlow and her mom set off on yet another 3 a.m. escape, they are involved in a car accident that leaves Harlow’s mother fatally wounded. Before she dies, she tells Harlow two things: where to find the key to a safety deposit box and to never stop running. In the box, Harlow finds thirty grand in cash, life insurance documents, and several fake IDs for both herself and her mom—an on-the-run essentials kit. But Harlow also finds a photograph of her mom as a teenager with two other girls, the deed to a house in a town she’s never heard of, and a handful of newspaper clippings discussing the disappearance of a woman named Eve Kennedy, Harlow’s grandmother…relics of a part of Harlow’s life she never knew existed.
With these tantalizing clues about her mother’s secrets and the power to choose her own future for the first time, Harlow realizes she has two choices: keep fleeing her mom’s ghosts or face down the nebulous threat that’s been hanging over her for her entire life.
Lose You to Find Me by Erik J. Brown
I’ve spent much of this year saying how surprised I’ve been by books. You can really tell I wasn’t much of a contemporary reader before now, I’d read some, but most of my year has been spent with either contemporaries or romances.
This is a cutesy teen romance that was a pretty quick read. I’m struggling to remember the finer details, but I had a good time reading it.
Synopsis: Tommy Dees is in the weeds—restaurant speak for beyond overwhelmed. He’s been working as a server at Sunset Estates retirement community to get the experience he needs to attend one of the best culinary schools in the world. And to make his application shine, he also needs a letter of recommendation from his sadistic manager. But in exchange for the letter, Tommy has to meet three conditions—including training the new hire.
What he doesn’t expect is for the newbie to be an old crush: Gabe, with the dimples and kind heart, who Tommy fell for during summer camp at age ten and then never saw again. Unfortunately, Gabe doesn’t remember Tommy at all. The training proves distracting as old feelings resurface, and the universe seems to be conspiring against them.
With the application deadline looming and Gabe on his mind, Tommy is determined to keep it all together—but what if life isn’t meant to follow a recipe?
The Love Wager by Lynn Painter
I’m a big fan of Lynn Painter and while this isn’t my favourite book of hers, it was very fun. Romance has been my top genre this year, which I really didn’t expect, but they are very fun. This one has a little bit of fake dating but it’s 100% friends to lovers, very cute.
Synopsis: Hallie Piper is turning over a new leaf. After belly-crawling out of a hotel room (hello, rock bottom), she decides it’s time to become a full-on adult.
She gets a new apartment, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe, but when she logs into the dating app that she has determined will find her new love, she sees none other than Jack, the guy whose room she’d snuck out of.
Through the app, and after the joint agreement that they are absolutely not interested in each other, Jack and Hallie become partners in their respective searches for The One. They text each other about their dates, often scheduling them at the same restaurant so that if things don’t go well, the two of them can get tacos afterward.
Spoiler: they get a lot of tacos together.
Discouraged by the lack of prospects, Jack and Hallie make a wager to see who can find true love first, but when they agree to be fake dates for a weekend wedding, all bets are off.
As they pretend to be a couple, lines become blurred and they each struggle to remember why the other was a bad idea to begin with.
Julieta and the Romeos by Maria E. Andreu
If you couldn’t tell already, I’ve been on a real contemporary hype this year. This was a surprisingly good read, not that I thought it would be bad, obviously, I wouldn’t have read it otherwise.
Anyway, this was extremely cute and it has a story within a story. Which sounds confusing but it’s very fun.
Synopsis: Julieta isn’t looking for her Romeo–but she is writing about love. When her summer writing teacher encourages the class to publish their work online, the last thing she’s expecting is to get a notification that her rom-com has a mysterious new contributor, Happily Ever Drafter. Julieta knows that happily ever afters aren’t real. (Case in point: her parents’ imploding marriage.) But then again, could this be her very own meet-cute?
As things start to heat up in her fiction, Julieta can’t help but notice three boys in her real life: her best friend’s brother (aka her nemesis), the boy next door (well, to her abuela), and her oldest friend (who is suddenly looking . . . hot?). Could one of them be her mysterious collaborator? But even if Julieta finds her Romeo, she’ll have to remember that life is full of plot twists. . . .
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