2023 has been a busy year! I think I tried to get in a lot of the traveling I missed over the last couple of years. I traveled to Greece and Turkey in the spring, then France and England in June. Both trips were wonderful and we had absolutely perfect weather, mid 70’s the whole time. Back in the U.S. there was a weeklong family reunion in Lake Tahoe and a trip to Washington D.C. this fall. Lots of other smaller trips, and of course I spent several weeks in beautiful Sunriver, Oregon. Phew! In 2024, I hope to get more traveling done, but maybe not quite as much. I was also lucky enough to spend a lot of time with my 5 grandkids who are growing up too fast!

As for books, I’ve heard people complain that this wasn’t a great year for books, but I disagree. I read so many books I loved, and some I didn’t, but truly appreciated what the authors were trying to achieve. I also read some clunkers and had a few I couldn’t finish. Right now I’m at 153 books and will likely get in a couple more before the 31st rolls around. Still, I’m confident no other books will be squeezing in on this list. I shared My Favorite Debuts of 2023 on Tuesday and if you want to see my Underrated Gems or Hyped Books, you can find those on Instagram. (Where you can follow me to get ALL my reviews.)

For my Best Books of 2023, I’m only including fiction for two reasons. First, I just don’t read that much nonfiction and what I do read is usually on audio. I’ll be covering my nonfiction audio favorites on a post next week on Instagram. (I’ll also cover my favorite fiction audiobooks.) Second, choosing the best was plenty hard without throwing nonfiction in there, too! Now on with 2023 books….

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Just because I wasn’t thinking about sharing great books, does not mean I wasn’t reading great books. It was so hard narrowing down my list that I just decided to include all the books I loved. (One of these I initially rated lower, but it’s stayed with me so much that I’m including it.) And, huge surprise, I have two nonfiction books in this list!

These books are shown in the order I read them. Most were published in July and August, but a few were earlier. They made for some wonderful summer reading and I’m sure you’ll see more than one on my Best Books of 2023. As always, you can follow me on Instagram @novelvisits, where I most often share books near their release date. (It may be the only place to see my reviews come 2024.)…

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