My December 2023 Reads

Holiday shopping and planning prevented me from as many December reviews as I had planned but I read some good books, although none that made my top ten for the year.  The two best were The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena and Babbacombe's by Noel Streatfeild, writing as Susan Scarlett:

Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Title: Love in the Library
Author: Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Illustrator: Yas Imamura
Publication: Candlewick, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Picture book, historical fiction
Setting: Idaho, 20th century

Description: Tama, a young woman who would normally be in college, works at the library at the Minidoka internment camp, where she and more than 13,000 other Japanese Americans were imprisoned during WWII.

Historical Fiction Round-up Post for 2023

Look how much historical fiction I read last year!  Thank you to Marg from The Intrepid Reader for her Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.  Historical fiction is one of my favorite things to read and, as you can see, it comes in various subgenres.  There is a link if I reviewed the book in 2023, with those I liked best in red. 

WWW Wednesday – January 10

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, a gothic fantasy

Title: A Study in Drowning
Author: Ava Reid
Publication: HarperCollins, hardcover, 2023
Genre: YA Fantasy

Description: All her life, Effy Sayre has been obsessed with her country’s epic work, Angharad, written by the recently deceased Emrys Myrrden about an intrepid heroine who falls in love with the Fairy King and then destroys him.

Six Degrees of Separation – from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow to Death of a Harvard Freshman

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022),  about friends who create a gaming company while at Harvard and MIT.  I really enjoyed this book (although found it very sad) and for about a month after I read it, I kept urging it on other people.

Favorite Reads of 2023

Although I have not yet summarized my December reading, it is the time of year when it is fun to contemplate the entire year and my top ten. Unusually for me, many were recent pubs and four were audiobooks. I think the latter is just a coincidence – sometimes I put both the hardcover and audiobook on reserve at the same time so read whichever is available first and sometimes I will opt for an available audiobook that I expect to enjoy. Seven of these ten were historical fiction, which is definitely one of my preferred genres but my favorites are generally more evenly distributed. I read a lot of books in 2023 but a number of these were rereads or children’s books, which obviously take less time to read.

The Annam Jewel by Patricia Wentworth #DeanStreetDecember23

Title: The Annam Jewel
Author: Patricia Wentworth
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, originally published in 1925
Genre: Mystery
Setting: England

Description: Several years previously, James Waring partnered with two other unscrupulous men to steal the Annam Jewel from its shrine in a holy place in Asia. He did not survive for long but managed to tell part of his story and give the jewel to his brother, Henry.