Happy New Year and Best of 2023!

 Happy New Year!

Do you have book goals for each year? Number of books? Specific books you want to read? Try other genres? 

I track mine in Goodreads. It helps me if I want to go back and see if I read a certain book, did I like it etc. I also do book goals of how many I want to read in a year. Not because I want to read as many as possible. I am about enjoying a book, not being able to say I read 100 books. I read 35 books this year. I knew I did not get to many of the books that I wanted to read. 2023 got off to a rough start in Central Texas with another winter storm, We spent every weekend and evening cutting trees that fell, loading them up and lining them up for pick up, for at least two months. Just seemed that I lost some free time last year. In contrast, I read 75 books in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. Just shows me that I had less to do that year because of restrictions and the work load was about one quarter of normal. 

Here is what our Mystery Book Club shared as their favorite books of 2023. You may want to add some to your reading list for 2024. Here are the top mysteries.

The Gaslight Mysteries by Victoria Thompson

I wrote about this series in November. https://gbmysteries.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-gaslight-mysteries.html

The Haven Rock series by Kelley Armstong

About: ..."spinoff series of her beloved Rockton books. Set in a small town deep in the Yukon wilderness, Haven’s Rock is the perfect series of police procedurals for old and new fans alike. In this first book in this propulsive series, Murder at Haven’s Rock, Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, must track down a pair of construction workers who have ignored the town’s only rule: don’t go in the forest."

The Maid and The Guest List by Nita Prose: books one and two of the series.

I wrote about The Maid here: https://gbmysteries.blogspot.com/2023/11/happy-holidays-and-maid-by-nita-prose.html

Book two continues with Molly the Maid in another murder mystery.

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb: https://gbmysteries.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-violin-conspiracy-by-brenda-slocumb.html

All The Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

About: One year ago, Isabelle Drake's life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her—literally.

Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Rayburn

About: "They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller."

David Sloane and Tracy Crosswhite series by Robert Dugoni

David Sloane series: five books in the series. 

"In this exhilarating legal thriller from Robert Dugoni, the #1 Kindle bestselling author of MY SISTER'S GRAVE, attorney David Sloane must take the law into his own hands to save his son from a corrupt juvenile detention center.

As David Sloane continues to piece his life back together in the wake of his wife's vicious murder, he also struggles to handle his difficult teenage son, Jake. Reeling from the loss of his mother, Jake's bad behavior escalates and his relationship with Sloane is pushed to the brink. When Sloane's old friend, Detective Tom Molia, recruits Sloane and Jake to join him and his son on a camping trip, Sloane sees the trip as an opportunity to repair their broken father/son bond.

Tracy Crosswhite series: Ten book series

About book one: My Sister's Grave: "racy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House—a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder—is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers."

Anxious People by Frederick Backman

About: ..."a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths."

The Last Mrs, Parrish by Liv Constantine

About: "Amber Patterson is fed up. She’s tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more—a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted.

To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne—a socialite and philanthropist—and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.

Amber’s envy could eat her alive . . . if she didn't have a plan. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life—the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.

With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

About: "For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue.

All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.

The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

About: "Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all—until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath their veneer of perfection is a relationship riven by work and a lack of intimacy. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers.

Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate.

When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.

Well what do you think? An equal number of historical fiction was noted to be favorites in this group. I know I always add more to my TBR list after our group suggestions. 

I hope you have a wonderful start to 2024!. See you then.