Monday, January 1, 2024

Favorite Fiction Reads of 2023

The Weight of Air by Kimberly Duffy

In 1911, Mabel MacGinnis is Europe's strongest woman and has performed beside her father in the Manzo Brothers Circus her entire life. When he dies unexpectedly, she loses everything she's ever known and sets off in the company of acrobat Jake Cunningham in hope of finding the mother she thought was dead.

Learn more about the book and read my review.



The Sound of Light by Sarah Sundin

When the Germans march into Denmark, Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt exchanges his nobility for anonymity, assuming a new identity so he can secretly row messages for the Danish Resistance across the waters to Sweden. American physicist Dr. Else Jensen refuses to leave Copenhagen and abandon her research--her life's dream--and makes the dangerous decision to print resistance newspapers.

Learn more about the book and read my review.



The Words We Lost by Nicole Deese

As a senior acquisitions editor for Fog Harbor Books in San Francisco, Ingrid Erikson has rejected many a manuscript for lack of defined conflict and dramatic irony--two elements her current life possesses in spades. In the months following the death of her childhood best friend and international bestselling author Cecelia Campbell, Ingrid has not only lost her ability to escape into fiction due to a rare trauma response, but she's also desperate to find the closure she's convinced will come with Cecelia's missing final manuscript.

Learn more about the book and read my review.


The Art of Victory by Martha Keyes

Diana Donovan was raised aboard a naval ship on a steady diet of war strategy, so when her orphaned friend, Lucy, is denied a perfectly respectable love match by her controlling guardian, Diana sees an opportunity to put her battle knowledge to use in service of a deserving friend.

But Marmaduke Russell is not the middle-aged curmudgeon Diana is expecting. He is a maddeningly cool, unmarried gentleman who seems uniquely able to parry her tactics—and infuse her with even more determination to win. As battle ensues, though, it becomes clear that there may be more hearts in the balance than just Lucy's.


The Peasant King by Tessa Afshar 

Jemmah has always thought of herself as perfectly ordinary . . . until she faces extraordinary circumstances. When her mother, the Persian king’s famous senior scribe, is kidnapped, Jemmah and her sister must sneak undetected into enemy territory to rescue her. Their survival depends on the skills of a stranger they free from prison: a mysterious prince named Asher.


The Masterpiece by Francine Rivers

A successful LA artist, Roman Velasco appears to have everything he could possibly want—money, women, fame. Only Grace Moore, his reluctant, newly hired personal assistant, knows how little he truly has. The demons of Roman’s past seem to echo through the halls of his empty mansion and out across his breathtaking Topanga Canyon view. But Grace doesn’t know how her boss secretly wrestles with those demons: by tagging buildings as the Bird, a notorious but unidentified graffiti artist—an alter ego that could destroy his career and land him in prison.

Learn more about the book and read my review.


Yesterday's Tides by Roseanna M. White

In 1942, Evie Farrow is used to life on Ocracoke Island, where every day is the same--until the German U-boats haunting their waters begin to wreak havoc. And when special agent Sterling Bertrand is washed ashore at Evie's inn, her life is turned upside down. While Sterling's injuries keep him inn-bound for weeks, making him even more anxious about the SS officer he's tracking, he becomes increasingly intrigued by Evie.

Learn more about the book and read my review.

A Name Unknown by Roseanna M. White

Rosemary Gresham has no family beyond the band of former urchins that helped her survive as a girl in the mean streets of London. Grown now, they concentrate on stealing high-value items and have learned how to blend into upper-class society. But when Rosemary must determine whether Peter Holstein, a wealthy gentleman, is loyal to Britain or to Germany, she is in for the challenge of a lifetime. How does one steal a family's history, their very name? When Rosemary sees Peter's gracious reaction to his neighbors' scornful attacks, she wonders if it is too late to help him prove that he's more than his name?


An Hour Unspent by Roseanna M. White

Once London's top thief, Barclay Pearce has turned his back on his life of crime and now uses his skills for a nation at war. But not until he rescues a clockmaker's daughter from a mugging does he begin to wonder what his future might hold.

Evelina Manning has constantly fought for independence, but she certainly never meant for it to inspire her fiancé to end the engagement and enlist in the army. When the intriguing man who saved her returns to the Manning residence to study clockwork repair with her father, she can't help being interested. But she soon learns that nothing with Barclay Pearce is as simple as it seems.

2 comments:

  1. Martha Keyes is an author I meant to try last year and didn't get to. .This year I hope to try her books. I enjoyed The Weight of Air and The Words we Lost this year as well.

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    1. This is the only book I've read by Martha Keyes, but she has a huge backlist. I hope to read more soon! Definitely give her a try when you get a chance. :)

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