My 2023 resolution was 'read more': here are the results (part 2)
The continuing list of great books I read in 2023.
At the end of 2022, I’d reached a point where I was barely getting through a book every six months - only reading a few pages before bed, then quickly falling asleep.
My 2023 resolution was to read 20-40 pages of a book every day.
To read the benefits of this, and what books I read, check out part 1 here…
Here’s the continuing list of everything I read last year. (This contains links to Amazon stores, but feel free to support small bookshops.)
Want to do this yourself? For inspiration, here’s everything I read (part 2)
(In no particular order, and the following contains affiliate links to the books I read.)
Where I End - Sophie White
Easily the most chilling thing I’ve read in many years.
A daughter living in an isolated cottage on a small island goes through the motions of keeping her comatose mother alive, aided by her grandmother. She bubbles with resentment at her duty, while longing to understand the mother-daughter bond she doesn’t feel. When a pregnant artist gets a residency on the small island, the daughter’s social exclusion and determination to escape to the fore.
My gods… I’m hard to scare. Literally, I read books that are considered terrifying (and occasionally write things that hit this mark, I’m told) and just enjoy the ride, but this one actually gave me a cold sense of dread in my stomach.
It’s bloody brilliant. It’s not a supernatural story, and all the more dread-filled for it.
US link (it’s not officially easy to get hold of in the US at the moment.)
Bad Cree - Jessica Johns
When a young Cree woman wakes with a crow’s head in her bed, she knows things from her dreams are leaking into the world. It leads her back to her family home to solve the mystery of a friend’s death.
Mixing Native American culture, family drama, and the supernatural, Bad Cree is an entertaining journey into the lead character’s life and history. There’s a genuine sense of warmth and love about her relationships which, for me, undercut some of the scarier elements, but I don’t think this was ever trying to be a straight-up horror. The sense of family and community is superb, and that’s the real heart of the story.
If you fancy an intriguing blend of Native American beliefs, modern drama, and family love, with a dash of supernatural spookiness, check it out.
A Matter of Blood - Sarah Pinborough
In a corrupt London, a serial killer leaves fly larvae at the scenes of his crimes, and the detective’s brother kills himself. The link is a mix of the real world and supernatural entities with hints of The Shining.
Imagine a head-boiled detective show with a touch of The Shining in there - that’s kind of what you get here. It’s an intriguing setup, written in a hard-boiled voice that occasionally veers a little into genre tropes a bit heavily, but it’s a good mystery and has a satisfying end.
It’s the first of three (I’ve not read the others) and it’s on the slate for TV adaptation, so read it now and you can be a cool kid who gets to say ‘I preferred the novel’.
Camp Damascus - Chuck Tingle
A highly religious young woman discovers the demonic secret behind a gay-conversion camp.
Chuck Tingle (they/them pronouns) is best known for their comedy erotica, occasionally where disembodied abstract concepts engage in very explicit relations with others. Not my thing, but dammit I respect their dedication to weirdness. When they were releasing a horror novel, I knew I had to check it out.
Camp Damascus is a queer horror story with a tone that veers between light-hearted Young Adult easy-going prose and some quite extreme dark supernatural and real-world horror. As such, it’s an entertaining and quick read, but the tonal shifts can be a bit jarring at times. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it and will probably check out more of Tingle’s non-erotica books in the future.
The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
Yes, I brought this purely because it was compared to William Gibson on the front cover. So sue me.
I’ve had this on my shelf so long that I forgot I read it.
In this eco-sci-fi, Earth is run on gene-hacking and clockwork. When a new secret formula for more efficient clockwork springs is discovered, global corporations and governments clash. At the heart is an artificial human, essentially a luxury sex worker/toy, discarded by her owner who has a key role in defining the future.
Complex, with strong world-building and characterisation. It clips along at a good pace, but the ending felt (to me) a little weaker than the ideas preceding it. Nonetheless, a worthwhile and inspiring big-scope fiction and worth reading.
The Cabin are the End of the World - Paul Tremblay
2023 was when I became a Paul Tremblay fan.
Four strangers invade the vacation cottage of two fathers and their daughter. The strangers will not harm the family, but the family must choose to kill one of their own otherwise the whole world will die. Every time the family fails to make the sacrifice, disasters unfold across the Earth and a stranger must be sacrificed. The events are real, but is there any connection? Will the world really end if the family resists?
Unsettling and spooky, occasionally violent, this is another of Tremblay’s explorations of ‘what happens if something apparently supernatural invaded normal life? How far would you cling to disbelief?’
If you’ve seen the M. Night Shyamalan film, you’ll know the score, but the book is much more subtle and the ending infinitely more satisfying.
For writers, there are plenty of interesting techniques here: Tremblay plays with some interesting tonal and perspective shifts throughout, particularly in the latter chapters, and the book has a brief retrospective of the techniques in an afterword.
Tremblay has a new book coming out in 2024 and I’m excited to read it!
UK link (with a nicer cover design)
Spellbound: Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft - Sophie Page, Marina Wallace
A non-fiction book, published to accompany the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition of magical artefacts.
The book is full of superb full-colour images of magical items from across the world and throughout history, alongside thought-provoking essays on the broad topic of ‘magical thinking’.
It does a great job of making the simple question ‘do you believe in magic?’ complex. We might scoff at the idea of magic, but, if asked, many of us would hesitate to poke needles into a photo of a loved one. Why? We know it doesn’t mean anything… But… And in that little space of doubt lies a whole trove of interesting thoughts.
Broken Light - Joanne Harris
What if a menopausal woman rediscovers a superpower she possessed as a child — the power to change the minds of others?
The opening section is an incredibly effective and chilling horror, and the rest of the novel skips deftly between found-family, horror, drama, and social commentary.
At it’s heart, there are essential messages here about womanhood and society, and I bloody loved it. Harris shows incredible skill in weaving these ideas seamlessly to drive the narrative, pushing to a powerful ending.
It’s rare to have woman experiencing the menopause in the centre of a story, and the way this connects with her powers and perspective is brilliant. She casts small stones into the ponds of the other characters, and Harris lets the ripples expand in logical and frightening ways. It’s superb storytelling.
That’s it for part two of my 2023 reading!
Next time I’ll be sharing all the audiobooks I listened to — there are some incredible stories in there!
I hope you’ll be excited to check some of these books and support the authors.
Until next time, be kind to yourself and others,
Mata <3