Bolivian Argentinian Inex Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old-world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgottn. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns for the most: her globetrotting parents, who frequently leave her behind.

We’ve successfully made it through another year and this one was a great reading one for me. Here are my top reads of 2023:

Deeply introverted Catriona Campbell wants the right to vote and a professorship at Oxford. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires firmly locked inside her head - until she climbs out of a Scottish loch after a good swim and finds herself face-to-face with a stranger… who turns out to be her father’s attractive new colleague.

Evangeline Fox ventured to the Magnificent North in search of her happy ending, and it seems as if she finally has it. She’s married to a handsome prince and lives in a legendary castle.

But Evangeline has no idea of the devastating price she’s paid for this fairytale. She doesn’t know what she has lost, and her husband is determined to make sure she never finds out… but first he must kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.

Signa, a girl who has been plagued by Death since birth makes it her goal to defeat him once and for all when she lands at her final foster families estate. Death has been alone for a millenia, and in Signa, he finally meets someone who has the potential to be his equal, he will do anything to keep her in his life.

Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire.

Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though he is also most definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses - seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.

When Viola seeks out Fox to help her with the ghost-infested mansion, he becomes inextricably involved in a quest that neither he nor Vi expects (or wants).

Opal is a lot of things - orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic, and part-time cashier - but above all, she’s determined to find a better life for her younger brother, Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.

Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. She’d once dreamt of running away with August, eager to escape Saoirse Island and chase new dreams together. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence amount this tight-knit community steeped in folklore and tradition.

Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. She’s had no choice. Since childhood, she’s been haunted by visions of the Fairy King. She’s found solace only in the pages of Angharad - Emrys Myrrdin’s beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King and then destroys him.

Once there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power and connected by a single city: London.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it. For Clementine West, that means burying her head in her work as a book publicist, being practical, and forgetting the silly things her beloved aunt Analea taught her - like living wide and chasing the moon. Clementine would rather stay grounded and keep her heart safe. For the last six months, she’s done just that.

But when she moves into her late aunt’s apartment and finds a strange man standing in the kitchen - a man with kind eyes, a Southern drawl, and a taste for lemon pies - her well-laid plans begin to fall apart. Because he’s the type of man who, before it all, she would’ve fallen head over heels for. And she still might.

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn’t be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England’s Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort — a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other “Bunny,” and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies’ fabled “Smut Salon,” and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door — ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage’s employment status isn’t just important, it’s vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer - naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe are best friends - or were, as children. They drifted apart in adulthood, but shared secrets have kept them bonded for better or worse, even as their childhood dreams haven’t quite turned out as they’d hoped. Then one day they receive a wholly unexpected invitation from another old friend. Poppy Greer has invited them all to her extravagant bachelorette party: three days of white sand, cocktails, and relaxation on a luxe private island in the Bahamas.

When Verity receives word that the Duchess of Bloem - wife of a celebrated botanist - is interested in having Vertity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance, but Camille won’t allow it. Forced to reveal ithe secret she’s kept for years, Camille tells Verity the truth one day: haunted by tragic childhood events, Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it.

Ama Torres is a wedding planner who doesn’t believe in marriage. But weddings? they’re amazing. Elliot Bloom is a brooding florist who hates owning a flower shop… until a certain bright-eyed, donut-loving workaholic shows up at his door.

Once upon a time, they collaborated on events by day, and by night, Ama traced the intricate flower tattoos etched along his body. Then Ama shattered his heart and never spoke to Elliot again.

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly hones people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Summer, a lawyer and PR person for her father’s business must help bull-rider Rhett clean up his image.

Medusa is the only mortal in a family of gods. Growing up wth her sisters, she quickly realizes that she is the only one who gets older, experiences change, feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.