As 2023 draws to a close, we at BookTrib are reflecting on yet another year of great books, interesting stories, and changes in the publishing world. We covered new releases, helped you discover books you probably haven’t heard of before, saw some of our favorites adapted to the big screen, and watched as book bans rose.
With that said, we’re eager to keep putting the best books and the most up-to-date news in front of you, our readers. It’s always hard for us to pick our favorite articles of the year — so we let the numbers speak for themselves. Here’s a list of the 12 most popular articles on our site from this year, determined strictly by the number of reader views that they’ve received.
And the Winners (Maybe) Are: BookTrib Editors Predict Goodreads Awards Winners | Article by Megan Beauregard and Katie Bloomer
As part of our annual tradition, two BookTrib editors predict the winners of the 15th annual Goodreads Choice Awards. Things looked a little different this year, with a number of categories removed from the list, and one new genre making an appearance. Join BookTrib editors Megan Beauregard and Katie Bloomer as they name their picks for the best titles of the year. Read our predictions and find out which books took the crown here.
One of the 19 Kids and Counting, Jinger Duggar Vuolo Is Now Separating Fear From Her Faith | Review by Monique Snyman
Growing up is difficult enough without having any extra pressures to contend with, but for those who are raised in the limelight, under the scrutiny of millions of viewers, it’s unimaginably worse. For Jinger Duggar Vuolo, the author of Becoming Free Indeed, growing up on the hit TLC reality TV shows 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On brought insurmountable challenges. She was merely one child in a household that ran into the double digits. Read the review here.
Bestseller Sandra Brown Tackles One of Society’s Biggest Tragedies in New Thriller | Article by Dawn Ius
With Sandra Brown’s latest novel, Out of Nowhere — an emotional powerhouse that deftly tackles one of our current society’s biggest controversies and tragedies — Brown admits she feared the topic might alienate readers, even some of her long-standing fans. The story kicks off with a mass shooting at a Texas county fair. Unfortunately, this isn’t an occurrence that only happens in fiction — there have been more than 200 in the U.S. this year so far — and Brown worried it might hit too close to home for some. “It was a subject I would normally rather avoid,” she says, in an interview with BookTrib. Read the full interview here.
Sheriff Uncovers Deadly Secret in Inspiration for Netflix Series | Review by Linda Hitchcock
The Longmire Defense is New York Times best-selling author Craig Johnson’s 19th book in the long-running Longmire series. His superb writing is genre-defying literary fiction blended with contemporary frontier western and robust mystery/detective stories laced with generous splashes of humor. Sheriff Walt Longmire feels compelled to reexamine the long-ago killing of the Wyoming state accountant Bill Sutherland. He forges ahead despite a strong suspicion that his late grandfather may have been “a person of interest.” Additional evidence strongly suggests this death may be intrinsically linked to a billion-dollar mineral slush fund making modern-day perpetrators anxious to contain the secrets and willing to silence anyone who attempts to reveal them. Read the review here.
Rhys Bowen Recommends Summer Historical Fiction Reads | Listicle by Rhys Bowen
Rhys Bowen, the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels, including The Victory Garden, The Tuscan Child, and the newly released The Paris Assignment shares her historical fiction recommendations for the summer. “It seems we’re still obsessed with recent history and suddenly books are appearing set right after WWII. The first is The White Lady, by a dear friend and brilliant writer, Jacqueline Winspear.” Read the rest of the list here.
With No Memory of Their Trip, One Couple Fights to Grasp Reality in Paranormal Horror | Review by Darryl Oliver
The Sundial Inn is haunting in the best sense of the word. From the protagonist to the eponymous inn, this novel begins in eerie fashion from the very first sentence, which only continues in this paranormal thriller. Our protagonist, Tim, labors through the rigors of an unfulfilling job while he and his wife struggle through financial burdens. When Tim and Sara are offered an all-expense paid trip to New Orleans, they simply cannot turn it down. It’s almost too good to be true, a chance to recover. At least, that’s what it was supposed to be. Read the review here.
Dangerous Secrets Hit Close to Home In Domestic Psychological Thriller | Article by BookTrib
Building on the success of tense mysteries like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, author Bonnie Traymore’s latest psychological thriller, The Stepfamily, hits unsettlingly close to home. After marrying handsome widower Peter over a decade ago and settling down in Silicon Valley, Laura’s living the life she always wanted. But when a series of freak accidents turns the fairytale into a nightmare, it becomes clear that someone is out to get her. Is it someone jealous of her success? Or is it perhaps someone more dangerous and even closer to home? Learn about the writing process, tackling the genre and what’s next in this interview with the author.
Expansive Sci-Fi Adventure Combines the Best of Asimov and The Expanse | Review by Wyatt Semenuk
The Glass Planet places modern economic, social and moral problems into an expansive galactic setting that causes the relatable issues of our modern era to take on monstrous proportions. The story focuses heavily on the economic philosophy of mankind’s future society, which is to facilitate “the ‘wellbeing’ of the human condition.” At the story’s center are a man and a woman, waking in a cave located in a dense jungle. The characters make it back to civilization only to discover a wildly technologically advanced world that has outlawed greed-based economic philosophies and has begun conquering the stars. As the story evolves, readers learn that the seeming utopia isn’t as idyllic as it seems. Read the review here.
A Chilling Tale of a Serial Killer Told by Those Closest to Him | Article by Neil Nyren
“He told me about her before we moved. A friend of a friend of a friend is what he said. Whatever … I wasn’t dying to make friends with some random woman anyway. But that wouldn’t have been nice. And my dad, he’s a nice person.”
No, he’s not. The girl speaking in Clémence Michallon’s The Quiet Tenant is 13-year-old Cecilia Thomas, and the woman she’s talking about is named Rachel and she’s renting a room in their new house. What Cecilia doesn’t know: the woman’s name isn’t Rachel and she’s not there by choice. For five years, Rachel’s been a prisoner of Cecilia’s father, Aidan, first in a shed behind the old house, now here. He’s killed eight women already; eventually, he’ll kill Rachel, too. But not just yet. Read the review and interview with the author here.
Why Did 19 NY Publishers Put Richard North Patterson’s Book on Trial? | Article by BookTrib
If bestselling author Richard North Patterson can’t get his fast-paced legal thriller focusing on American racism published in New York, then who can? Patterson, who has written 22 novels, been on the NYT bestseller list 16 times and sold more than 25 million books, should have his pick among publishers. Instead, he couldn’t find anyone in Manhattan to handle his gripping new suspense novel Trial. Most agreed it’s a very good novel, but they fear the American Dirt syndrome, and he says they quietly told him white authors can’t write about the Black experience of racism in America. At a time when writers are being threatened by calls for book banning all across America based on race and sex, 19 New York publishers did just that, Patterson says. Read the article here.
Portrait of the Astors, A Wealthy and Powerful Family That Defined the Gilded Age | Review by Claudia Keenan
For more than 200 years, the descendants of John Jacob Astor dominated American society, style, and commerce. Yet the name Astor signifies little to recent generations. Astor, the Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe will certainly make readers sit up and pay attention. Far from a dry family biography, the book brings to life a cast of characters who endured tragedy and conflict even as they wielded social influence and danced the night away. Read the full review here.
Epic of Love, Family Curses and Faith From Author of “Cutting for Stone” | Review by Jode Millman
Oprah chose The Covenant of Water as the 101st selection for her book club, and it is easy to understand why. Covenant is so beautifully written, so rich in context, with unique characters and exotic settings that it demands acclaim. The story begins with the wedding of a young girl named Mariamma. The novel spans from 1900 to 1977 in Kerala, in South India’s Malabar Coast. The 12-year-old girl is being married off to a wealthy widower over three times her age and who has a small child. Mariamma leaves behind a cherished homeland which is surrounded by water and rice paddies, to live in the land-locked village of Parambil. Unbeknownst to her, her husband and his male relatives have been cursed. In every generation, at least one male dies by drowning. Read the review here.
