According to my not-so-meticulous tracking, I read 284 books in 2023. Many of those were novellas and popcorn manga, but that still leaves a big crop of around 200 fiction and nonfiction books to whittle down into a tidy Best of 2023 list. As usual, these are my favorites out of what I read during the year, something I wish more columnists at papers of record would mention in their year-end lists.

I've broken the list down into ten 2023 Releases and four earlier releases. Comics and manga will be in a separate post over on the comics side of the site. I've been enjoying reading everyone else's lists and can't wait to dig into all your faves, too.

On to the books!

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When the previous home of the Unusual Historicals column, Heroes & Heartbreakers, folded in late 2017 I opted to keep up the monthly feature on my personal blog.  Then in early 2018, another former H&H’er, Suzanne, proposed that I cross-post the feature on her blog, Love in Panels. I agreed: 1) because I like Suzanne [Editor's note: awww shucks] 2) because I’m passionate about “unusual historicals,” and 3) the more eyeballs that got on this column the better.

Now here we are in 2020, the longest year on record, and this will be the last column featured on LiP. Both Suzanne and I have been evaluating our respective blogs of late and have come to the mutual decision to discontinue the cross-posting of this column. However, Unusual Historicals will continue to have a home on my personal blog. I want to thank Suzanne and the entire LiP crew for hosting this column the past two years and for promoting historical romances that are about more than the terrible Almack’s lemonade. Onward and upward to what surely has to be a better year in 2021!

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When I sat down to write about my best reads of 2020, I really had to pause for a bit. It has been quite a year. To be honest, I couldn’t actually come up with the proper adjective to describe it. Epic trash fire has been used multiple times, horrific doesn’t quite seem to cover it, tragic, disastrous, ridiculously bad, none of those really seem to encapsulate what an utter mess this year has been for so many of us. Books have always been a source of comfort and solace to me but during the very worst moments of this year, it felt like even the joy found in reading was crumbling under the massive pressure of 2020. For the past few years, I’ve set a Goodreads goal of 150 and each year, I’ve exceeded it. This was the first year I had to, midway through the year, edit my goal down to 140. As I sit down to write this, we’re about to say goodbye to November and I’ve just completed my 133rd book of the year, which by normal standards is definitely on the low end for me.

Thankful for Unusual Historicals: November 2020 Highlights

I’m not sure how November can feel like the fastest and slowest months at the same time, but it’s 2020 and I’ve given up trying to explain anything anymore. At this point it’s a minor miracle I’m not in a bunker surrounded by books and booze. The holidays are here, COVID cases are rising, and I don’t know a single person who isn’t tired down to their bones. My advice? Snatch your moments of joy where you can, make new traditions, be kind to yourself and others.  What better way to take my own advice than to gaze upon some shiny new unusual historicals that debuted this month....

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September saw me talking about nine new unusual historicals.  Here we are in October and I have seven.  It’s like authors and publishers are maybe clueing into the fact that Wendy needs a mental vacation - because obviously an actual vacation ain’t happening anytime soon.  So for now my rest and rejuvenation is just going to have to take the form of bygone eras.  Here are the October releases that caught my eye:

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Publishing is a fickle mistress. Some months I’m scraping the depths of the Interwebs to find a handful of unusual historical titles and other months it’s an explosion of confetti being shot out of an air cannon.  Since September is an air cannon month, I’ll stop blathering on so we can get to the goodness. 

So let’s look at what indulgences caught my eye this month:

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We’re almost through 8 months of the hellscape that is 2020, congratulations I guess?  It’s something to wake up every day and wonder what new WTF’ery awaits us, and given the stress of, you know, life right now I’m doing my best to snatch moments of joy where I can.  Which, hello, books are my go-to for that.  Well, and wine - but books aren’t bad for my liver.

So let’s look at what indulgences caught my eye this month:

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After a strange, upended spring, we now find ourselves in a strange, upended summer with most of us wondering what the heck autumn will bring. How much is my budget going to tank at the library? Will the kids be back in a traditional classroom setting come September? When might life feel normal enough to take a couple of vacation days again?  Uncertain times call for snatching moments of joy when you can - and I think I speak for most of Romancelandia when I say books are a great way to find some joy.  Here are some unusual historicals releasing in June that caught my eye:

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Not even COVID-19 can stop the arrival of Spring. Romancelandia, my sincere wish for all of us during this time is that we snatch our moments of joy where we can find them. Mine has taste-testing new tea blends from a company I learned about on Facebook (hey, it’s not a complete dumpster fire over there…), getting back into a reading groove, and, of course, hunting up new unusual historicals.  Here’s what is catching my eye for May.

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Somehow we’ve ended up in April. I’m not sure how it happened but one moment I was looking forward to burying 2019 out in the desert like a Las Vegas mobster and then the next I’m trying to figure out how to do my job in a post-COVID-19 world.  On the bright side, I’m past a string of books I was obligated to read for various reasons and I’m diving head first into comfort reading. For me that means category romance, mysteries and historical romance. Because nothing will take me away faster than a time period I’m not currently living in.  Here are some of the unusual historicals landing in April that caught my browsing eye.

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