Hello Friends. Happy Holidays welcome or welcome back to the blog.

NEW YEARS QUOTE
“Every year, you make a resolution to change yourself. This year, make a resolution to be yourself.” UNKNOWN

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year’s Eve family.  I hope you were blessed this season, doing well, and giving yourself grace. I’ve had a great break over the last few days, and while nothing elaborate was planned, it’s been a chilled week.  My office closed the week of Christmas, which was nice to really kick back and enjoy the holiday, so I’m blessed and thankful for this break. My intention was to get this out on the eve of New Year’s Eve, but such is life …it happens.

My break also meant time away from social media (although I did peep at Instagram) and time away from the blog, which was needed. So, no posting content, no thinking about the blog, or even writing for a few days. This makes it a little harder to get back into the swing of things, pick up this laptop, and get rolling, but here I am.

Right before the new year and into the first week, I look back at some of the popular posts I’ve created in 2023 so I can recap “the best of the best.”

2023 has been a stellar year in books.  My book game was on and poppin’. Yes, I do listen to several audible books, but I also read physical and Kindle books.  Between Libby, library sales, and NetGalley, I’ve been able to read several books that were on my waitlist for the previous year, and those sources have been really helpful in challenging me to keep reading.

Let’s recap as I list my top Good Reads for each month of 2023.

The Rules for Vanishing, Kate Alice Marchall
Once a year, the path appears in the forest, and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her—and who won’t make it out of the woods? In the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her sister—at all costs.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix
Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend. (post)

Disco Deathtrap, Cameron Roubique
It’s New Year’s Eve 1980, and the students of DeAngelo High School are lacing up their skates for the All-Night New Year’s Lock-In at the Rollerville Roller Disco. Some of them just want to skate and dance the night away to the pounding disco music. Some want to pull a few pranks and have a few laughs. For others, like Dan Parsons, tonight is a chance to move on and forget about his ex-girlfriend, maybe even flirt with Denise, that cute girl behind the snack counter. It seems like nothing can go wrong. (post)

In A Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware
What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller. (post)

How To Sell A Haunted House, Grady Hendrix
Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else. (post)

Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction, Grady Hendrix
Demonic possession! Haunted condominiums! Murderous babies! Man-eating moths! No plot was too ludicrous, no cover art too appalling, no evil too despicable for the Paperbacks From Hell. Where did they come from? Where did they go? Horror author Grady Hendrix risks his soul and sanity (not to mention yours) to relate the true, untold story of the Paperbacks From Hell. (part 1), (part 2)

Mister Magic, Kiersten White
Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic. (post)

The Agathas, Kathleen Glasgow
Last summer, Alice Ogilvie’s basketball star boyfriend, Steve, dumped her. Then she disappeared for five days. She’s not talking, so where she went and what happened to her is the biggest mystery in Castle Cove. Or it was, at least. But now, another one of Steve’s girlfriends has vanished: Brooke Donovan, Alice’s ex–best friend. And it doesn’t look like Brooke will be coming back. (post)

The Only One Left, Riley Sager
At seventeen, Lenora Hope …Hung her sister with a rope
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. (post)

A Head Full of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. (review on GR)

At Bertram’s Hotel (Miss Marple, #11), Agatha Christie
At Bertram’s Hotel, the intrepid Miss Marple, on holiday in London, must solve a deadly mystery at the end of a chain of very violent events. (review on GR)

Episode Thirteen, Craig DiLouie
Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost-hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost-hunting experts. Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter’s holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It’s also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high-tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode Thirteen — and how everything went terribly, horribly wrong. (post)

I would also like to thank Net Galley and Book Sirens for providing advanced copies of several books this year. It’s been a great opportunity for me, and it also supports new authors.

Well friends …that’s a wrap for me today, as this is the last post of 2023. I’ll be back next week with more “Best of the Best” as I recap more of 2023. Happy, Prosperous New Year!  — Wye

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