Today I will show you the three books Id like to read before 2023.
The year is very soon coming to a close, and I still have so many books I need to get to! There’s no way I can get to all the ones I had planned to read this year, so I’ll narrow down the list to only three. That is totally doable. Hence, this post will be a bit shorter than usual but hopefully, one you’ll enjoy.
And since most of them are library loans, that’s even more of an incentive for me to get to them asap.
Let’s see which are the three books I want to read before we welcome 2023.
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
This is the description you’ll find on Goodreads:
‘Recently separated Toby Fleishman is suddenly, somehow, and at age forty-one, surrounded by women who want him: women who are self-actualized, women who are smart and interesting, women who don’t mind his height, women who are eager to take him for a test drive with just the swipe of an app. Toby doesn’t mind being used in this way. He welcomes the change from the fifteen years he spent as a married man, to the fifteen years of emotional neglect and contempt he’s just endured. Anthropologically speaking, it’s like nothing he ever experienced before. Particularly back in the 1990s, when he first began dating and became used to swimming in the murky waters of rejection.
But Toby’s new life, (liver specialist by day, kids every other weekend, rabid somewhat anonymous sex at night) is interrupted when his ex-wife suddenly disappears. Either on a vision quest or a nervous breakdown, Toby doesn’t know. She won’t answer his texts or calls.
Is Toby’s ex just angry, like always? Is she punishing him, yet again, for not being the breadwinner she was? He desperately searches for her while juggling his job and parenting their two unraveling children. Toby is forced to reckon with the real reasons his marriage fell apart, and to ask if the story he has been telling himself all this time is true.’
Why I chose this book
I decided to prioritize this book a few days ago, mostly because the series on Disney+ started. I did have it on my tbr list for a couple of years, but it just got bumped up a notch. The first couple of episodes I watched were a great adaptation of the book. I really want to finish the book first before watching the rest of the series. Thoughts to follow next year, in my December Reds book reviews post.
Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik
Doesn’t this book just seem winter-appropriate? This is the description you can find on Goodreads:
‘Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother Andy. He is an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland’s barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50-degree below-zero weather. Val is inconsolable and disbelieving. She suspects foul play.
Wyatt, Andy’s fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility. In the meantime, a young girl frozen in the ice thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands. Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North and meet this girl, trying to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl’s speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Arctic to solve the mystery of her brother’s death.
The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val’s connection with her is profound. Only something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies is discovering the truth about Wyatt’s research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val’s brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.’
Why I chose this book
I’m not sure how I heard of this book, but I really liked the cover, if I’m being completely honest. I’m not even sure I read the description before picking it out, but there we are. It does seem very interesting though, I hope I’ll enjoy it as much as I like the cover!
The Retreat by Sarah Pearse
This is the second book by author Sarah Pearse, whose first novel, The Sanatorium, I enjoyed earlier this year. Let’s see the description as you can find it on Goodreads:
‘Most are here to recharge and refresh. But someone’s here for revenge. . .
An eco-wellness retreat has opened on an island off the English coast, promising rest and relaxation. But the island itself, known locally as Reaper’s Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it’s rumored to be cursed.
Detective Elin Warner is called to the retreat when a young woman’s body is found on the rocks below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But the victim wasn’t a guest. She wasn’t meant to be on the island at all.
When a guest drowns in a diving incident the following day, Elin starts to suspect that there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. But why would someone target the guests, and who else is in danger?
Elin must find the killer before the island’s history starts to repeat itself . . . ‘
Why I chose this book
This second Detective Elin Warner book seems very similar to the first one. The retreats and locked-room mysteries have seen a surge in popularity in the last couple of years. I’m curious to see how the author pulls this one off because the last few books in this genre were kind of disappointing to me. Review to follow in the new year!
Concluding Words
This sums up my list of three books I really want to get to before 2023. I really hope next year I can get more organized and read more of the books I’ve been meaning to in the last couple of years. For now, keep reading my fellow bookworms!
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the series!