Welcome to the Love Bytes Reviewers’ Best of 2023
Another year has passed in which books have brought all of us a much needed escape and sense of comfort. Our Love Bytes team reviewed approximately 1,300 LGBTQ+ books in 2023, from contemporary romance to fantasy, paranormal, historical, adventure, mystery, comedy and everything in between. Each day for the next few weeks, we will feature one of our reviewers’ top picks from books and audiobooks published in 2023. These lists highlight how diverse our tastes in reading are, and offer something for everyone. With thousands of fantastic new books each year, written by hundreds of creative and talented authors, it’s so difficult to narrow our lists down. We all have many favorite authors not featured here and wish we could acknowledge them all.
Cheryl’s 2023 Favorites
Rattling Bone (OutFoxing the Paranormal) by Jordan Hawk
This is my favourite book of 2023
Once more, the author has produced a masterpiece, adding more layers to characters that were already remarkable for their realness. Oscar and Nigel are an odd couple, and when you add in Chris and Tina, they’re hardly the Scooby Gang, but oh boy are these meddling kids enthralling.
As usual, there is a rich supporting cast, both living and dead, and the author is masterful in weaving them together into a rich tapestry and a wonderful story
War of the Wicked (Lucifer’s Landing) by Davidson King
The author has always has a talent for writing diverse and fascinating characters, and she’s not disappointed in this story. Even characters that are objectively unimportant.
Rescue Us by Andrew Grey
This was definitely my favourite in the series. There was more of an edge than usual for this author and I very much appreciated it. All the usual elements of great characterisation, vivid description and solid dialogue are there in addition to a Sumatran tiger that I fell in love with.
Secret Guncle by Andrew Grey
My only complaint about this book is that it is too short. This is truly a heartwarming Christmas story about family, biological, found and furry, in all its glorious complexity.
There is absolutely nothing not to like in this delightful story, other than that it ends far too soon, and I hope very much that the author will be continuing Dutton and Randy’s journey at some point in the future.