chapter 1:
LAVALLE
LONE WOMEN
No one is doing it like Victor LaValle.
He’s a genre expert that is equally respected by the literary world, capable of mixing genres effortlessly to create stories that are all his own. His previous novel, 2017’s The Changeling, is a horrific urban fantasy that plays on the worst fears of new parents, with a healthy serving of folklore to go along with it, and it helped establish him as a leading voice in genre fiction.
Lone Women, his first novel since, is his take on the Western genre, mixed with a dash of Lovecraftian insanity. It is blessedly weird as all hell, and one of 2023’s best carnival rides. LaValle is at the height of his powers, and the whole thing culminates in a literary bloodbath for the ages. It’s one of 2023’s purest joys.
Chapter 2:
GROFF
THE VASTER WILDS
I want to tell you a story. It’s kind of scary, but I promise it has a happy ending.
I have had a fondness for Lauren Groff for years, basically since I found out she did graduate school at my alma mater. I’ve loved everything she has written, and in 2021, ahead of the release of her novel Matrix, I convinced my book club to read it, hyping up Groff’s talents along the way. It didn’t take long before I realized I had made a mistake. Not only was it clear within ten pages that Matrix would not be on my book club’s wavelength, but I was also not enjoying it. I finished it, and with my tail between my legs I half-heartedly led a discussion on a book that no one really enjoyed. The end.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I have one thing to say about The Vaster Wilds, her new novel about a young woman escaping the constraints of a puritan settlement in colonial America for the freedom and uncertainty of the wilderness:
This is Lauren Groff in god mode.
chapter 3:
GRAHAM JONES
DON’T FEAR THE REAPER
This was the year that I finally accepted something that probably seemed so painfully obvious: that Stephen Graham Jones is my favorite writer. His short stories were ultimately what opened my heart to acceptance of that fact, but it was Don’t Fear the Reaper that serves as his towering achievement from 2023.
In this sequel to his 2021 masterpiece, My Heart is a Chainsaw, Jade Daniels is back to face another slasher baddie who has his sights set on eliminating the entire town of Proofrock one by bloody one. The slasher genre is a tough one to translate to the literary form, especially if there’s no driving mystery at its center, so what Jones pulls off here is wildly impressive. Unlike My Heart is a Chainsaw, Jones floors it immediately, dispatching helpless teenagers and stray adults with bloody efficiency. It’s an absolute romp that still manages to retain the heart and the depth of its predecessor. With the trilogy capper out in early 2024 (and having read it, you may see him on my 2024 list), Jones has the opportunity to deliver one of the greatest genre trilogies ever. I cannot wait for more.
Chapter 4:
CLINE
THE GUEST
Every summer, there’s a novel that, for one reason or another, becomes a designated status symbol, the “It” book of the season. Emma Cline’s latest novel won that crown in 2023, its dichromatic cover inspiring countless Instagram posts as people went on their own vacations and long weekends at the beach.
However, this is not an easy-going beach read, no no no. In just 304 pages, Cline and her main character, Alex, manage to induce a panic attack where the only way out is through. Alex is a sex worker spending the end of the summer in the Hamptons with a wealthy man, Simon, when she is unceremoniously thrown out. Sure, she was making moves on someone else in the presence of Simon, but that’s hardly her fault! Instead of cutting her losses and heading back to the city, Alex convinces herself that showing up uninvited to Simon’s Labor Day party will be a welcome surprise.
Fine, she’s a mess.
It’s as stressful a novel as I’ve ever read, but Cline’s prose and storytelling need to be experienced, with a pared back style that only adds to the reader’s discomfort. It’s a wild ride, a beach read from hell, and a future bummer summer classic.
chapter 5:
THANKAM MATHEWS
ALL THIS COULD BE DIFFERENT
The city you settle in after graduating from college will, for better or worse, always hold a place in your heart. For me, that city is Milwaukee, the setting of Sarah Thankam Mathews’ debut novel All This Could Be Different.
This novel was either going to work for me or be incredibly triggering, and it’s easy to see why. A gay woman graduates from the University of Wisconsin, moves to Milwaukee, and gets an unfulfilling corporate job that she’s eventually laid off from, this is essentially a gender-swapped version of the 2016-2017 I experienced. Mathews’ attention to the specifics of Milwaukee is also unmatched, not only providing the reader a tour of Milwaukee’s Lower East Side and Brewer’s Hill neighborhoods, but also nailing the energy of that city and the young people who lived there.
Reading this novel was like coming home again. I have a lot of feelings tied to my time in Milwaukee, some good and some bad. Reading All This Could Be Different felt like an exorcism, giving me permission to shake off the negativity and remember all of the good that city offered me.
Chapter 6:
HAND
A HAUNTING ON THE HILL
Let me take a moment to complain about something: the scourge that is modern legacy-sequels, those creatively-bankrupt cash-ins non one asked for, that manipulate fans of existing IP into spending money on something that was manufactured with no involvement from the initial creators and with a fraction of the heart of the original story.
Anyways, I loved the Haunting of Hill House legacy-sequel that was commissioned by Shirley Jackson’s estate!
It helps that Elizabeth Hand is a very good writer, the author of a modern haunted house classic in its own right, Wylding Hall. It helps that the only overlap from Jackson’s original novel is Hill House itself, with no “my great-aunt was Eleanor Vance” character here to discover what really happened sixty years ago. Finally, and oh boy is this a big one, it helps that Hand does not try to be Shirley Jackson.
Jackson is a writer who is often imitated, never replicated, and the smartest decision Hand makes is to write her own damn Hill House story. A Haunting on the Hill is certainly indebted to Jackson’s original text, but it is never burdened by it like most fan-service-filled legacy-sequels are. Instead, this writes its own rules and makes the second stay at Hill House just as scary as the first.
chapter 7:
DUE
THE REFORMATORY
Tananarive Due understands the horror genre on a molecular level. She’s a distinguished film historian with a focus on Black horror, and has written about horror through the context of American history. She’s also been writing horror novels for three decades, and 2023’s The Reformatory is her magnum opus.
The Reformatory tells the story of a young Black boy in the Jim Crow South who is sentenced to six months at a notorious reform school in Florida, where many of the boys that go in do not come out. While this may seem like a horror construction, it is based on the very real Dozier School for Boys (the setting of Colson Whitehead’s Pultizer-winner The Nickel Boys).
What Due understands is that the horror genre need not be all demons, vampires, and Cthulhu. There is horror at the root of America, and there’s a ghost story in every town. The Reformatory is less a horror novel than it is a historical novel with ghosts. The most terrifying moments are those of the human monsters that populate our history books and have never truly been vanquished.
The Reformatory is a masterpiece, and a watershed moment for modern horror.
Chapter 8:
WINN
IN MEMORIAM
I don’t like war. I don’t like the concept of it, don’t like movies about it, don’t like hearing about it, and I especially don’t like reading about it. I don’t like it. However… throw some tortured gay romance into the trench and things can change very quickly.
In Memoriam is probably the quickest I finished a book in 2023. It’s a World War I-set novel that focuses on two boarding school friends (who are maybe in love with each other) who enlist to fight for the British. Then war happens, death happens (sooooooo much death, breathtakingly graphic death), and that’s all definitely a bummer, but then the kissing starts.
I am being flippant to really hammer home the point that I do not care for war, but what Alice Winn pulls off is quite amazing. It’s a compelling romance AND a compelling novel about war and its effects on the young people sent to fight it. It’s a page-turner AND a prose-forward literary novel. If you are like me (make love, not war), give this one a chance. It’s genuinely quite impressive.
chapter 9:
FRACASSI
BOYS IN THE VALLEY
No Father, no Son, and no Holy Spirit can help the boys of St. Vincent’s Orphanage, and what a blessing that is to horror fans.
Phillip Fracassi has been one of horror’s best-kept secrets for years, bubbling under with short stories and novels that have amassed him a loyal following. Boys in the Valley was originally released in a limited run in 2021, and thanks to an unexpected public response (and Stephen King asking how he can get his hands on a copy), Tor Nightfire purchased the rights to release it widely in 2023.
The story follows a rural boys orphanage in the early 1900s that is besieged by a demonic entity, quickly going from The Cider House Rules to Lord of the Flies, with a dash of The Exorcist. While Fracassi does explore themes of faith and belief, you’re not here for themes. You’re here for the horror, and oh boy, does he deliver. A third of the way through the novel, Fracassi puts the pedal to the floor and keeps it there until the final page. It’s a high-tension horror novel that will scare the shit out of even the bravest readers.
Chapter 10:
CHAKRABORTY
The Adventures of
Amina al-Sirafi
We end with Shannon Chakraborty’s second-consecutive appearance on my Best of the Year list, this time with her follow up to the Daevabad Trilogy, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. While I love Chakraborty, this book had a steep hill to climb. I love Daevabad, and I do not like boats, so a non-Daevabad-set novel about a pirate was not my fantasy.
Alas, Chakraborty is very good at all of this.
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an escapist, let’s-get-the-gang-back-together-for-one-last-job adventure. Think The Princess Bride mixed with Pirates of the Caribbean set in the Indian Ocean. It is just such a fun time, and a cast and setting that I can only hope Chakraborty returns to soon. While I still very much prefer the boats I read about to be sinking, if they must float then at the very least they can try to be as fun as Amina and her crew.
gorham / and / henry 
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