Betsy Uhrig's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I love fantasies flavored by fairy tales, and Nettle & Bone is certainly that, with a strong feminist backbone.

Speaking of bones, it starts out dark, in a mysteriously ravaged landscape where a dog is being constructed of bones, which made me nervous. Dark is one thing, but I have my limits, and they end well before quite dark and never go anywhere near relentlessly dark.

But Bonedog turned out to be a very good boy, and the story quickly developed into a quest featuring three seemingly impossible tasks for the stalwart heroine, and I settled right down. Enter the demonic chicken, and I was going wherever this endearingly peculiar group led me.

Nettle & Bone is such an enchanting, hopeful book that I recommend it to fantasy (and chicken) fans to the point of being annoying.  

This is the second in a series, and I wouldn’t recommend diving into it without first reading Book 1, The Library of the Dead, but since I read Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments this year, it’s the one I’m listing.

Also, why would anyone not want to read The Library of the Dead? The title alone is enough to seal the deal, and it doesn’t disappoint. The series is about a young woman in a post-something-really-bad-happened magical Edinburgh who solves mysteries based on her ability to talk to ghosts, even though they aren’t the most reliable witnesses.

It’s great for people like me who were devastated when Lockwood & Co. was canceled. There’s a third book in the series available now, and I hope they keep coming. 

Having spent a lot of my reading year in darkish-fantasy mode, I branched out with Community Board, a refreshing, funny, and – yes, I’ll say it – heartwarming novel about trying desperately to go home again.

Set in a small Massachusetts town and told partly through its Nextdoor-type message board, Community Board tells the story of a young woman, heartbroken and jobless, who returns home expecting her parents’ loving comfort, only to find they’ve left town.

She holes up to nurse her grievances, finally venturing back into society via the drama and turmoil of the message board. The characters are as quirky as their messages, and the whole thing coalesces gratifyingly and hilariously.