Nicola Morgan's 3 favorite reads in 2023

First, you need to know that my favourite books will always have three things in common: a fast story with an intense emotional expression—I can't do slow and gentle, however skilled the writing; a gripping start; and a distinct, pitch-perfect voice. These days, I am much less forgiving, and I can't waste time reading a book that doesn't deliver all these in spades.

I'm also drawn to historical fiction that shows the place women occupied in society at various times and how they dealt with it. I'm a huge fan of Maggie O'Farrell's writing, but The Marriage Portrait is my favourite.

From the intensity of the first page, you are right there in the vivid and brutal world of 16th-century Italy, with the story racing along in a way that my gadfly's 21st-century mind needs. It is never a comforting read, but it is escapism at its best.

I suppose that a book that starts “Back in 1961” will pique my interest, as it was the year I was born. But what Bonnie Garmus does, regardless of your birthday, is pull you into an exceptional voice that is bright, witty, and joyous, despite the frustrations the main character feels as a woman far too clever and interesting for the opportunities available for her.

Through it, you witness the pettiness of sex-based restrictions and the lengths that the powerful will go to squash the threats to their supremacy. (Also, by no coincidence, a theme of the novel I’m attempting to write at the moment!)

Oh, and you do get some lessons in chemistry, which I very much needed because I didn’t listen at school.

I was re-reading this book for a reason: to get myself back into old Edinburgh because I’m embarking on a sequel to one of my novels, and I needed to reconnect with the ancient parts of the city I used to live in.

Luckenbooth is set much later than my book, so there is no danger of undue influence, but the atmosphere is very reminiscent. And wow, that atmosphere! In her novel, Jenni Fagan imagines that in 1910 an event happened that led the main character to place a curse on a nine-story building in Luckenbooth Close.

The novel darts about over the next 100 years and reveals how that curse plays out for each occupant. This brings an exceptionally vivid and inventive cast of characters and glimpses inside these lives against the backdrop of a changing world outside.