2022 was the year that bookish events returned and although I didn’t go to as many as I’d have liked, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Quercus to celebrate the launch of The No-Show by Beth O’Leary and Hodder books to hear about some of their upcoming suspense reads. The Fatal Shore Festival of Crime Writing happened in my home town and was brilliant I have also visited my local bookshops in Brighton including Waterstones and the Kemptown Bookshop for author events.

I have enjoyed the return of book club in real life instead over Zoom and we have had read some fabulous books and had visits from local authors including Elly Griffiths and Brian Klein. This year I have also made contact with lots of local bookworms on the South Coast and we have met for drinks, book swaps and chats about everything!

2022 has been a lovely year for me. We manged a weekend away in Bath (amazing bookshops), a week away in South Wales which was beautiful and a weekend in Bournemouth when our flight to Venice got cancelled and we couldn’t go. My older son is still at Uni studying Psychology and hopes to go on and study a Masters later in 2023. My younger son spent much of the year rehearsing for a performance in Bugsy Malone and was amazing as Dandy Dan in October.

But perhaps our biggest news was a new edition to the family, our Double-Doodle puppy called Meggy. She is a Labradoodle- Golden Doodle cross and she is now 6 months old and I can safely say we are all smitten. She is loving and fun and is so, so good! She is my first dog and I never knew I would love her so much! I don’t even mind the cold and wet walks because she gets so much joy from chasing a ball and saying hello to other dogs.

Before we get to my top 10, here are all the books I have read in 2022

• I have published 84 posts
• I’ve read 86 books, down from 76 in 2021 which I was pleased with!  I think I’ll keep my target as 70 for 2023 as I’m struggling to find reading time with the extra time a puppy takes
• That’s 28931 pages!
• I gave 5 stars to 29 books
• I’m going into 2022 with 410 unread books on my shelves (up from 306 last year – oh dear!)
• The shortest book I read was 64 pages; the longest 656 pages
• If you want to be friends on Goodreads, you can find me here
• I’m also over on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok

Top Ten Books of 2022 (in the order in which I read them with links to my original reviews)

• The Christie Affair by Nina De Gramont

• One for Sorrow by Helen Fields

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

• The Pharmacist by Rachelle Atalla

• That Green Eyed Girl by Julie Owen Moylan

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick

• Truly Darkly Deeply by Victoria Selman

• Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

• The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

• We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (published 12 Jan 2023)

Honorary mentions:

I found it hard to narrow my favourite reads down to 10 so I here are some other books I really loved:

• The Maid by Nita Prose
• Impossible by Sarah Lotz
• Heartstopper by Alice Oseman
• Do No Harm by Jack Jordan
• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
• The Attic Child by Lola Jaye
• Islander by Cathy Thomas
• Love and Other Human Errors by Bethany Clift
• That Bonesetter Woman by Frances Quinn
• The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict
• Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

Do you agree with any of these?  I hope I’ve influenced a few of you to add more books to your lists!

Book Resolutions

I’m reluctant to write any – this is the first time I have done this but I’m hoping by committing them in writing it will make me try a bit harder at keeping them.

• Reducing my TBR (obviously!)
• As well as reading new releases, try and read at least one backlog hardback and paperback a month
• Only saying yes to books I really, really want to read!
• Keeping on top of book post, making sure I say thank you in a timely manner!
• Making sure I carve out time for reading. I have lost my breakfast and lunch time reading time because of the puppy so I want to make sure I have at least 30 mins reading time every evening – no distractions! As well as not getting through the books, I feel grumpy when I don’t read!

Thank you for reading.  Happy New Year to you and here’s to lots more bookish fun in 2023!