2022: My Year in Reading – A Retrospect

Happy New Year! For the last two years, I’ve taken part in the Goodreads Challenge and posted a retrospect on all the books I’ve read to round out the year (check out the 2020 and 2021 editions here). It’s New Year’s Eve today which means it’s time for the 2022 round-up.

As in 2021, I read 60 books in total. To keep myself on track that meant I aimed to read 60 pages a day (sometimes more than matching that goal and sometimes falling behind). I read 47 novels and 13 works of nonfiction, marginally more nonfiction than in the previous two years. Thirty-eight books were by women and 22 by men (again more balanced than in previous years). Just under half of the books (28) were historical fiction, the genre I write in, and 10 books were published this year, meaning I read them when they were hot off the press. 

Favorite Fiction Read

As ever, it’s difficult for me to compare such different books, but some of the best novels I read this year were: Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens (2022), a ghost story about the spirit of a fourteen-year-old girl haunting George Sand and Frederic Chopin during their time in Mallorca; Stephen King’s The Shining (1977), a classic for a reason; Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001), a masterclass in point of view; and The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith (2018), which did a great job weaving together narratives from different centuries.

Favorite Neo-Victorian Voices Read

The book I most enjoyed reading for my Neo-Victorian Voices series of blog posts on books written in the twenty-first century, but set in the nineteenth, was Julie Cohen’s Spirited (2020)—check out my review here. 

Favorite Non-Fiction Read

The non-fiction books I read this year covered a range of topics—from French culture to the Yorkshire countryside; from race relations to witchcraft trials; from Native Americans to Scientology; from a nineteenth-century serial killer to both World Wars, and many more. I most enjoyed The Exit Visa by Sheila Rosenberg (2019) and Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwyne (2010). 

Feeling Fantastic?

One theme I noticed in my reading this year was that I read more books that fall into the Fantasy genre or were historical with a Fantasy twist. Three I’d recommend are Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2021), The Library of Legends by Janie Chang (2020), and A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic S. Durbin (2016). 

Looking Forward to 2023

I’m planning to go a little easier on myself in 2023, aiming for a minimum of 50 books again, as I did in 2020, rather than 60, as in the last two years. After the holidays, I have an impressive stack of new volumes on my TBR begging to be read. However, as always, I’d love your recommendations. Let me know what books you’d like to see me read and review next—I’m always on the lookout for reads with a nineteenth-century connection for this blog so let me know here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

Introducing Finola & Friends: An Instagram Live “Tour” for the Bronte’s Mistress Paperback Release

It’s June 2021, which means it’s release month for the paperback edition of my novel, Bronte’s Mistress. If you love historical fiction and/or the Brontes, and are in search of a great beach read for this summer, pre-order your copy now!

In honour of the occasion, I’m doing something a little bit different—an Instagram Live “tour” talking to author friends I’ve made over the last year and a half. It’s my way of thanking them for their kindness and support, and it means I get to tell you about lots of other great books you should read, while celebrating my own release.

The tour kicks off on June 16th. Make sure you follow me on Instagram to be notified when I go live!

Here are the authors I’ll be speaking to, in order of the events:

Lindsey Rogers Cook, author of two books about Southern families, How to Bury Your Brother and Learning to Speak Southern.

Molly Greeley, the writer behind two novels inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I reviewed her first novel, The Clergyman’s Wife, on this blog, and blurbed her latest book, The Heiress.

Julie Carrick Dalton, author of Waiting for the Night Song, a novel about friendship and secrets.

Molly Gartland, whose novel, The Girl from the Hermitage, takes us from the siege of Leningrad in 1941 to 21st-century Saint Petersburg.

Barbara Conrey, USA Today bestselling author of Nowhere Near Goodbye, a novel about a mother’s love vs. a doctor’s oath.

Greer Macallister, bestselling historical novelist. Her latest book, The Artic Fury, is about 13 women who join a secret 1850s Arctic expedition, and the sensational murder trial that unfolds when some of them don’t come back.

A.H. Kim, author of A Good Family, a novel that fans of Orange is the New Black should check out.

Carrie Callaghan, author of two historical novels—A Light of Her Own, inspired by Dutch Golden Age painter Judith Leyster, and Salt the Snow, the story of an American journalist in 1930s Moscow.

Cate Simon, author of historical romance novel Courting Anna, about a woman lawyer in 1880s Montana Territory and an outlaw who crosses her path.

Lyn Liao Butler, author of The Tiger Mom’s Tale, a novel about a woman returning to Taiwan to confront the scars of her past.

Sarah Archer, romance novelist. Her novel, The Plus One, tells the story of a robotics engineer who builds a boyfriend to have a date to her sister’s wedding.

Rowan Coleman, aka Bella Ellis, author of the Bronte Sisters Mysteries series. Check out my review of The Vanished Bride, her first novel starring the Bronte sisters as sleuths, here.

Martha Waters, writer behind Regency romantic comedy novels To Have and To Hoax and To Love and To Loathe. 

Alison Hammer, writer of upmarket women’s fiction. Her novels You and Me and Us and Little Pieces of Me both focus on family relationships.

Natalie Jenner, author of international bestseller The Jane Austen Society. Read my write up of the novel here.

Michael Stewart, another Bronte-inspired novelist. I reviewed his novel, Ill Will, about Heathcliff’s “lost years” in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights here.

Susanne Dunlap, author of 10 historical novels. Her latest, The Paris Affair, is a tale of music, mystery, love, and murder in pre-revolutionary France.

Ellen Birkett Morris, author of Lost Girls, a short story collection exploring the experiences of women and girls as they grieve, find love, face uncertainty, take a stand, find their future and say goodbye to the past.

Sarah McCraw Crow, author of The Wrong Kind of Woman, which transports us back to the 1970s and explores what a woman can be when what she should be is no longer an option.

Lainey Cameron, award-winning author of Amazon bestseller The Exit Strategy, a novel about sexism and the power of female friendship in Silicon Valley.

Linda Rosen, writer behind The Disharmony of Silence and Sisters of the Vine, both great book club picks about women reinventing themselves despite the obstacles in their way.

Elizabeth Blackwell, bestselling writer of four novels. Her latest, Red Mistress, tells the story of a woman who breaks with her past to become a Soviet spy in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

Janie Chang, bestselling writer of historical fiction with a personal connection. Her latest novel, The Library of Legends, explores China’s recent past and is an evocative tale of love, sacrifice, and the extraordinary power of storytelling.

Nicole Mabry and Steph Mullin, a writing duo whose thriller The Family Tree, will be published later in 2021.

Kris Waldherr, author of 19th-century set Gothic historical The Lost History of Dreams, which I reviewed here.

Amanda Brainerd, author of The Age of Consent, literary fiction set in 1980s New York City, where David Bowie reigns supreme. 

Eddy Boudel Tan, award-winning author of the novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide.

Thank you so much to all the writers who’ve agreed to be part of this, and to everyone who orders a copy of the Bronte's Mistress paperback. It means so much. Stay in touch—via Instagram or Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. And make sure you sign up to my monthly email newsletter below.

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