Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly feature hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2023. There are so many books I am excited to read that are releasing between now and June. I had a hard time narrowing my list down to just ten!
January
Spare by Prince Harry
Release: January 10, 2023It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow – and horror. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling – and how their lives would play out from that point on.
For Harry, this is that story at last.
With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.
Prince Harry wishes to support British charities with donations from his proceeds from Spare. The Duke of Sussex has donated $1,500,000 to Sentebale, an organisation he founded with Prince Seeiso in their mothers’ legacies, which supports vulnerable children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana affected by HIV/AIDS. Prince Harry will also donate to the non-profit organisation WellChild in the amount of £300,000. WellChild, which he has been Royal patron of for fifteen years, makes it possible for children and young people with complex health needs to be cared for at home instead of hospital, wherever possible.
February
Before Us by Jewel E. Ann
Release: February 2, 2023I never saw him coming.
I didn’t know what would happen after my client found me sleeping in my car.
I’d been cleaning his house as his wife was dying.
I didn’t expect them to invite me to live with them.
I didn’t expect Suzie to become my lifeline—until she was gone.I didn’t expect him to ask me to marry him when he found out I needed medical insurance.
I didn’t expect to fall in love with a grieving man.
There are so many reasons to keep my distance from Zach. Every tender moment secreted away.
When we’re not together, I miss the man I call husband.
Does he miss his wife? If so, which one?
Things We Hide From the Light by Lucy Score
Release: February 21, 2023Nash Morgan was always known as the good Morgan brother, with a smile and a wink for everyone. But now, this chief of police is recovering from being shot and his Southern charm has been overshadowed by panic attacks and nightmares. He feels like a broody shell of the man he once was. Nash isn’t about to let anyone in his life know he’s struggling. But his new next-door neighbor, smart and sexy Lina, sees his shadows. As a rule, she’s not a fan of physical contact unless she initiates it, but for some reason Nash’s touch is different. He feels it too. The physical connection between them is incendiary, grounding him and making her wonder if exploring it is worth the risk.
Too bad Lina’s got secrets of her own, and if Nash finds out the real reason she’s in town, he’ll never forgive her. Besides, she doesn’t do relationships. Ever. A hot, short-term fling with a local cop? Absolutely. Sign her up. A relationship with a man who expects her to plant roots? No freaking way. Once she gets what she’s after, she has no intention of sticking around. But Knockemout has a way of getting under people’s skin. And once Nash decides to make Lina his, he’s not about to be dissuaded…even if it means facing the danger that nearly killed him.
The New Guy by Sarina Bowen
Release: February 28, 2023My name is Hudson Newgate, but my teammates call me New Guy.
That was my nickname in Chicago, too. And Vancouver. That’s what happens when you keep getting traded. Brooklyn is my last chance, especially after my poor performance last season.
But I can make this work. The new guy knows to keep his head down and shoot the puck. The new guy puts the game first.
What he doesn’t do is hook up with the other new guy—a hot athletic trainer who lives in my building. Gavin needs this job with my team. He’s a single dad with responsibilities.
We can’t be a couple. My arrogant agent–who’s also my father–will lose his mind if I’m dating a dude. And my team needs me to score goals, not whip up a media circus.
Too bad Gavin and I are terrible at resisting each other…
March
Ellie is Cool Now by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren
Release: March 21, 2023Meet the girl who’s “Most Likely to Make Everything Worse.”
TV writer Ellie Jenkins worked her butt off to put her nerdy, outcast teen years behind her. So there’s a certain delicious irony in that she works for a hit show about popular high school kids when she was So. Not. Cool. And now she’s been offered the promotion of a lifetime—if she attends her reunion. But Ellie’s memory of High School Hell isn’t nearly as traumatic as the reality . . .
No one at the reunion is what Ellie expected. Not her ex-best friend, who still has the ability to see right through Ellie. And not her secret crush, who has only gotten hotter, sexier, and way more complicated. The only way she’s going to survive this whole weird ordeal is by fixing her bad high school karma, kissing the boy who got away, and getting the hell out of Ohio for good. But Ellie’s discovering that in real life, she can’t just rewrite the script.
April
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Release: April 11, 2023A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match from “a true talent” (Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin’-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass” scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.
And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,” and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she can’t refuse.
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Release: April 25, 2023A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
May
The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren
Release: May 16, 2023Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script—from the New York Times bestselling authors of The Soulmate Equation and The Unhoneymooners .
Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.
Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?
Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.
The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in the New York Times bestselling The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.
June
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
Release: June 13, 2023Rival physicists collide in a vortex of academic feuds and fake dating shenanigans in this delightfully STEMinist romcom from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain.
The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.
Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?
A Love Catastrophe by Helena Hunting
Release: June 13, 2023The fur is about to fly between a cheerful cat sitter and a grumpy hockey nerd in this hilarious and charming rom-com by the New York Times bestselling author of Meet Cute.
Kitty Hart has become internet famous as the Kitty Whisperer for her expertise on all things feline, and as a result, her cat-sitting business is booming. But lately, she has a terrible feeling that maybe her life isn’t quite going where it’s supposed to—especially after falling face-first into her newest client. Not exactly the best first impression.
Fortunately, Miles Thorn is just as bad at first impressions. Strike one: he doesn’t like cats, especially Prince Francis, the haughty and mischievous Sphynx his mom left in his care. Strike two: tackling Kitty to the floor in a misguided attempt to save the pet he continually calls “the gremlin.”
As awkwardness slides into attraction and things start to turn purr-sonal, will these two complete opposites ever be able to find their furry-tail ending?
So many great books on this list! I want to read pretty much all of them.
And there are several that I left off of the list. My TBR is getting ridiculously long.
I bet! Mine is, too! I keep see authors who are releasing soon pop up and add to mine.
I have three of yours on my list too!
And oh how my credit card suffers after reading this list! So many that I simply must read. Thanks.
Sorry! LOL! Hopefully, your local library will have some of the titles.
We have a couple in common, and you gave me a couple to add to the TBR! Hope you love them all!!
You too! It’s nice to have so many books to get excited about.
I have a few of these on my list too! I hope you enjoy them all.
The new Helena Hunting sounds wonderful and I can’t wait for Happy Place either! Great picks!
Thanks! Let’s hope they are all winners.
Love, Theoretically is on my list too, I don’t read many romances but her books have all been cute.
I’ve really enjoyed Ali Hazelwood’s books so far.
I’ve been seeing Emily Henry everywhere lately. I really need to read her already and see what the fuss is all about! I hope you enjoy her book and all these others.
Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
I hope you enjoy all of these.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/10/top-ten-tuesday-402/
Me too! Thanks.
🙂
Definitely need to add some of these to my own wish list like A Love Catastrophe (I love cats) and The New Guy.
Lauren @ http://www.shootingstarsmag.net