If you showed up here today looking for the August Treasures in My Closet post, you’ll have to wait one more day. I needed a little more time. But, because it’s July 1, it’s also time to talk about the best books I’ve read so far this year.

Here’s the clarification. I’ve read some books that aren’t out until October. That’s not fair to any of you because you can’t get your hands on them right now. So, I’ve only picked books that were released in the first half of the year. You can find them at your local public library or your favorite bookstore if you’re interested. I will say there are some books that look fun coming out in the second half of the year. But, I’ll be moving, and who knows what I’ll get read.

My list only includes one book that isn’t crime fiction. I liked several others, but, since I can’t even remember the plots, they didn’t belong on this list. These are the books I enjoyed and remember. Will they make the final list of 2023? Several of them definitely will. I don’t know about others.

Here’s the list, in the order in which they came out this year.

Ellie Brannigan’s Murder at an Irish Castle is one of the coziest books on the list. It marks the debut of a new series with a competent amateur sleuth, an intriguing cast, and a beautiful setting. There’s lots of potential. Rodeo Drive bridalwear designer Rayne McGrath expected her thirtieth birthday to start with a power lunch and end with champagne, lobster, and a diamond engagement ring from her fiancé. Instead, flat-broke and busted, she’s on a plane to Ireland where she discovers that she’s inherited a run-down family castle. Uncle Nevin’s will contains a few caveats—for example, if Rayne doesn’t turn McGrath Castle around within a year, the entire village will be financially destroyed.

It turns out four of the books on my list have an Irish setting in common. Hmm. Carlene O’Connor’s Murder at an Irish Bakery is the ninth book in her Irish Village mystery series, and my favorite. In Kilbane, opinions are plentiful and rarely in alignment. But there’s one thing everyone does agree on—the bakery in the old flour mill, just outside town, is the best in County Cork, well worth the short drive and the long lines. No wonder they’re about to be featured on a reality baking show. All six contestants in the show are coming to Kilbane to participate, and the town is simmering with excitement. Aside from munching on free samples, the locals—including Siobhan—get a chance to appear in the opening shots. As for the competitors themselves, not all are as sweet as their confections. There are shenanigans on the first day of filming that put everyone on edge, but that’s nothing compared to day two, when the first round ends and the top contestant is found face-down in her signature pie.

Even the only book on the list that isn’t a mystery is set in Ireland. (I did read some books set there that didn’t make this list.) Off the Map by Trish Doller is one of the sequels to Float Plan. When I reviewed it, I said Doller’s characters speak to me. Carla Black’s life motto is “here for a good time, not for a long time.” She’s been traveling the world on her own in her vintage Jeep Wrangler for nearly a decade, stopping only long enough to replenish her adventure fund. She doesn’t do love and she doesn’t ever go home. Eamon Sullivan is a modern-day cartographer who creates digital maps. His work helps people find their way, but he’s the one who’s lost his sense of direction. He’s unhappy at work, recently dumped, and his one big dream is stalled out—literally. Fate throws them together when Carla arrives in Dublin for her best friend’s wedding and Eamon is tasked with picking her up from the airport. But what should be a simple drive across Ireland quickly becomes complicated with chemistry-filled detours, unexpected feelings, and a chance at love – if only they choose it.

If you can stand it when I gush about Ireland, here’s a book set in Scotland instead, Lucy Connelly’s An American in Scotland. I know a few of you enjoyed it as much as I did. Sea Isle was supposed to be the fresh start Dr. Emilia McRoy dreamed of. Far from the busy emergency room across the Atlantic in Seattle, she hoped to settle down and begin this new chapter as a small-town doctor to the quirky residents who immediately welcomed her. When she stumbles across a dead body, she starts to think that she may not be as Scot free of the drama and intrigue as she initially thought. Emilia soon learns she has bigger issues at hand. It starts with realizing she’ll work closely with the less than helpful local constable, Laird Ewan Campbell. Her luck continues when she discovers that part of her new responsibilities includes being the coroner for the very body she found. Finally, when the body goes missing before she can even begin the autopsy, Emilia must convince the townspeople that a crime did, in fact, occur.

By the end of the year, I know two books will still be on my favorites list, S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed and Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies. Both books are emblematic of their times. In Small Mercies, during the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

The Poisoner’s Ring is Kelley Armstrong’s second Rip Through Time Novel. Edinburgh, 1869: Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is adjusting to her new life in Victorian Scotland. Her employers know she’s not housemaid Catriona Mitchell―even though Mallory is in Catriona’s body―and Mallory is now officially an undertaker’s assistant. Dr. Duncan Gray moonlights as a medical examiner, and their latest case hits close to home. Men are dropping dead from a powerful poison, and all signs point to the grieving widows… the latest of which is Gray’s oldest sister. Poison is said to be a woman’s weapon, though Mallory has to wonder if it’s as simple as that. But she must tread carefully. Every move the household makes is being watched, and who knows where the investigation will lead.

One friend told me they gave up on Katherine Hall Page’s Faith Fairchild mysteries a long time ago. Another said she may never be ready to read books about the pandemic. But, Page took such accurate notes during the pandemic that The Body in the Web comes to life. Faith Fairchild joins the rest of the world in lockdown mode when reality flips in March 2020. As the pandemic spreads, Faith and her family readjust to life together in Aleford, Massachusetts. Her husband, Tom, continues his sermons from Zoom; their children, Ben, who’s in college, and Amy, a high school senior, are doing remote learning at home. Faith is happy to have her family under the same roof and grateful for her resilient community, friends, and neighbors in Aleford. Town halls remain lively and well-attended, despite residents joining from their living rooms. It is at one of these town halls that scandal breaks out. In the midst of a Zoom meeting, damaging images suddenly flash upon everyone’s screens. Claudia, local art teacher and Faith’s dear friend, is immediately recognized as the woman who has been targeted. When Claudia is later discovered dead, Faith, with the help of her friends, journeys deep into the dark web to unravel the threads of Claudia’s mysterious history and shocking passing. 

S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed is the best book I’ve read this year. Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history. Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning. (The book has one of the best closing paragraphs you’ll read this year.)

It’s only appropriate that I end with another book set in Ireland, Sarah Stewart Taylor’s fourth Maggie D’Arcy novel, A Stolen Child. After months of training, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is now officially a Garda. She’s finally settling into life in Ireland and so is her teenage daughter, Lilly. Maggie may not be a detective yet, but she’s happy with her community policing assignment in Dublin’s Portobello neighborhood. When she and her partner find former model and reality tv star Jade Elliot murdered—days after responding to a possible domestic violence disturbance at her apartment—they also discover Jade’s toddler daughter missing. Shorthanded thanks to an investigation into a gangland murder in the neighborhood, Maggie’s friend, Detective Inspector Roly Byrne, brings her onto his team to help find the missing child. But when a key discovery is made, the case only becomes more confusing—and more dangerous. Amidst a nationwide manhunt, Maggie and her colleagues must look deep into Jade’s life—both personal and professional—to find a ruthless killer.

These are my favorite books read from January through June. Now, you’re going to think about your own favorite books, aren’t you?