What novels will your book club love reading in 2023? It's never too early to start planning a spectacular lineup. To help you out, we've put together a list of fictional works being released in paperback during the first half of 2023 that have all received 5-star ratings from our reviewers.

Our list features exciting and significant debut novels, including two from authors who previously established themselves via poetry, Destiny O. Birdsong and Leila Mottley. We've also included books by writers who were already well-known and acclaimed for their fiction, like Douglas Stuart, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, and veteran bestselling author Victoria E. Schwab. While we're aware that some of these novels may be longer than the maximum page count that some book clubs stick to, we've considered what books would be worth exceeding this limit for and have endeavored to only choose longer selections that we think qualify as fast reads.

All the books have reading guides currently on the site or forthcoming, plus reviews and Beyond the Book articles that you can use to explore relevant subjects and start conversations. For each pick below, we've included discussion topic suggestions for your book club.

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While still underrepresented, Native authors — including many emerging writers — have been behind an exciting variety of interesting literature from both major and small publishers as of late. As we at BookBrowse have been working to consciously build up the books featured in our Native and Indigenous category, we would like to take the opportunity to share with you some of our recently reviewed books by Native writers.

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In BookBrowse's book club section, you'll find more than 1,700 free reading guides covering many of the best fiction and nonfiction titles published in the past 20 years. So, whatever your book group's reading interest, start your search at BookBrowse to find books that will generate interesting and invigorating discussions.

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If your book club arranges conversations and reading materials around current issues, it's likely that you're focusing on reproductive rights, or soon will be.

While the leak of a Supreme Court draft suggesting an intent to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationally has thrown the future of abortion rights in the United States into doubt, the broader topic of reproductive rights is one that transcends this particular moment in time. Regardless of legality, reproductive health care is already effectively out of reach for many, and issues of reproductive justice include not just abortion access but access to contraceptives, involuntary sterilization and forced or coerced adoption, all of which are historically intertwined with racism, gender discrimination and eugenics.

Below are six contemporary novels that reflect this reality, dealing substantially with reproductive rights and the social contexts in which they are grounded. Most have reviews, reading guides and/or other accompanying material available on BookBrowse. We've also included some general resources that we hope will be helpful for your book club discussions.

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Book tastes may differ wildly, but good mysteries appeal widely. And you can count on them to add momentum to your book club discussions any day. Mysteries and puzzle-driven thrillers give your group a chance to talk about both the twists and turns of the reading experience and any issues and concepts addressed by the book, providing the opportunity for layered, captivating conversation. So in this blog post, we bring you a list of some of the very best mystery books for book clubs that have been published in recent years.

These books encompass a variety of settings, from the Australian outback to an Ojibwe reservation to suburban New Jersey. They also cast a light on many different areas of society and social issues, from modern-day racism to cult psychology to the history of women in medicine. And of course, they all come highly recommended. Not only have all of these books been rated 5-stars on BookBrowse, but you'll find multiple BookBrowse award winners among them.

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We recently asked BookBrowse subscribers to tell us about the books they most enjoyed discussing with their book group in 2021. This is what they told us:

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