Even with the number of novels I read every year, only a handful really knock my socks off, which earns them a place on my Top Ten list. But every year I read a lot of books that I end up liking a lot. So, here they are, divided into historical and contemporary categories:

Historical

Quiet Dell by Jayne Phillips

Let Him Go by Larry Watson

Longbourn by Jo Baker

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

The Wind of Not a River by Brian Payton

Euphoria by Lily King

Rose Gold by Walter Mosley

Crimson Angel by Barbara Hambly

Contemporary

Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George

Bark: Stories by Lorrie Moore

Through the Evil Days by Julia Fleming-Spencer

Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Arsonist by Sue Miller

The Dog Year by Ann Garvin

A Dangerous Fiction by Barbara Rogan

The Silkworm by Richard Galbraith