The winners of the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards have been announced, following hundreds of nominations and two rounds of public voting. The annual awards aim to recognise the best and most popular books of the year, and have been running since 2011. The 15th edition of the awards narrowed down each category to 16 books for the first round, with the top contenders voted again to decide the eventual winners. The competition this year was decided by almost 5.9 million votes, with the majority of this year’s winning books also being written by women.
Emilia Hart took home two awards for Weyward, securing both Best Historical Fiction and Best Debut Novel. The tale of resilience in the natural world explores three extraordinary women across five centuries and defeated its closest competitors in both categories by over 10,000 votes apiece. This year’s awards also saw a win for Stephen King’s latest work Holly as Best Horror. However, the most surprising award this year may have been in Best Memoir & Autobiography, with many people debating whether Spare by Prince Harry would sweep this category. However, readers weren’t convinced by the Prince’s version of the story, losing to Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me by over 60,000 votes.
The winners of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2023 are:
- Best Fiction – Yellowface, R.F. Kuang
- Best Historical Fiction – Weyward, Emilia Hart
- Best Mystery & Thriller – The Housemaid’s Secret, Freida McFadden
- Best Romance – Happy Place, Emily Henry
- Best Romantasy – Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros
- Best Fantasy – Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo
- Best Science Fiction – In the Lives of Puppets, TJ Klune
- Best Horror – Holly, Stephen King
- Best Young Adult Fantasy – Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross
- Best Young Adult Fiction – Check & Mate, Ali Hazelwood
- Best Debut Novel – Weyward, Emilia Hart
- Best Nonfiction – Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond
- Best Memoir & Autobiography – The Woman in Me, Britney Spears
- Best History & Biography – The Wager, David Grann
- Best Humour – Being Henry, Henry Winkler
See the full list of nominees and voting breakdown here
