Hello and the warmest of welcomes to damppebbles. It’s Tuesday, hoorah! Not only is it Tuesday, it’s day fourteen of #R3COMM3ND3D2023. I can’t believe how fast this year’s #R3C is flying past! It’ll be Christmas before we know it 🤭 Too soon…? So far this year we’ve had the grand total of thirty-eight beautiful books selected and if you missed it, something very exciting happened yesterday. We have a leader! The Good Liars by Anita Frank was recommended for the second time. Will The Good Liars take the #R3COMM3ND3D2023 crown? We’ll just have to wait and see…

Joining me to share the book love today and chat all things 2023 is the fabulous Lynda Checkley of @lyndas_bookreviews. Lynda is by far one of my most favourite bookstagrammers, without a doubt. If you don’t already follow Lynda then you’re definitely doing it all wrong. You know what to do, people!

So, what is #R3COMM3ND3D2023? It’s about sharing the book love. It’s a chance for authors, book bloggers, reviewers and bookstagrammers to shout about three (yes, *only* three) books they love. They can be written by any author, in any genre and published in any way (traditionally, indie press or self-published). But there is a catch. All three books must have been published in 2023. To make things interesting there are a couple of teeny, tiny rules; 1) the book must have FIRST been published in 2023 and 2) special editions and reissues do not count. See, it wasn’t too painful. I just like to keep you lovely people on your toes 😉

Let’s not delay, here are the three books Lynda recommends…

What July Knew by Emily Koch
This book took me outside my normal genre of read and as a result I’ve read a lot of books I probably wouldn’t have before this. It was an emotional and compelling read with a fabulous character in 10 year old July Hooper who lives with her father and stepmother. Her father is abusive and won’t tell July anything about her real mother but July is determined to find out more. Wonderful.
Lynda’s Review of What July Knew

The Institution by Helen Fields
Really well written book with a shocking plot when a newborn baby is stolen from a dead woman. This was such a compelling read. Fast paced with lots of red herrings it fooled me and that doesn’t happen a lot. A great read.
Lynda’s Review of The Institution

Killing Jericho by William Hussey
This book ticked all my boxes. A great protagonist in Scott Jericho, a traveller, gay, a former police detective and ex- jailbird – you’d have to go some to match that! A great storyline (there was a trigger point here for me that I had to skip over) and an ending I never expected. This was a brilliant LGQBT novel but actually just a brilliant novel, no labels needed. Loved it.
Lynda’s Review of Killing Jericho

Thanks so much, Lynda. Three brilliant choices – one of which I’ve read (What July Knew) and two I have on my TBR. Looking forward to them even more now!

About Lynda Checkley:
C. 14k followers across my book blog SM pages. My primary account is my Instabook blog page but I also share my reviews on my Facebook Book Group and Twitter Book Blog as well as Amazon and Goodreads. Avid reader (3/400 books p.a.) Member of many online book groups. Regular attendee at book festivals. Love to travel. Dog and cat lover ❤️

Lynda’s Bookstagram and Social Media Links:
| Instagram @lyndas_bookreviews | X (formerly Twitter) @LyndaCheckley | Facebook Group |

#R3COMM3ND3D will only run for the month of November this year so places are very limited. If you would like to take part in #R3C this year (and I would LOVE you to!) then please get your three choices in ASAP. If I’m unable to fill all 30 dates then any posts scheduled for the end of November will be brought forward and I will close the series early (but I don’t want to do that, it sounds miserable! 😂). Here are two different versions of the form if you fancy taking part.

If you’re a book blogger, bookstagrammer, reviewer or an author and you have three books published this year which you want to shout about then please complete the following form (or click this link: https://forms.gle/d6HbMLZJjEtUSm8FA)