HAPPY NYE EVERYONE!

So last year I knew instantly that I wanted to do a Top 20 as I had read so many amazing books. This year, while I knew I enjoyed loads of books, I thought I would have a solid top 10 but nothing more. Until I started properly looking and then realised I 100% had enough for a Top 21 at least. So I have chosen my top 20 and I am very happy with them. It was a tough battle for the top spot but I knew it had to go with the one I thought about the most after reading it. I have read over 150+ books so it’s not super easy to cut it down.

Plot: Yae’s living her dream, working at the toiletry maker Lilia Drop. Little do her coworkers know, the reason she loves the company so much is that she’s ashamed of her body odor, and their soap is the only thing that does the trick. So when the company’s lead product developer, a perfuming genius, approaches her in the lobby and wonders what “that smell” is, she’s terrified… but could it be… that he likes it? And, even more surprising to Yae… does she like him?

Now I never include specific volumes with manga as they all just merge into one. But I have throughly been enjoying reading this cute and sexy series. Mainly because the main couple are just so healthy, I love reading romance where the couple is established very early on and they aren’t boring! This was just funny, beautiful and so positive!

Plot: Wells Whitaker was once golf’s hottest rising star, but lately, all he has to show for his “promising” career is a killer hangover, a collection of broken clubs, and one remaining supporter. No matter how bad he plays, the beautiful, sunny redhead is always on the sidelines. He curses, she cheers. He scowls, she smiles. But when Wells quits in a blaze of glory and his fangirl finally goes home, he knows he made the greatest mistake of his life. Josephine Doyle believed in the gorgeous, grumpy golfer, even when he didn’t believe in himself. Yet after he throws in the towel, she begins to wonder if her faith was misplaced. Then a determined Wells shows up at her door with a wild proposal: be his new caddy, help him turn his game around, and split the prize money. And considering Josephine’s professional and personal life is in shambles, she could really use the cash… As they travel together, spending days on the green and nights in neighboring hotel rooms, sparks fly. Before long, they’re inseparable, Wells starts winning again, and Josephine is surprised to find a sweet, thoughtful guy underneath his gruff, growly exterior. This hot man wants to brush her hair, feed her snacks, and take bubble baths together? Is this real life? But Wells is technically her boss and an athlete falling for his fangirl would be ridiculous… right?

I just love a Tessa Bailey romance. It just fills me with joy and I can just forget life and get lost in the story of two people falling in love. Reading this book however had an extra level of enjoyment as my boyfriend is a golfer so I enjoyed letting him know about all the golf related things in the novel. This book is my favourite Tessa Bailey story to date. I found the plot devices and structure to be super fast-paced and incredibly engaging. I enjoyed our main characters both together and separately. Josephine’s search for body autonomy and to be seen as capable and independent in a world that reduces her to just her diabetes was incredibly poignant and I loved how Bailey maintained her independence throughout the novel even with the love interest seeking to help. Wells story about letting people in after a series of betrayals was done so well and handled in a way that perfectly fits the character that Bailey had created. All these personal storylines just made them getting together so much for fulfilling and satisfying to read.

Plot: Sade Hussein is starting her third year of high school, this time at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school. After being home-schooled all her life and feeling like a magnet for misfortune, she’s not sure what will happen. What she doesn’t expect though is for her roommate Elizabeth to disappear after Sade’s first night. Or for people to think she had something to do with it. With rumors swirling around her, Sade catches the attention of the most popular girls in school – collectively known as the ‘Unholy Trinity’ – and they bring her into their fold. Between learning more about them – especially Persephone, who Sade finds herself drawn to – playing catch-up in class, and trying to figure out what happened to Elizabeth, Sade has a lot on her plate. It doesn’t help that she’s already dealing with grief from the many tragedies in her family. And then a student is found dead. The more Sade investigates, the more she realizes there’s more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than she realized. Secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface…secrets that rival even her own.

Quickest and easiest 5-star read ever. Miss Faridah never misses. This was a 500+ page book that had perfect pacing and I was not bored once. Even when the plot was less high actioned and was just focusing on the life of high-schoolers, I was so interested in the friendships and relationship dynamics that I didn’t mind the moments where the plot was slower and less about the mystery. Such a great read.

Plot: Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don’t even know it. And the clock is ticking.

Some of the best moments in my life has been spending 48 hours devouring whatever masterpiece Stuart Turton has written in that point in time. Taking the crime genre and elevating it to heights I am surprised he manages to ascend. This book was no exception. As usual the plot is incredibly engaging and exciting taking you down roads you didn’t expect to go down or didn’t even see in the first place. But I wanted to highlight, in this book in particular, was the incredible characterisation and sense of place. I have never read a murder mystery which has cemented me so strongly in a location before. Through Turton’s writing I wasn’t only able to picture the island and its inhabitants but I truly felt that I was there with our characters experiencing life with them side by side. From the multiple POVs to the picturesque detail, I honestly would love to live there if they weren’t on the edge of succumbing to toxic fog. Another addition to this book is the multiple povs we follow throughout the story. While we do have a central ‘detective’, this story is packed with a variety of important characters who help make this story the most in depth and rich of the three novels Turton has published so far. Following them through the trials and tribulations of island life and then the subsequent murder made you feel connected to the island and the characters themselves as you see them in their natural day to day life and then in a crisis. This was my favourite set of characters in a Turton novel ever.

Plot: It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be. In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer? As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

I don’t think there are enough words to describe how exciting, tense, and emotional this book was. I went into this expecting a super easy-reading cosy murder mystery but this book ended up taking over my entire life for 2 whole days. That is how long it took me to finish this book. Every spare moment I got I spent reading this book. Covering both 1965 and our present day we flick between the two time periods trying to piece together Great Aunt Frances’ past as well as unravel her very recent murder with her grand niece Annie. We explore both time periods meeting a variety of characters whose young and old selves clash with both of the Adams women. Jumping from each different time period made for such exciting reading as it kept the story super fast-paced but added a richer layer to the story – as a reader we are divulged more information earlier on than our amateur sleuth, Annie. I spent ages trying to piece together the past and the present to make sense of this scandalous village history. Annie is an amazing character that you can’t help but root for but I spent most of my enjoyment absorbed into the world of 17 year old Frances and the ups and downs of her late teenage life. This book is truly half coming of age story, half murder mystery, and the use of the Frances’ diary (which allows the reader to understand what happened in her past) elevates this book from being lost amongst recent cosy crime stories. It has an extra edge to it that makes it unputdownable.

Plot: 18-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on. But the case is dragged up from the past when the Price family agree to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again. Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And – could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .

I mean, where to even begin? This is the first time, in a long time, that I have been so unsettled by a book. Where the reading experience has been so tense I can feel it through my own body. Putting the book down seemed like a Herculean task as I needed to uncover all the answers alongside Bel and have everything make sense. Having read AGGTM first and then following up with this afterward you can see the immense development and progression in Jackson’s prose. I flew through this story reading 150 pages per sitting because not only was this easy to follow but the pacing was so quick and exciting that I just couldn’t stop myself from turning the page. The words flowed so seamlessly and I would blink another 20 mins had passed and I had been absorbed in this novel. While this is a YA book I do believe this has universal appeal for thriller fans out there and I will be recommending this to anyone who loves true crime docs, complicated family dynamics, and a realistic angsty main character. If I see anyone coming for Bel and the way she reacts in this entire book I will be sitting down and having words with them. Bel, too me was written incredibly realistically for the situation that she is in.

Plot: She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford’s campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral–viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways–there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.

I mean words can’t begin to describe the incredibly emotional experience it was reading this book. The amount of courage and vulnerability in this memoir is stupendous. I followed this case so closely when it all happened and was on Beyonce’s internet arguing with very rude people in defence of Chanel so I am very surprised it took me this long to read her book.

Plot: Merryn grew up on the wilds of Bodmin moor, raised by her mother and her aunt in an old farmhouse. Here, the locals never leave the decaying village, fear for the future of their farms and cling desperately to the folkloric tales that are woven into their history. Except Merryn, who has escaped to Manchester for university, briefly untethering herself from her past. When Merryn returns home for the memorial service of her ex-girlfriend Claud, she finds her childhood home stranger and more secretive than ever. She’s sure that her mother is hiding something. The villagers are hunting on the moors at night, but for what? And then there’s a notebook, found in an old chest of drawers, full of long-forgotten folklore than seems to be linked somehow to Claud…

A beautiful and literary tale that feels like folklore crafted and forged from the depths of Cornwall itself. This book was a slow mover for me but I loved getting lost in the landscape of the Moor and the vastness of our main character, Merryn’s, childhood. As we flick between the past and present there is this heavy feeling that both Merryn and us as a reader are missing something. Nothing makes this more clear than the beautiful folklore chapters that pop up time and time again through the narrative. Like a puzzle to solve you stumble around trying to piece everything together as you have this feeling that it could be too late. This book is a perfect study of grief, complicated relationships, the intensity of young love, and the idea of not fitting in. I enjoyed watching this story slowly unfold taking in the beautiful writing and the beautiful imagery of the Cornish moors. You do truly feel like you are there standing at that farmhouse with Merryn and her mother and aunt. The writing was so visceral and real and I loved the different ways Matthews writing connected to nature and the area itself. Such a beautiful and magical read!

Plot: Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your new-born baby… This is what happens to Lisette. Overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city – and the world – in two. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate. Lisette’s teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother. Both have lived for music, but while Elly hears notes surrounding every person she meets, for her mother – once a talented pianist – the music has gone silent. Perhaps Elly can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home…

This was an unexpected book for me. I went into this not really knowing too much about the plot but by the end of this novel it had me sobbing on my train journey back from work. This is a very tragic story about war, complicated mother-daughter relationships, complicity and freedom.

Plot: When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive. Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?

Thank you to authors like Daniel Mason who have made me realise I actually am a literary fiction reader. After reading this book I am firmly in Autumn. This book whisked me up in a tornado of apples, golden leaves, and poetic tragedy. Following centuries on one specific piece of land in America we watch various inhabitants and characters live, breathe, and die among the apple trees and ghosts of North Woods. This book is a feat unto itself spanning various years, giving voice to characters vastly different from one that came before them and the one that will succeed them, and giving you a sense of tragedy and beauty in one whole gust of wind. I was lost in this book and lost in these stories, I loved how despite the years between are characters they all have something in common which is curiosity and love for humanity, and how this was their best asset and their undoing. An epic autumnal novel that you will rarely see on the shelves.

Top 10!!

We are now officially moving on to my Top 10 books of the year. Now you might be wondering, why didn’t you just make a post on these 10? Well I needed to highlight those other books because they were just so great. I couldn’t not talk about them!

Plot: Princess Yona lives an ideal life as the only princess of her kingdom. Doted on by her father, the king, and protected by her faithful guard Hak, she cherishes the time spent with the man she loves, Soo-won. But everything changes on her 16th birthday when she witnesses her father’s murder! Yona reels from the shock of witnessing a loved one’s murder and having to fight for her life. With Hak’s help, she flees the palace and struggles to survive while evading her enemy’s forces. But where will this displaced princess go when all the paths before her are uncertain?

I read a huge chunk of Yona of the Dawn this year and just when I was worried maybe I wouldn’t feel engaged with it volume 3 happened and I instantly clicked with the series. Like a eureka, light bulb moment. What’s so great about finding a series you are obsessed with, is when you realise it’s like 40+ volumes long. I just hope she keep up the amazing momentum she is built.

Plot: Cartoonist Zoe Thorogood records 6 months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. IT’S LONELY AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH is an intimate and metanarrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival.

Words cannot begin to adequately describe the genius, the heart and the baring of the soul that went into the creation of this graphic memoir. The creativity of the use of multiple forms, the loose time structure, varying art style just puts this above many visual stories I had read over the past couple of years. I have not seen anyone do something so raw and vast both emotionally but creatively. I was completely blown away by the book!

Plot: When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, Mississippi, to investigate a series of brutal murders, they find at each crime scene an unexpected second body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till. After meeting resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist white townsfolk, the MBI detectives suspect these are killings of retribution. Then they discover eerily similar murders taking place in rapid succession all over the country. The past, it seems, refuses to be buried. The uprising has begun.

Plot: In her twenty-five years as a secondary school English teacher, Carol Atherton has taught students of all abilities, from all walks of life. But the common thread to her lessons has been the books which have appeared on syllabuses year after year. But what is it about these books that sparks conversations? And why do they still matter? From Macbeth to Lord of the Flies, and from An Inspector Calls to Noughts and Crosses, each chapter invites us to take a fresh look at the novels, plays and poems we studied at school, revealing how they have shaped our beliefs, our values, and how we interact as a society. Atherton’s love for literature shines through on every page, but there’s more to her passion than being a bibliophile. As she reflects on her career, her experiences as a pupil, and her journey to becoming an adoptive parent, Atherton emphasises the vital, undervalued role teachers play, illustrates how essential reading is for developing our empathy, and makes a passionate case for the enduring power of literature.

As someone who had complicated feelings about school and English, I was intrigued to see how I would feel reading a book about all the boring books I read and studied in school. Will this change my thoughts about any of the books? Will it make me appreciate my English classes more? Overall, yes. I thoroughly enjoyed dissecting these stories and learning that we can still learn something from these texts even today many years/decades/centuries later. While in school I hated analysing texts, now as an adult and a bookseller who reviews and promotes books for a living, I love diving in and seeing what I can take away or notice from a story. I liked looking at these texts from different lenses and I enjoyed hearing all the anecdotes that Atherton shared about her time in the classroom both when she was a student and as a teacher. My favourite section had to be the one on A Kestral for a Knave. It nearly had me crying on my commute home!

Plot: What makes a good death? A good daughter? In 2009, with her forties and a harsh wave of austerity on the horizon, Marianne Brooker’s mother was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. She made a workshop of herself and her surroundings, combining creativity and activism in inventive ways. But over time, her ability to work, to move and to live without pain diminished drastically. Determined to die in her own home, on her own terms, she stopped eating and drinking in 2019. In Intervals, Brooker reckons with heartbreak, weaving her first and final memories with a study of doulas, living wills and the precarious economics of social, hospice and funeral care. Blending memoir, polemic and feminist philosophy, Brooker joins writers such as Anne Boyer, Maggie Nelson, Donald Winnicott and Lola Olufemi to raise essential questions about choice and interdependence and, ultimately, to imagine care otherwise.

A poignant book that tackles how as a society we view death, how we can and should support disabled people and how we give people agency within their death. This book caught me at the just the right time in my personal life and I read this book in one sitting. I laughed with Brooker and her mother and I cried with them. I got lost in the stories of their living room, their arts and crafts, their vegan quiche, everything. On one hand you get such a close and intimate look at a mother/daughter relationship navigating a situation that is new and scary for them alongside harrowing statistics on the treatment of disabled people here in the UK, on how we don’t have structures here to support low-income households, single parent households etc. I felt Brooker did a great job at using her own personal journey with her mother to convey bigger points on body autonomy, agency with death and shining a light on the staff that helped make her mother’s transition easier. It was a beautiful book tackling hard political and philosophical topics alongside one of the hardest things a human can experience, losing your closest loved one.

Plot: On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren – a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.  Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

I have a couple of books that have informed me on what I want to prioritise going into 2025 and, while I will speak more on that very soon, I do know I want to read more books that gets those cogs turning. This book was an amazing read and also hard work. I miss reading books that made me truly think and comprehend what the author wants to say. I loved the plot, loved the characters, the universe politics was so interesting and I can’t wait to read the sequel.

Plot: Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer. With these opening words Before the Fact ushers the reader into the dark and experimental world of Frances Iles’ crime fiction. In this classic novel first published in 1932, Iles flips the traditional mystery model of the crime genre to delve into the psychology, fears and motives of Lina as she navigates a life with her disquieting yet charismatic husband Johnnie – and the mounting peril of his murderous intentions. Written in the wake of Iles’ ground-breaking murderer’s-perspective novel Malice Aforethought, Before the Fact sees the author applying his signature flair for thrilling suspense and human insight to a twisting narrative from the viewpoint of a suspecting victim. Unsettling and gripping, this innovative classic was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s film Suspicion, and remains an arresting and unique work of literary artistry.

TOP 3!

So these books are the books that impacted me the most this year!

Plot: The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

This at the beginning of the year was the book that had been on my TBR the longest and after trying to prioritise it for two years!!!! It took my book group to make it happen. And what a book it was! Amazing world-building, incredibly interesting magic system, great characters and ending that leaves you desperately wanting more. Thankfully, while I did wait a long time to read it, it was not a disappointment.

Plot: Nothing about Semiramis’s upbringing could have foretold her legacy or the power she would come to wield. A female ruler, once an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire – certainly no one in Ancient Assyria would bend to her command willingly. Semiramis was a woman who knew if she wanted power, she would have to claim it. There are whispers of her fame in Mesopotamian myth- Semiramis was a queen, an ambitious warrior, a commander whose reputation reaches the majestic proportions of Alexander the Great. Historical record, on the other hand, falls eerily quiet. Costanza Casati brilliantly weaves myth and ancient history together to give Semiramis a voice, charting her captivating ascent to a throne no one promised her. The world Casati expertly builds is rich with dazzling detail and will transport her readers to the heat of the Assyrian Empire and a world long gone.

If you love complicated female characters, complicated male friendship dynamics, and political storylines similar to Game of Thrones and Ancient Civilisations/Mythology this book is for you! I never considered myself a character-focused reader or a reader who enjoys political storylines but Miss Casati had me eating my hat. I loved being nervous every time there was a council meeting or any time Semiramis didn’t honestly literally everything. I was on the edge of my seat for this entire book and despite this book being nearly 500 pages – you don’t feel it. Every word, every paragraph, every page is intentional and time flies by as you get lost in this gory, powerful, and intense world of Assyria. The characters in this story are so dynamic, tortured, and complicated. Not one interaction in this book is without intention, emotion, or poignancy. The power dynamics shift and change on a six pence and when you think you have figured these characters out Casati will through you a massive curveball that has you questioning the last 100 pages you have read. I could not put this book down. I was enveloped in it and had book blues after finishing it.

And my favourite book of 2024 goes to…

Plot: Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Have I killed someone? Yes. I have. Who was it? Let’s get started.