Hello dear readers. So, 2024 is over and done with. I did not finish my goal of 75 books this year but hit 65. I read 19 books published in the year 2024.  I read some old favorites and experienced a lot of new reads. I will break down my top five books published in 2024. I will share my top three books not published in 2024. Additionally, I will discuss three books that left me disappointed.

Top Five Books Published in 2024:

1: All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker was a front-runner for best book. I connected with it pretty early on when I read it. This book seems very divisive either you hate it or you love it. And man did I love this book. The book at its core is a mystery but the book is really about life and the choices you make. This is a melancholy mystery that is also filled with heart and hope. The simple plot is a boy interrupts a kidnapping of a girl and is instead taken. This event changes their lives. It affects the boy who was taken and his best friend who was in love with him. It also impacts the girl who was almost taken and the small town itself. All the Colors of the Dark starts in the 1970s and ends in the late 1990s. The mystery is fairly long at 600 hundred pages. However, the pages fly because of the book’s small chapters. Each chapter averages two and a half pages. The pace is even throughout the book. Two years ago Whitaker’s other book We Begin at the End blew me away. I consider All the Colors of the Dark to be the opus.

2: Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman is one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. I don’t tend to get scared while reading. However, this book drove up my heart rate. It had me looking around the corners of my house. I’m a big horror reader but I don’t usually get scared I could feel my heart pounding over the words. The story is told from an 8-year-old perspective and is extremely effective. Since the book is told from a child’s view we get the book if a child wrote it. The format took a little getting used to. Still, it was very effective in making the reader feel like a child. The quick plot: Bela is haunted by an entity she calls Other Mommy. This entity wants to go into Bela’s heart. She does not want Other Mommy in her heart, but it keeps asking. Other Mommy starts masking its appearance and voice. It mimics others to confuse Bela. This makes her feel compelled to let Other Mommy in her heart. This book spins the haunted house narrative on its head. If you haven’t checked out the novel Bird Box also by Malerman it is highly recommended.

3: The Women by Kristen Hannah If I read a book a Kristen Hannah book the year it was published it is going to make my top five. She has a way of making the reader feel every word. The Women is a powerhouse historical fiction that occurs before and after the Vietnam War. The novel examines the unsung roles that women had during the Vietnam War. 10,000 women served as nurses during the war. When the male soldiers came back from the war they were despised but the women were forgotten. The novel deals with the trauma of war and finding your place after it. Hannah is a writer who does not shy away from complex emotions. She also trusts the reader to see the hurt and sometimes unlikable characters. We get taken on a wave of emotions from hope to heartache. The novel is an emotional roller coaster of emotions. The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah is on my all-time best books list. If you have not checked it out, you need to.

4: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher was my number-one book for most of the year. This book is a very dark fable but written so well. A Sorceress Comes to Call is a loose retelling of Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm. The original story Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm is 5 pages long. It involves a princess, a little sorcery, and a horse named Falada who talks. T. Kingfisher has told an original story. It borrows Falada, the horse that talks. Kingfisher cut all the princess stuff and added a lot more sorcery. Kingfisher has added so much to the story making it scary, compassionate, and adding a lot of heart. The story is pretty simple. A mother is raising a daughter by herself. She is tired of being poor and wants to marry into a better class. She finds an older man to do just that. The sister can see that the mother isn’t marrying her brother for love, and tries to stop it. The story is interesting because the mother is a murderous sorceress. She will stop at nothing to move to a higher class of society.

5: The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim is my only four-star rated book to make the list but, the story has stuck with me. The ending of this book is very memorable and very crazy. The Eyes Are the Best Part is an eye-opening crazy serial killer/psychological horror debut. More people need to read this book for the discussions. I hated the main character. She goes to a level of crazy that at the end I kind of liked. This book has a kind of feminist theme. Most of the men are sexist, and the killer hunts them. However, not all of them are hunted. This novel reminded me of the lead characters in Death Note and the movie Nightcrawlers. Both characters went off the deep end. They are psychopathic at the end of the day. Yet, you’re kind of rooting for them just to pull it off.

Top Three Best Books Not Published in 2024:

1: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is one of my favorite writers his prose is often very quotable. He can get into the heart of the character and introduce us to the world they live in. He is very good at adding humor in bleak situations. A Gentleman in Moscow is a historical fiction. It tells the story of a former aristocrat under house arrest at the Metropol. This is Russia’s grand hotel located across from the Kremlin. The novel takes place in Moscow from just after the Russian Revolution 1922 – 1960s. The book despite its one location captures a lifetime events. The main character may be trapped but his spirit is not. The main character Count Alexander Rostov can charm anyone with his manners. His strength of will is infectious. It makes you reflect on your own life. You might ask, what am I complaining about? Rostov had nothing and still managed to live a life to be happy about. The pace of the book is steady. Some chapters are slower, and others are faster. But for a big book, the story flows well. The Lincoln Highway was my favorite of Amor Towles and on my best novels of all times list. Read it!

2: One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson is a mix of literature and mystery. The story is full of deeply flawed, quirky characters which are very memorable. The writing is very good in this atypical mystery. The mystery unfolds slowly. It takes a while for you, the reader, to understand what the mystery is all about. This story revolves around 7 characters who we all get perspectives from. This can sometimes be too much. I prefer 3 to 4 perspectives. However, Kate Atkinson is such a good character writer. I was never confused with whose perspective was in charge. As the story unfolds those 7 characters will be connected through happenstance and murder plots. The story reminded me a lot of the TV series Fargo. All the characters are so quirky. Each could lead their own story. Check out Life After Life by Kate Atkinson one of my top five books ever.

3: NOS4A2 by Joe Hill is an epic horror novel about a new vampire that steals children to stay young. The novel is no holes barred. It will show you the ugly side of life and even the hero. The novel will kill characters you care about as well. This novel is like “Die Hard” because it is a Christmas novel. However, Christmas is not heavily featured. There is room for argument, but it makes a pretty messed up version of a Christmas novel. Charlie Manx is a great terrifying villain. He thinks he’s doing the right thing. He rids children of their parents and all emotions except innocence. This transformation turns the kids into innocent monsters.

Most Disappointed Books Read in 2024:

1: The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes is an international spy thriller with a twist that jumps genres. This book was my most anticipated book of 2024 after reading I Am Pilgrim Terry Hayes’s debut. His follow-up, The Year of the Locust, is partly a great international spy thriller. It’s also partly a puzzling scenario. There’s a huge twist in this book that changes this book into a completely different genre and direction. I must say I did not like this twist. It’s really unfortunate because I was enjoying this novel up to this point. I won’t reveal the twist. However, I will compare it to Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull movie. You know when they involve aliens at the end and you think, does this fit? This action-adventure has the same effect I felt with this book.

2: End of Story by A.J. Finn is a mystery about a mystery author who saves all its suspense for the end. This novel is interesting because I was hooked by the premise right away. However, it takes 200 pages to get interesting and for something to happen. I liked A. J. Finn’s debut of The Woman in the Window. I only saw glimpses of the twisty excellent writing at the end of End of Story. I read the last 200 pages in 4 hours. It took me 12 days to read the first 200 pages. I wanted this novel to hook me the way The Woman in the Window did. Unfortunately, I was left very unfulfilled.

3: First Win Lies By Ashley Elston everyone seems to love this book but me. First Lie Wins is a psychological thriller about an organization of con men and women. The idea of long conning into a domestic partnership is great and had me hooked very fast. If the narrative stuck with this, it would be five stars. Yet, in the middle, the novel takes a turn that I was interested in at first. Then I figured everything out and was waiting for the turn that did not appear. The flashbacks slowed down the pace with only 2 out of the 10 were written exciting. There are turns in the story that were written so unexciting. There was one turn. The main character finds out someone close to her is working for her mysterious boss. She doesn’t try to figure out when they got turned. She also doesn’t consider if they were not the person they were the whole time.