Bookish love wrap up, 2024

A mood reader's list of recommended books

Season’s greetings, travellers.

I hope the solstice and the turning of the year are treating you well, where-ever you are. I am holding onto the bright spark of hope that is the fact that tonight is longest night, so tomorrow the light will start to return.

I am usually pretty late getting my Christmas bookbuying post up, but this year feels more last minute and hectic than usual so I’ve given up and decided this will do just as well for post-Christmas bookshop sales recommendations - I can’t be the only one out there who always asks for book tokens & spends Boxing day planning my buying spree??

Oh, but before I get into the delicious books, a little housekeeping. I have shifted around my paid subscription set up slightly, and created a tip jar for anyone who would like to support the work I do on a more ad hoc basis. I’ll be posting the tip jar link at the end of each free post from now on. My intention is always to offer the vast majority of my blogs for free (because accessibility etc etc), and not to push ‘recruitment’ (ugh) into paid subscriptions. But if you like what I do, please do consider leaving a tip. I (and my cats) would appreciate the support.

RIGHT THEN. Onward.

I like breaking my list down by mood rather than genre, as pfft what is genre anyway, right? And as always please bear in mind that I have only read a small handful of the books released this/last year, and I loved too many of them to reasonably fit in a newsletter. So this is absolutely not a best of list, it’s just a ‘these are some of the books that brought me joy this year, don’t they sound great?’ list. Catchy, huh? If your book isn’t here, please take it as read that I still loved it and love you and want you to keep writing please and thank you.

Okay, first up … how about some high action funtimes?

A Reluctant Spy - David Goodman. A great high tech, high octane spy thriller that plays with the classic spy fic model in a really fresh, interesting way.

The Last Murder At The End Of The World - Stuart Turton. Part thriller, part dystopia, part murder mystery but defying all three of these labels. As innovative and tangled as you’d expect from a Turton book, and brilliant throughout.

Red Rabbit - Alex Grecian. Man, this is a marvellous book. Superbly dark, fresh, twisted and engrossing. A western novel made into something entirely new.

Queen High - CJ Carey. The sequel to the captivating Widowland. This is an alt history dystopia that just keeps luring you in and then punching you in the best way possible.

Next up, something futuristic and bold

Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh. Winner of this year’s Hugo Award and no wonder. This book, it’s exploration and unpicking of indoctrination and political manipulation, omg it’s so powerful and important and brilliant. Read it.

The Ministry Of Time - Kaliane Bradley. A fascinating take on time travel, adding into the mix climate fic, a historic mystery, and a (to me) resonant exploration of the mixed race experience.

Rose/House - Arkady Martine. Take a haunted house in a desert, but make it AI. This is a hypnotic novella doing interesting things with a very timely premise.

Interstellar Megachef - Lavanya Lakshminarayan. The Ten Percent Thief was one of my fav reads last year, so I was excited for this. The premise and tone couldn’t be more different - ‘bake off in space!’ - but this fast, funny book is layered with thoughtfulness beneath the delicious surface.

What about some historical fiction (usually with a spec twist because whyever not)

The Silence Factory - Bridget Collins. A subtle, powerful portrayal of a marriage and of so much more - capitalism, power imbalances and agency. I love the way Collins builds quiet, gripping tension.

The Warm Hands Of Ghosts - Katherine Arden. This historic, speculative book broke me. I cried, friends. Set in the chaos and horror of the First World War, this is a book about trauma and family and the terrible lure of the dark, and it is a thing of wonder.

The Last Song Of Penelope - Claire North. I mean, I love everything North turns their hand to, and frankly it’s a little annoying for one person to be so talented. But I’ll forgive them, because I just love their rendition of Penelope. She’s so vastly human and heartbreaking and relatable.

The King’s Messenger - Susanna Kearsley. Subterfuge, shenanigans and love in 17th Century newly united Britain. What can I say. I just adore the way this woman writes history, politics and romance. I inhale every book she writes.

Want some wierd, genre blending gorgeousness? I gotchu.

The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa. This feels like a high concept thriller, but reads like a quiet, sparse exploration of disempowerment and silence. Fascinating and wonderful.

Saturnalia - Stephanie Feldman. This is a wild mix of genres - fabulism, climate fiction, gothic, feminist suspense. It reminded me a little of Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream but not in any way I can pin down. Just the vibes, man. Such good dreamlike vibes.

Out Of The Drowning Deep - AC Wise. Wise never fails to deliver and this SF murder mystery deconstruction of humanity and faith is every bit as splendid as it sounds. Read it.

Extremophile - Ian Green. This punk eco science thriller is an absolute, unrelenting blast. It is a wild, dark, funny, disturbing ride from beginning to end, and carries a profound, fierce hope at its heart.

Folklore & mythology, witches and the wilderness more your thing?

Dark Woods, Deep Water - Jelena Dunato. A deliciously dark Slavic folklore inspired fantasy full of dark bargains and hungry gods. This was a brilliant debut by an exciting new author.

The Briar Book Of The Dead - AG Slatter. Bringing us witches, messy family relationships and a tangled tale bedded in Slatter’s expanding world, this was immensely enjoyable.

The Cautious Traveller’s Guide To The Wasteland - Sarah Brooks. A fantastic, in every sense of the word, debut taking the Trans-Siberian Express into unchartered territory. I adored the world and the characters equally, and can’t wait to see what Brooks brings us next.

Gorse - Sam Horton. A love letter to Cornish folklore and the Cornish moors, this historic folkloric story of faith and the fey carries itself on a strong storyteller voice that feels fresh and ageless at the same time.

The Bone Diver - Angie Spoto. A selkie tale unlike any other, this is Scottish folklore at its most dark and beautiful. Spoto has a spellbinding way with stories & I cannot wait to see what she does next.

(no I didn’t sneak an extra one in that category, you’re imagining things)

And lastly how about some straight up fantasy done really damn well?

Divine Rivals - Rebecca Ross. A fun, original YA that plays on familiar ideas of gods and destined lovers, and makes them into something that feels entirely new. Rival war correspondents, magic typewriters and political conspiracies abound in this fab read.

Still The Sun - Charlie Holmberg. I always love the worlds Holmberg builds and this book is no exception, but I particularly loved the exploration of memory in this story of an isolated town, a mystery and the woman at the heart of an unfolding disaster.

Seasparrow - Kristin Cashore. This is book…5? in the series/world that started with Fire, and coming back to it always feels like a hug. Such gentle, well woven narratives that carry emotional weight and darkness, and just keep adding depth to the world Cashore has built.

The Unmaking of June Farrow - Adrienne Young. I love Young’s ability to build strangeness and wonder into the contemporary. This is another very real world familiar setting, but with a fantastical secret slowly, heartbreakingly, unravelling at its heart.

By the looks of this list, I was seriously into my fabulism and fantasy this year, whether second world, historical or contemporary. Much less into SF or straight non-speculative fiction. I guess I’ve needed a dash of magic to get me through. I hope this tempts you to try a few of these books out or buy them for others. And please share your top recommendations in the comments, I’d love to see which books you’ve loved this year.

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Many thanks for reading and supporting this blog. I’ll be back soon with book diary updates and some thoughts on interiority, pacing and writing ‘quieter’ books.