Are you celebrating the end of this tumultuous year with a big throwdown or are you planning to ring in the holidays on your couch in pajamas? Either way, I’m betting you still have presents to buy…and nothing fits better in a UPS envelope or a Christmas stocking than a nicely wrapped book. Here are my recommendations for your shopping list, twenty-four of the best books I read in 2024, though not all were published this year. I’ve even given you some help figuring out who to buy them for…
- THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST by Claire North
Harry August is dying for the eleventh time and knows what lies ahead of him: rebirth on exactly the same day in exactly the same body, with all the knowledge of his previous existences. Only this time a little girl comes to his hospital bed with a message and a mission: a devastating future that can only be stopped by a man like him, a man who can lay a trap through multiple lives and multiple centuries.
Buy for: your speculative fiction/sci-fi loving boyfriend who can’t get enough of time travel TV shows. He’ll break his brain in the best possible way following the time-loop machinations of this one.
- THE JEWEL OF THE BLUES by Monica Chenault-Kilgore
Starry-eyed Lucille Love is a girl with a big voice and bigger dreams, hoping to get off the small-time vaudeville circuit and become a real star. When a sharp new manager rebrands Lucille as the star of the Black Troubadours, she’s convinced her chance at fame and fortune has come—but an ugly secret lurking in her family’s past rears its head to threaten everything she has worked for.
Buy for: your blues-loving aunt who collects Josephine Baker recordings on vinyl. She’ll relish this behind-the-scenes look at the world of Prohibition jazz in Jim Crow America.
- THE SEVENTH VEIL OF SALOME by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A pensive Mexican ingenue becomes the talk of Tinseltown when she lands the part of Salome in a big-budget sword-and-sandal biblical epic; meanwhile a jealous starlet schemes to steal her place in the spotlight. Against their splashy soundstage drama, the real Salome (or is she?) tells her own story of love, revenge, and betrayal.
Buy for: your classic film buff neighbor who knows every word of “Ben Hur.” She’ll be fascinated at this deep dive into Golden Age Hollywood’s racist underbelly.
- THE BOOK EATERS by Sunyi Dean
Starts as a fascinating horror/fantasy about a hidden race of vampire-like people who eat books instead of blood, and evolves into a dark fable on the sinister side of motherhood and just how many abusive controlling men a desperate mother-on-the-run will be willing to bury to protect her children. (Pretty much all of them.)
Buy for: the newly divorced mom in your playground group. She’ll reflect that while custody arrangements are no picnic, at least she’s not snacking on mass-market paperbacks while perpetually fleeing from sinister mind-sucking creatures bent on turning her child into a brain-washed attack zombie.
- THE OBSESSION by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Teenaged Logan has found his dream girl in Delilah, whose every move he lovingly chronicles through a hidden camera trained on her house (he’s not a stalker; he’s romantic!) He isn’t fazed when Delilah doesn’t return his love; he can make her change her mind—especially when his camera catches her fighting back against her abusive stepfather and killing him. What’s a little blackmail between Prince Charming and his dream girl? Logan is about to find out.
Buy for: your teenage niece who’s just started dating. Follow up with a long discussion about what red flags look like in otherwise perfect-seeming partners.
- THE FOX WIFE by Yangsze Choo
In the dying days of the Qing empire, a dogged detective with the ability to quite literally sniff out truth finds himself on the trail of a mercurial, charming, and elusive fox spirit named Snow who is seeking justice for her murdered child. From China to Japan and into the realms of myth, detective follows fox as the bodies begin to stack up.
Buy for: your younger brother who has always dreamed of walking the Great Wall of China. He’ll love this clever blend of history and folklore in the Celestial Empire.
- MADEMOISELLE EIFFEL by Aimie K.Runyan
Budding artist Claire Eiffel must put aside her own ambitions when her mother dies, becoming right-hand-woman to her devastated architect father Gustave Eiffel, substitute mother for her band of siblings, and eventually wife to the engineer who will inherit her father’s company. She watches the Eiffel Tower rise over the skyline of Belle Epoque Paris…but would it ever have risen at all without the unseen work from Claire that props up her famous father?
Buy for: That heroically over-worked woman in your life, be it friend or sister-in-law or colleague, who a) deserves a trip to Paris and will enjoy walking the boulevards in these pages, and b) deserves to have all the physical and emotional labor she does every day for her family fully recognized and appreciated, just like Claire.
- SMALL MERCIES by Dennis Lehane
In the summer of 1974, Boston is already simmering under a heat wave and the threat of violence over the desegregation of the city’s schools. The match that sets off the explosion is tough-as-nails Southie mom Mary Pat who goes on the war-path when her teenage daughter goes missing—a quest that leads her to the death of a Black teenager and the mysterious involvement of the local Irish mob. Surely the three can’t be related…or can they?
Buy for: your grandma, who not only remembers the desegregation riots of the seventies but who you know would absolutely pick up a gas can and a gun and take on a mob boss if one of her children was on the line.
- FAMILIA by Lauren E. Rico
Magazine fact-checker Gabby is stunned when a routine Ancestry.com inquiry informs her she has a sister in San Juan—one who has desperately been trying to find her. Artist Isabella is thrilled to think that her long-disappeared baby sister might have turned up at last, but Gabby is less unenthusiastic about connecting. Both women navigate the thorns of their new relationship as they unravel the mystery of how the infant Gabby disappeared in the first place.
Buy for: your sister, of course. You’ll hear yourselves in Gabby and Isabella as they claw, snipe, squabble, and fight their way to a place as sisters in truth and not just blood.
- THE FAMILIAR by Leigh Bardugo
Scrappy, unscrupulous Luzia uses her magical gift simply to make life easier in her days of toil as a scullion in Renaissance Madrid. But when her gifts are seen by the wrong set of eyes, Luzia ends up a pawn in a series of magical trials for a king desperate for weapons against England’s heretic queen. Luzia navigates the trials as she comes to realize the King is less dangerous than the Inquisition…and the hovering Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar with his own sinister goals, is the most dangerous of all.
Buy for: that romantasy-loving girlie in your life who is on her third reread of FOURTH WING and ACOTAR. She’ll relish the dark romance at the heart of this magical-Hunger-Games-set-in-Renaissance-Spain.
- THE LOST STORY by Meg Shaffer
Fifteen-year-old Rafe and Jeremy disappear into a vast West Virginia forest, only to reappear unharmed six months later with no explanation for how they survived. Estranged as adults, Rafe is haunted by those missing months while Jeremy becomes a famous missing persons investigator. When orphaned Emily turns up asking for help finding her sister who went missing in the same forest, her quest will reunite Rafe and Jeremy and open a door to the magical world where two teenage boys once found sanctuary…and love.
Buy for: your bisexual teenage godson. He’ll love the adventure, the Legolas-style feats of archery, and most of all the tender m/m romance between two best friends who slowly fall in love.
- THE GOOD GERMAN by Joseph Kanon
Former war correspondent Jake Geismer leaps at the chance to return to postwar Berlin for the Potsdam conference—not only a plum job, but the chance to find Lena, the German lover he left behind in the outbreak of WWII. But his search for Lena leads him into a snake-pit conspiracy of murder and complicity as starving civilians desperately seek to prove that they weren’t one of the bad Germans, and Allied leadership is already looking ahead to the next war.
Buy for: your old college roommate who ended up a human rights attorney. She’ll be riveted by the thoughtful way this novel explores huge themes of guilt, complicity, and survivor’s guilt—and the way Kanon doesn’t let the reader off the hook with easy solutions to those questions, but simply lets them hang and linger.
- TOKEN by Beverley Kendall
Kennedy Mitchell is smart, savvy, and sick of being the only Black woman in the office—so she channels her frustration into the creation of Token, a boutique agency that helps “diversity-challenged” companies and celebrities with scandals to clean up. But when Kennedy’s ex needs his corporate reputation repaired, she realizes she’s going to end up with a PR scandal all her own.
Buy for: your fabulously smart Black maid-of-honor who you’ve seen climb from cubicle to entrepreneur, the one you texted the moment you finished this book with an all-caps “THIS IS SO YOU.”
- BEARTOWN by Fredrik Backman
Welcome to a small town on the edge of a snowy forest with nothing going for it but its junior hockey team, which is finally going all the way thanks to a star player and an ace manager. But when the star player sexually assaults the manager’s daughter, the fallout from the rape will echo shockingly through the community. No need to be a hockey fan to enjoy this one; it’s a character deep-dive of stunning poignancy and power.
Buy for: your sports-loving dad. He’ll be hooked by the thrilling moments on the ice yet walk away with lots of food for thought about sports culture—how it’s threaded with misogyny and violence, but how it can unite and elevate if people don’t give in to their worst instincts. He’ll immediately buy the next two books in the trilogy.
- THE BALLAD OF JACQUOTTE DE LA HAYE by Briony Cameron
Shipwright Jacquotte Delahaye finds herself forced into indentured servitude for the ruthless Blackhand, a pirate captain who rules the waters around Santo Domingo. Struggling to protect her friends and maybe win the heart of the mysterious Teresa who labors alongside her, Jacquotte will end up making a bid for captaincy in her own right—with thrilling consequences.
Buy for: your gay book club host. She absolutely needs this story about a Black lesbian female pirate who kicks ass, loves her girlfriend, and takes no prisoners.
- THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White
Murder strikes at a gothic castle in the Scottish Highlands when a famous literary wunderkind is found dead under suspicious circumstances. Immediately under suspicion are the three authors visiting the castle on a joint research trip—a slinky erotica writer, a Southern cozy-mystery author, and a straitlaced historical novelist who claim to be BFFs writing a book together. But are they really?
Buy for: your favorite critique partner in your writing group. She’ll snicker, she’ll cackle, she’ll howl at all the writing/publishing in-jokes.
- COUNTERFEIT by Kirstin Chen
Chinese-American lawyer turned stay-at-home-mom Ava feels her carefully constructed life crumbling under the weight of a fading marriage and a toddler who won’t stop screaming—and that’s when her college roommate Winnie drops back into her life, toting a Birkin bag and looking on top of the world. But Winnie’s success is built on a scheme: counterfeit designer handbags imported from China and sold to label-conscious Americans. And she needs a partner with a US passport…
Buy for: your fashionista work buddy who lives for designer totes. She’ll love this peek into the world of high-end fashion hustling, even if it does have her side-eying her newest Prada (“Prada”?) bag.
- THE BROKEN EARTH trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
Across a continent racked by earthquakes, one class of magic users is feared above all others: earth mages called orogenes who can calm tremors, or cause them. When an orogene gone rogue tears a rift across the continent that will doom most of the empire, one woman alone does not care—a mother named Essun who comes home to discover her husband has murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. What unfolds is a vast, complicated, intensely moving tale that spans three novels and thousands of years.
Buy for: Your geologist uncle who goes starry-eyed for rocks and fault lines. He’ll love this story where stone geeks get to save the world.
- THE LEFTOVER WOMAN by Jean Kwok
Two women on an emotional collision course: Jasmine Yang, traveling from China to New York City two steps ahead of her controlling husband, searching for the daughter who was taken from her at birth; and Rebecca Whitney, a high-flying editor with a prestigious career, handsome husband, and much-loved adopted Chinese daughter. When their lives collide, everything will be up for grabs.
Buy for: your church/mosque/synagogue friend who has been considering overseas adoption. She’ll come away with a lot of thoughtful, complicated questions about it all.
- THE GUNCLE ABROAD by Steven Rowley
Gay Uncle Patrick, aka the Guncle, is back! And he’s more fabulous than ever, helping his niece and nephew navigate the tricky emotional shoals of watching their dad remarry in a swanky European wedding on Lake Como. Can the Guncle save the wedding, teach two moody teens all about love, and salvage his own love life in the process? Of course he can.
Buy for: the office Secret Santa you don’t know very well. Because EVERYBODY is sure to love the Guncle.
- NAVOLA by Paolo Bacigalupi
Navola is a bustling city-state where business is power and power is all…and if Navola is clearly a fantasy version of Renaissance Florence, its ruling family the di Regulai are just as clearly the Medici, a powerful trading family with tendrils everywhere. Shy, sweet Davico di Regulai is heir to it all, and fears he will never be strong or ruthless enough to take the reins. A lethal strike against his family may prove him right…or will it?
Buy for: your Renaissance history loving mom, who grouses regularly that historical fantasy is just way too medieval-England centric. She’ll savor every minute of the Machiavellian politicking and scheming in this richly-drawn historical fantasy world.
- GIRLS WITH BAD REPUTATIONS by Xio Axelrod
Kayla keeps her life firmly separated: perfect daughter for her high-achieving family by day, drummer for an all-girl rock band called the Lillys by night. But now that the Lillys are poised on the cusp of stardom, the barriers between her two worlds are crumbling—and the addition of Ty, quiet driver for the band tour bus who has a boatload of his own baggage, isn’t helping (regardless of how attractive he is).
Buy for: your little cousin who’s in a band. She’ll adore this series about the Lillys, a tight-knit batch of passionate musicians whose every rehearsal scene, jamming session, and concert set rings absolutely grittily true.
- THE MINISTRY OF TIME by Kaliane Bradley
A British-Cambodian civil servant in near-future London lands the job of a lifetime: assist a time travel mission by acting as “bridge” i.e. roommate/monitor to a man recently plucked out of history and relocated to the present. Commander Graham Gore should have died on a doomed 19th century Arctic expedition, but now he finds himself grappling with 21st century life, a 21st century woman…and a sinister government plot that envelops them both just as love does.
Buy for: your grandfather who’s already obsessed with 19th century explorers. He’ll love the time travel twist on the famous Franklin expedition, not to mention the fish-out-of-water fun to be had watching a Victorian gentleman grapple with concepts like women in pants, Spotify, and the collapse of the British Empire.
- THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME by Jayne Allen
Burned-out artist Chelsea is heading into the holidays in bad need of inspiration, and Chicago powerhouse Ramona dreads the annual family festivities where she will finally have to confess that her wedding is off—a house swap for the holidays offers them both the escape they need. As Ramona finds both ocean serenity and unwelcoming neighbors at Chelsea’s Malibu beach house and Chelsea rekindles her artistic fire thanks to Ramona’s city condo and charming adopted brother, both women will have to figure out what they really want—for the holidays and beyond.
Buy for: That person in your life, whoever they are, who really, really, REALLY needs a dose of Christmas cheer. And don’t we all?
Get thee to a bookstore, and happy holidays!
