remember 2024? best of

In 2024, I read 238 books. I’ve been reading at this pace for a few years now but  I stayed faithful to my Goodreads tally in order to track it. It feels like a perfect “I bet you’re wondering how we got here?!” moment. The answer is that I have always been a Reader. Reading a book is less of a choice that my body makes and more a reflex. Every book is an inhale. Every book is an exhale. I have always read at a clip that was mildly embarrassing to admit. I say this not to be braggadocio? Do people say braggadocio who aren’t flexing their vocab? UGH! I say this because I want to make clear that my reading stats are less about a goal I have to constantly egg myself on to accomplish and more the natural place my brain goes to when it seeks comfort, refuge, and pleasure. 

An important thing you have to know about me is that my mother is an English teacher. My mother is an English teacher and I am a reader. Put it on my tombstone. In the fifth grade, my mother was teaching high school drama and I memorized the entire prologue to Romeo and Juliet and recited it often. I wanted all my friends at my fifth birthday party to act out the play with me. HELLO, BRITT?! Is this cute or mildly insufferable? In seventh grade, my English class was asked to choose a fiction book that takes place during the Civil War. Now…most of my classmates defaulted to The Red Badge of Courage. I told my teacher I was going to read Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. I had to get my mom to sign a permission slip in order to let me read it (mind you, she was teaching English in the same building).  The movie had recently come out and we were never precious about ratings on movies in my family (Monster’s Ball remains the only movie I remember not being allowed to watch with my mom). For decades one of my favorite books was Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans. He of the Horse Whisperer fame. You cannot imagine the twists and turns that book takes. A love triangle for the ages. I was always drawn to epics: One Hundred Years of Solitude, East of Eden, Pillars of the Earth, Joy Luck Club. My mom’s annual plea for me to read Lonesome Dove. Her complete collection of Anita Shreve novels including Fortune’s Rocks, which if you know Shreve you know is one of her wildest rides. I was always drawn to a romantic plot, doomed though many of these might be. At seventeen, I got the stomach flu and watched Atonement on a loop for nearly twelve hours. Again and again and again. 

Suffice to say, I am obsessive by nature and feel like I should have made a best of 2024 list. Several months late…here it is.. I wrote a similar list for my friend Leonor’s newsletter but that was more about all the books I continue to reread or stay with me years after I have read them. I took a long scroll through my Read in 2024 list and this is what rose to the top:

• Come As You Are - Jess K. Hardy. Beautiful stuff right here, man! Main characters in their 40’s! Recovery stories! A single mom! A former Grunge rock star! Communication! This book is lovely and is a particular diamond in rough and I cannot recommend it enough. This book felt soothing and healing in the best way. I am absolutely ecstatic that it is going to be a series.  

• A Power Unbound - Freya Marske. Listen. If you were a Harry Potter kid and now feel absolutely bereft about the horror show that is JK Rowling…I think this book is for you. A gorgeous lush series finale featuring magic, queer characters, character development, and a thrill ride of an adventure. I want to be able to read this series for the first time every year. 

• Bride - Ali Hazelwood. Okay, I understand Ali Hazelwood may be reaching over exposure. I understand that this book was on a lot of lists. I absolutely think more contemporary writers should try their hand at paranormal which Ali absolutely nails here. This is a great paranormal beginner book…for me to continue to spread my Immortals after Dark ministry. 

• 10 Things That Never Happened - Alexis Hall. Here are all the reasons I did not think this book was for me: Christmas themed (I can rarely find a holiday romance I love!), closed door, almost 400 pages, contemporary (I am picky!). God, this book was laugh out loud funny. God, this book was adorable. If you have ever worked retail, particularly during the holidays, this book will fill your grinchy heart with joy. The chemistry, the banter, and the general sensual vibe of these two on page together absolutely balances out any of my other concerns. I had the most fun. 

• Seven Year Slip - Ashley Poston. I am fascinated by Poston. Mostly because I have loved every single one of her books and yet desperately wanted her to write one or two more chapters in each. They feel like magic spells. I don’t quite understand how the characters are going to transcend the actual mystical barrier that separates them and yet, somehow they always do! Poston brings it all together in a way that makes me cry every time and then quietly ends the book. I manage to feel equal parts irate and soothed. This one in particular, like the Kingstons I raved about before, really fixates on growth and aging into the your love story, somehow in the span of one summer and you guessed it! seven years.

• Vampires of El Norte - Isabel Cañas. Every single person who raves about this book is correct. It is a masterpiece. A HORROR paranormal romance. It features the most pathetic man in existence and the woman he loves. HE THOUGHT SHE WAS DEAD. SHE ISN’T!!!!! I don’t want to tell you more but you should read it right now. 

• Big Bad Wolf series - Charlie Adhara. I stumbled onto this series through a Reddit thread because I am always looking for more paranormal romance. It is a five book series with one spin off book so far. Six books total. Does it need six books to accomplish the love story? No. Did I love every minute of the development? Yes. Think X-Files but werewolves. Specifically, one surly secretive werewolf body builder type and one neurotic string bean human mess. I find that long series (typically more than 4 books total) soothe me especially in times of stress or chaos and this fit the bill entirely.

• Truth According to Ember - Danica Nava. Let heroines make bad decisions. I love this book because it involves mess. It involves characters being stupid and making mistakes. As I’ve said, not every romance novel should be aspirational. I think we should let them be shitbags sometimes. . ..like normal people! Ember tells one lie in this book for a good reason and then becomes trapped in the absolute mess that makes for everyone around her. Also this is an Indigenous Native American Own Voices book (Nava has a Indigenous cowboy romance coming out this summer too!!!). A similar favorite featuring a messy lie of a heroine is  Alicia Thompson’s The Art of Catching Feelings. You know I love a messy heroine.

• Most Wonderful Crime of the Year - Ally Carter. Now THIS is a holiday romance I love (why are there two on the list you ask after I said I don’t even like them that much….I contradict myself!). It is very Knives Out and relatively tame in terms of the romance but god, the YEARNING. Nothing I love more than finding out a playboy character is in fact smitten. Has in fact BEEN smitten for years. It hits both the reader and the heroine over the head like a cudgel. I was kicking my feet. 

• Burn for Me (and the whole series!) - Ilona Andrews. How did it take until the year of our Lord 2024 for me to read Ilona Andrews? First off, Ilona Andrews is a pen name for a husband and wife writing duo! What the actual fuck!?! You ask! I have no idea and I would love to know intimate details of their life…however, the Hidden Legacy series is really that girl. Now, I love a romantic thriller and I love a paranormal and this manages to combine the two. It is set in Houston, Texas and absolutely a feat of world building. Nevada, our heroine, is a classic overextended eldest daughter acting as the man of the family and Mad Rogan is several psychological issues in a trench coat with a great body. This book is amazing. The entire series is amazing. I read it at a startling breakneck pace from New Years Eve until the first few days of the year. Most duologies or series where a romance takes place over several books end with either a betrayal (every romantasy duology you know) or someone kidnapped/assumed dead (those Rebecca Ross books). THIS first book ends with Nevada being like “mmmm so you see I have a family to support and no free time and you might be a sociopath so like….don’t think I really want to date you right now.” Mad Rogan is like “ok bet! Thanks for the to-do list!” Reader, I was enthralled. These two have to WORK to be together and you get the absolutely front seat to that work. 

Notes on book buying:

I am mostly loyal to Tropes and Trifles, my friend Lauren’s romance only bookstore in Minneapolis. I do not live there but I do basically corral all my preorders (more on these soon!) monthly and get a huge box of books every single month. Unfortunately, I do not limit my book buying there. My local is Old Town Books which we frequent regularly along with Barnes and Noble as both my husband and son are also readers. I buy a lot on Ebay solely because so much of what I want is old mass markets, long out of print. McKay Used Books is similarly local to me and a nice way for me to sell books in order to buy books…I call that bartering! Though who can deny the “$150 in store credit or $20 cash?” I do have a Kindle Unlimited subscription and a Kindle and an account on Bookshop. I would love to break up with Amazon permanently but some indie authors I love are easiest for me to access there and I have been compiling books on my Kindle for years so the inventory is pretty vast. You could say I am an equal opportunity book buyer or less charitably, a hoarder.

Talk soon,

Britt