Janine’s Best of 2024

JanineBook Reviews / Recommended Reads / Top Ten ListsBest of 20247 Comments

With apologies for my lateness, here is a list of the six 2024-published books I liked enough to consider among the best I’ve read this year. I’ve listed the order in which I read them. -Janine

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a paranormal romance I’ve enjoyed this much. Misery, a vampire, and Lowe, a werewolf, enter into a marriage of convenience to calm the waters between their two species.

Misery’s real reason for marrying Lowe is her belief that he is connected to the disappearance of her best friend, Serena. Neither Misery nor Lowe has much faith in the other when they marry, but they get to know and like each other with a bit of help from Lowe’s six-year-old sister, Ana. But can Lowe’s pack trust Misery? Are they biologically compatible despite their species differences? And what happened to Serena?

Lowe was a sweetheart but it was Misery I loved, because she was an unusual central female character. Misery thinks of herself as, if not a villain, then not a particularly caring person. She feeds and houses Serena’s cat, but only grudgingly. Outside of her search for Serena, she starts out rudderless, disguised as a mortal in the human world and working in a job she doesn’t love with co-workers she isn’t friendly with.

But Misery doesn’t know herself that well. She was rejected by her family and other vampires as a kid, as well as targeted for assassination attempts, and this has made her a loner (but for Serena). Joining Lowe’s pack reveals new aspects of herself to Misery. It turns out that she can zing with the best of them but she’s also a softie on the inside.

Lowe had sacrificed his studies in architecture, a calling that he loved, to lead the pack when a leader was needed. I would have liked to know more about whether he missed it. I liked the subplot about the search for Serena, and another about a traitor in Lowe’s pack. Misery’s vampire family was intriguing, and so is the world. There’s foreshadowing that the MMC of the next book will be a were but I hope we eventually get one who is a vampire.

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The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The first book in Robert Jackson Bennett’s new series, Shadow of the Leviathan, The Tainted Cup is largely about Dinios Kol, who is called to the scene of a murder early on. Din isn’t an investigator but an engraver, someone who was modified to be able to recall every detail of a scene or event. It isn’t as easy for him as some think, because his modification came with dyslexia, and that makes it hard for him to write reports. He keeps that a secret and finds other, more creative ways to do his job.

The murder weapon was a tree seeded inside the victim, which then grew out of his body (disturbing to say the least). The murdered man was guest in the house of a wealthy and powerful family when the crime took place. Din records what he has seen and awaits the arrival of an investigator.

When Ana Dolbara finally appears, she is eccentric (for example, blindfolding herself to sense approaching earthquakes) but brilliant, and she asks Din to serve as her assistant. Din, who has been unable to advance due to his disability, jumps on the chance but fears she’ll discover his secret. Thus begins a Watson and Sherlock type of partnership.

Together, Din and Ana journey to the city where the murder was set in motion. Their inquiry is met with hidden stonewalling and odd clues. The world itself is marvelously strange. Sea monsters called Leviathans present a danger to everyone, but their bodies also provide the source for many genetic modifications of people, animals, and plants. The author excels at worldbuilding and this world is even more original and fully realized than the one in the Founders Trilogy.

It took me a while to warm to Din but by the end of the book I loved him. He grows in both skills and confidence, for all that he starts out with a strong case of impostor syndrome and afraid that his secret will come out and end his run as Ana’s assistant. He is also honorable yet willing to bend the rules. There is a subtle m/m romance for him, though it’s unclear if it will develop further in later books. All in all, this was a terrific book.

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A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke

This novel clearly takes its inspiration from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but I liked it better. The main character’s journey begins when she is only nine, in 1885. Aubrey Tourvel finds a magical ball (it moves on its own) and when her sisters urge her to throw it in an equally strange well as an altruistic sacrifice, she refuses. Shortly afterward she and her family discover that she will start bleeding out if she doesn’t move away every three or so days.

This pattern continues, forcing Aubrey and her mother to keep moving. What’s worse, they cannot backtrack, only go to places where Aubrey has not been. At age twelve, Aubrey strikes out on her own while her mother is sleeping, and begins a challenging, itinerant life.

Aubrey is a resourceful character. It’s not simple to earn a living while moving every three days, but Aubrey finds a way. It’s not easy to make friends or find connection, but Aubrey does form relationships, including a few with lovers. Her life is hard, but she doesn’t whine. She’s not a Pollyanna by any means, and it’s clear such a life must be wearying at times, but she doesn’t complain a lot and she doesn’t lose her sense of wonder.

Aubrey’s journey takes the reader from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, and through many locations in our own world, as well as to an otherworldly, eerie library. I loved the multiple settings, as each had its own sense of place. The people Aubrey met were each interesting, too.

Aubrey does wonder what supernatural force is driving her journey, and that is only partially answered at the end of the book. It didn’t bother me because I don’t mind some loose ends, but YMMV. This was a lovely read.

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“After Hours,” in the anthology Buried Deep by Naomi Novik

“After Hours” is a short story set in the Scholomance world. I’m not actually sure to what degree it stands on its own and whether someone who hasn’t read the Scholomance trilogy or at least A Deadly Education would get a lot out of this story. But I loved it.

Beata is a freshman witch at the Scholomance, a school for wizardry, and although the place has improved since the events of The Golden Enclaves, things still do go bump in the night there occasionally. The school now automatically matches students with roommates who will help them and whom they will help, only it screwed up very badly with Beata and her new roommate, Jayne.

Beata treats people well, for the most part, but her roommate Jayne, raised in a fancy enclave, is a snob of the first degree. When Beata starts to tell Jayne that she can’t fill Beata’s drawer with all her stuff because Beata needs some space for her things too, Jayne sneers. In retaliation Beata tells her that whatever she leaves where it doesn’t belong will turn to dust by morning, and when Jayne only says, “Oh, right,” and shields her things, thinking that will be sufficient, she suffers the consequences.

From this chilly beginning their relationship only gets colder, with Jayne preventing Beata from bartering for what she needs by making sure that no one goes to Beata for magical help. But just as they are at their iciest comes a pivotal night when Beata decides to sneak down to the supply room to get the materials she needs.

“After Hours” had what I loved best about the Scholomance books: a journey from cynical isolation to heartwarming camaraderie. While things go differently for Beata than they do for El in the original trilogy—Beata is neither in as much danger or as powerful as El—she’s still full of the same endearing snark. I hope Novik gives us more Scholomance stories because this one was so good I read it twice.

Jennie’s review.

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Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thrope

This one is an odd duck in the literary world. It has half its foot in literary fiction (the author has also won literary prizes in the past, and this novel made it onto some prestigious lists) but its other foot is firmly in the popular fiction for women category. It even has a cartoon cover.

The story concerns a twenty-year-old single mother who had an affair with her (married) college professor. She is let go from her job because of difficulties finding a sitter or day care, and to make ends meet, goes on OnlyFans (for those who don’t know, it’s a site where you get nude for your fans, and they pay for that privilege). Margo is scrappy and while at first I wasn’t sure about her by the end of the book I really liked her.

There’s a subplot about her parents. Margo and her mother are what snootier people might call “trailer trash” although they have no trailer. Margo is a lot smarter than people might give her credit for. Her mom has been courting, in a way, a man she hopes will marry her—she’s never been married; Margo is the result of her affair with a wrestler who later became a wrestling manager—and this man is a minister, so of course, Margo’s out-of-wedlock motherhood and new profession threaten her mother’s goal. Meanwhile, Margo’s father, formerly more available to his “real” family than to Margo, reenters her life. This yields both benefits and problems.

There is also Margo’s sort-of love life, but the love at the center of this book is Margo’s adoration for her son, Bodhi. She is a loving and committed mother, and I appreciated the way the book did not set this up in opposition to her work.

A clever literary device is used — when it’s difficult to acknowledge a mistake or relate a painful event she doesn’t want to reexperience, narrator Margo switches from first person to third person. Occasionally the book also gets meta, once or twice commenting on this device.

The book might be described by some as a coming-of-age novel; Margo certainly matures a lot over the course of it. But I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s a book about adulting. Margo has to accept adult responsibilities in the first chapter, so the book isn’t really about that kind of journey. It’s about how she navigates the dilemmas that come with those responsibilities.

Periodically, Margo asks herself if she’s a bad person, to have had the affair with her professor, to have brought her baby into the world unprepared for what it would mean, and to earn their living in the way she does. The book answers with “no” and of course not every reader will feel that way. It was the right answer for me, though, and I recommend this novel.

Jayne’s review.

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The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

Set in 1908 Manchuria and Japan, The Fox Wife is the story of a fox shapeshifter named Snow. It is said in Manchuria that there are foxes who can transform themselves into humans, and they are known for fooling or swindling people, or worse, preying on them. But the reality is a bit different. There are foxes who do this and ones who don’t. Snow doesn’t.

Snow is on a quest to avenge her child. Her cub was murdered and now Snow is pursuing the man responsible. Upon arriving in Dailan after a journey from Mukden, Snow realizes she lacks a plan. Without really meaning to, she parlays two geese she purchased on a whim into a job opportunity. Her new employer hires Snow to be her personal maid because she has a strong shadow and therefore can’t be a ghost.

Meanwhile, there’s Bao, a man who was taken to a fox shrine when he was a child (his governess and some other people worship foxes, but this is considered an ignorant practice by most). No matter how hard Bao tries to remember the reason his governess took him there, he can’t. But ever since that visit, Bao has had the ability to hear lies. Whenever someone lies, he hears a buzzing sound that almost makes him ill. Ultimately, this aids him in becoming an investigator.

Now in his sixties, Bao is hired by a restaurant owner in Mukden. It seems the restaurant’s cleaner found a beautiful young woman—perhaps a courtesan—frozen to death, her body sitting against the back door of the establishment, wearing fine clothes and a beatific smile. The owner needs to know who she is to be able to give her a religious service. The restaurant’s luck has taken a turn for the worse and her disturbed spirit may be the cause.

Bao agrees to take the case, little knowing that it will lead him on a journey that tracks Snow’s. The two storylines are connected, but the reader doesn’t know how for a while.

The Fox Wife is fresh and unusual. Snow’s grief for her child is palpable and her need for revenge understandable. She is loyal to her new employer almost from the start. There are a couple of other fox characters and they, like Snow, were vivid. Bao’s quest, while not as driven, is nevertheless dogged, fueled by a lifelong fascination with foxes.

The plot is intricate and full of coincidences, but these are ascribed to fate drawing these people together, so I was able to go with it. Though it had a measured pace, The Fox Wife pulled me in. I wanted to know how the two searches would intersect and end. The mystery/investigation was constructed well, and the legwork felt substantial, which I always like. Bao follows one clue to the next with persistence and determination.

The writing is full of immersive details about the place and time, as well as beautiful figurative language. At times the book has a melancholy tone. I wasn’t sure, as I read, if the ending would be happy or sad. I don’t want to spoil that so I’ll hide the answer. But regardless, I found it satisfying.

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Now I want to hear from you, readers. Did you read any of these? Did they work for you, or does your taste run in a different direction? And what other thoughts do you have about my selections?

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