Kaetrin’s Best of 2024 list – the top 12

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KaetrinBook Reviews / Need A Rec! / Recommended Reads / Top Ten ListsAnthology / Best of 2024 / Contemporary / mystery / SFF9 Comments

I met my Goodreads challenge of 100 books this year with a few to spare – in looking at my five star reads I realised I had an exceptionally high percentage of them – around 30%. For this list I disregarded those books released before 2024, re-reads or re-listens and non-romance books (mainly SFF and non-fiction) to get to a more manageable number. That left me with 17! I had to do some more culling. Then I decided that where I had more than one book from a particular author I had to pick just one (although I gave myself permission to mention the other). That still left more than 10 so I decided I’d do a top 12. Maybe it will be a new trend.

In no particular order, they are:

Pink background with orange title and dark blue author name at top and dark blue palm trees at the bottom. The Bad Reputation by Emma Barry. Intimacy coordinators are in the news again lately, as are evil producers so Bad Reputation feels even more topical. More than that, it’s a great book, with insightful dialogue, sharp humour, warmth and charm – and a fantastic idea for a TV series.

“Would you?” Cole asked, with the kind of smile she could feel in her inner thighs.

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When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein. Good lord this one made me laugh. It was so charming and sweet and sexy and super funny.  (Honourable mention to How to Help a Hungry Werewolf – I enjoyed both books very much but Sunshine edged out Werewolf for my top pick.)

“Well, at least tell me why you did it.”

“As if I have the first fucking clue. Mabel, I don’t know why I do anything. A fact that you well know after the meeting debacle. And the phone call debacle. And the restaurant debacle. And the Starbucks debacle.”

She rolled her eyes. “I get it. You have a lot of debacles.”

“Yet you’re surprised this happened.”

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Illustrated cover featuring a dark-haired white couple in jeans and tees having cocktails at a wooden bar overlooking a lake. The background is purple mountains and the red sun going down in front of an orange sky.Funny Story by Emily Henry. I look forward to Emily Henry books every year. Her books are reliably fantastic.

The thing, it would seem, Miles has been hiding all along is that he’s diabolically handsome, with angular cheekbones and a jaw that sort of looks like it might cut your fingertips if you were to run a hand over it. Or your tongue. You know, whatever.

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Illustrated cover with green background featuring a tattooed and stubbled dark-haired white guy with a backwards baseball cap wearing a yellow half-untucked golf shirt and khaki pants looking back over his shoulder at a pretty red-haired white girl in a white tee and purple skirt, holding binoculars, who is on his back piggy-back style.Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey. Fangirl Down is my favourite Tessa Bailey since It Happened One Summer. I have always been a sucker for a man who is totally gone for his lady and Wells Whittaker is just that. This book is both funny and oh my god scorching hot.  (Honourable mention to The Au Pair Affair – both books were fantastic but Wells Whittaker was my catnip.)

Wells.” She tried to slow him down, but her heels only skidded in the grass. “Golfers don’t bring their caddies to the media tent.”

“This one does.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Josephine,” Wells fired back over his shoulder. “I just . . . have this pretty intense need to make sure everyone knows you’re very fucking important. Okay? Could you kindly just go along with it?”

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Illustrated cover in a cartoon style showing a smiling blonde girl (with no eyes - why??) in a short black dress sitting on a pink bench against a purple background.The Dixon Rule by Elle Kennedy I didn’t formally review this book, here or at Goodreads. For those who enjoyed the original Off Campus series, The Dixon Rule is the second book of the second generation of Briar U books. It was super hot and funny and had the same vibe as the original series while being it’s own book. CW – intimate partner violence from a former boyfriend of the FMC.

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Orange cover with a line drawing in black and white of a white woman's profile and a lot of wavy hair. She has her eyes closed, a sprinkling of freckles on her cheekbone and pink wired earbuds in her ears. To the right of the drawing is some small hand drawn black and white stars.The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn. The motifs and images this novel conjured have stayed with me. Clayborn writes so beautifully while inviting me in to the story.

I am a shell collector. I’m trying so hard to coat all these precious, fragile facts about Adam in something hard and firm and inflexible.

I’m trying to make a souvenir.

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Illustrated comic book style cover with a mostly purple, orange and red background featuring a smiling white couple with their arms crossed in front of them looking to the side at each other. She has curly red hair, worn up, he has dark hair and a hoodie.The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center. Patti Murin is a fantastic narrator and a perfect pairing for Katherine Center. Every year, it’s a treat to see what Center comes up with and how Murin will interpret it into my ears. Since I discovered her a few years ago, her books have consistently made my best of list and this year is no exception.

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Lush green foliage and red, orange, pink and white tropical flowers.The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren. This marriage of convenience/fake relationship story is another one I didn’t formally review anywhere. The narration, by Jon Root and Patti Murin, was fantastic. The story was funny, engaging and sexy with the trademark humour and heart I’ve come to expect from this author pairing.

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Pink cover with titles at the top, a long thin line of colour books in the background around a third of the way up the cover. In the foreground stands a red-haired woman, hip-cocked, in jeans and a black tank top, on either side of her and back from her, each facing slightly away from her, stand two men, one is wearing a black suit, the other is in jeans and a green top, they both have their arms folded.The Other Bridget by Rachael Johns. An Australian take on Pride & Prejudice which is also an ode to libraries and librarians and romance novels. *chef’s kiss*

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Photo-real image of a beautiful African American woman wearing a military style uniform with gold buttons and carrying a sword.The History of the World Begins in Ice by Kate Elliott. A wonderful anthology of short stories and essays from the Spiritwalker world, my favourites were The Courtship, Finding the Doctor, or, The Many Clever Ideas of Andevai Diarisso Haranwy and When I Grow Up. (This one is more SFF than romance but there is a strong romantic element in the original series and there are romance arcs in some of the stories so I’m keeping this one in.)

Unfortunately, once he explained the plan, she found the idea delightful, which meant it was a tremendously bad idea.

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Illustrated cover mainly in teal/blue. There is a space scene with stars and planets all over and a black silhouette of a coule with their backs to each other and a teal blue swirl almost like smoke rising all of which have stars and planets scattered throughout. There are a couple of tiny spaceships as well. At the bottom of the cover the colour palette changes to pinks/orange like a sunset and there is a building which looks like it could be a government type building or a fancy mansion at the foot of the cover in the centre, in white.How to Steal a Galaxy by Beth Revis. Not only is the story a cracker, it satisfied something in my soul to know that in this universe at least, the evil billionaire will get what’s coming to him. Ada is firmly anti-establishment in the best of ways.  (The romance is developing but there will be a HEA by the end of the trilogy so I’m counting it.)  How to Steal a Galaxy benefited from the setup in the previous novella, Full Speed to a Crash Landing, which I also enjoyed. Galaxy is more self-contained and just that little bit more clever so it gets my pick for top billing.

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Illustrated cover in the style of a 1940s/1950s movie, a blue/green background and a good looking white couple in winter clothing on either side of a green Christmas pine/fir tree. He is looking at her and she is pretending not to look at him.The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter. Angie James raved about this novel on Facebook and so I had to pick it up. It’s kind of Knives Out but with a romance and I just about wore out my highlight function when I read it. Super funny, sexy (but not explicit) in the way of the best movies from the 1940s and 1950s – think Hepburn and Tracy, Day and Grant. It’s a total delight.

Maggie had known chaos in her life. The New York subway at rush hour. San Diego Comic-Con. The signing tents at MurderFest when word broke that Ethan Wyatt got a new leather jacket and was willing to sign bras. Still, nothing compared to the absolute bedlam that was a house full of weapons in the middle of a blizzard with four children under six in residence.

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For those who are interested, my top pick for SFF was Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis (with thanks to Jayne for the recommendation) and my best non-fiction listen was Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. I highly recommend both.

~ Kaetrin ~

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Kaetrin

Kaetrin started reading romance as a teen and then took a long break, detouring into fantasy and thrillers. She returned to romance in 2008 and has been blogging since 2010. She reads contemporary, historical, a little paranormal, urban fantasy and romantic suspense, as well as erotic romance and more recently, new adult. She loves angsty books, funny books, long books and short books. The only thing mandatory is the HEA. Favourite authors include Mary Balogh, Susanna Kearsley, Joanna Bourne, Tammara Webber, Kristen Ashley, Shannon Stacey, Sarah Mayberry, JD Robb/Nora Roberts, KA Mitchell, Marie Sexton, Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, just to name a few. You can find her on Twitter: @kaetrin67.

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