best of 2024: fiction

Somehow, it's December, so it's time for my "best of" lists!  A few notes before I begin:

- For at least the fourth year in a row, this list contains only female authors.  This wasn't on purpose, although I ain't mad about it.

- These are in random order, though I did make note of my two absolute favorites.  They were neck and neck, but one won out by a fraction.

- Not all of these were or will be first published in 2024, but that's when I read them. Numbers 9 and 10 on this list were advanced reader copies (thank you to NetGalley and the publishers!) and don't come out until next year.

- Obviously the year isn't over yet, but if I read something between now and the end of the month that belongs here, I'll update accordingly.

- And, as always, your mileage may vary.

1. Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin:  Enid is obsessed with space, true crime, and the persistent belief that she's a bad person.  Quirky and sad, but ultimately hopeful.

2. One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall:  Cole is a self-proclaimed nice guy, living in an isolated cottage after his marriage ends.  Then two young women on a walk to raise awareness of gendered violence disappear, and I won't say anything else because this book is full of surprises that you deserve to discover yourself.

3. Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe:  After getting pregnant by her professor, Margo drops out of college to care for her son.  When she loses her waitressing job due to calling in too often and two of her roommates move out, she finds herself in a serious financial bind.  Enter two unlikely saviors: her estranged ex-wrestler father and OnlyFans.  By turns hilarious, hopeful, and heartbreaking, it's a fantastic read.

4. Safe and Sound by Laura McHugh:  Sisters Amelia and Kylee try to find out the truth behind the disappearance of their cousin Grace.  I've enjoyed all of this author's previous books, and this captivating novel was no exception.  In addition to being an engrossing mystery, it also has trenchant points to make about poverty and intergenerational trauma.  Bonus points for not being the typical "woman returns to hometown to investigate a crime"; the sisters stay in town!  

5. The Hunter by Tana French:  Former Chicago cop Cal Hooper, now accustomed to his new home in Ireland, gets caught up in a moneymaking scheme involving a shady Englishman and the father of Trey, the teenager he's close to.  Excellent, like all of French's novels, but heads up: do NOT read this if you haven't read The Searcher!  Don't even read the blurb.  The author pulled off a nifty trick in The Searcher that gets spoiled here.

6. Worry by Alexandra Tanner:  Jules is living alone and working from home in Brooklyn when her younger sister Poppy comes to town for a visit and soon moves in with her. Poppy and Jules bring out the absolute worst in each other, but they keep trying to forge something better.  This is kind of a hard book to categorize, but I absolutely loved it.  It's sharp and blackly funny (at one point, they adopt a dog named Amy Klobuchar, which is funny enough on its own but made even funnier by the fact that the real Amy K. is a friend of my stepmother's) and I just really dug it.  My second favorite book of the year!

7. Tell Me Who You Are by Louisa Luna:  When Dr. Caroline Strange (she tells her patients to call her Dr. Caroline, not Dr. Strange, because of "that damn Marvel movie") sees a new patient, he tells her he is going to kill someone and, perhaps even more alarmingly, that he knows who Caroline really is.  When he disappears, Caroline has to put together the pieces to find him before his captive dies.

Whoooo, this BOOK.  It reminded me a lot of The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll (writing style, not plot, so this is not a spoiler), and that's one of my favorite books, so that's no small compliment.  Block out a big chunk of time to read this, because it's so hard to put down it might as well be superglued to your hands.  This was my favorite book of the year.

8. This Is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter:  Special agent Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton's honeymoon at a remote mountain resort is interrupted by a gruesome murder on the premises.  It's not quite in the author's usual style (and is far less grisly than most of her books, though it's still very violent), but it's still a riveting read.  It also contains my favorite line in recent memory: "I'm like a Happy Meal, I always come with a toy."

9. Clever Little Thing by Helena Echlin:  A woman starts to worry when her daughter begins acting like her dead babysitter.  I thought I knew where it was going, felt smug when certain plot developments seemed to prove me right...and then the author pulled a nifty trick that left me delighted by its, well, cleverness.  A real treat that begs for a movie adaptation.

10. Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce:  Mina has just become a child psychologist, but she's been unable to get hands-on experience.  Then Sam, a man in her grief support group, tells her about a teenage girl named Alice who claims she's being haunted by a witch.  Sam is a journalist and wants Mina to come with him to Alice's small village to investigate; it doesn't quite go as planned.  

I rarely get scared by books, but this one legitimately freaked me out at times.  My only complaint is that I didn't save it for October!  It's really well done and has a surprising but satisfying conclusion.