The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 650 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

End of Story

By A. J. Finn,

Book cover of End of Story

Barbara Gayle Austin ❤️ loved this book because...

I read a book a week, and most eventually blur together. My favorites are the ones that stick with me—like this one. I especially liked Nicky, who’s invited by a renowned mystery writer to write his life story. Once she’s settled in his mansion, she starts uncovering secrets surrounding the unsolved disappearance of his first wife and son twenty years ago. The twist at the end is stunning.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Story/Plot
  • Writing style

    👍 Liked it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace
End of Story

By A. J. Finn,

What is this book about?

For fans of Knives Out comes a spellbinding thriller from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window

“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.”

So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Skin Deep

By Liz Nugent,

Book cover of Skin Deep

Barbara Gayle Austin ❤️ loved this book because...

I loved this book because Delia, the protagonist, is so well-drawn. She isn’t likable, but the hope that she might learn from her mistakes kept me hooked. Nugent skillfully raises my hopes, only to crush them again. Although Delia is self-aware, she just can’t seem to change. Her one redeeming feature is her beauty—yet beauty only goes so far. Read the book to discover if she ultimately redeems herself. Her fate at the end is both surprising and unique.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Character(s)
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace
Skin Deep

By Liz Nugent,

What is this book about?

'Pure genius. Absolutely brilliant' Shari Lapena

'A twisted thriller, reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith' Ian Rankin

IBA Crime Fiction Book of the Year Winner 2018

___________

WINNER of the Dead Good Books Award for the Book That You Can't Put Down!

She's not who you think she is . . .

'I could probably have been an actress.
It is not difficult to pretend to be somebody else.
Isn't that what I've been doing for most of my life?'

Cordelia Russell has been living on the French Riviera for twenty-five years, passing herself off as an English socialite. But her luck,…


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My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Baumgartner

By Paul Auster,

Book cover of Baumgartner

Barbara Gayle Austin ❤️ loved this book because...

This final novel by the late Paul Auster is one that both older readers and younger readers with aging parents will appreciate. It follows the endearing Sy Baumgartner, a 70-year-old philosophy professor, still mourning his wife, who passed away ten years ago. His memory is slipping, his body isn’t what it used to be, and he’s lonely. I laughed aloud at the funny parts and got misty-eyed at the poignant ones. The ending leaves room for interpretation—a great topic for discussion with other readers.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Emotions
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace
Baumgartner

By Paul Auster,

What is this book about?

A taut yet expansive novel of love, memory, and grief from Paul Auster, best-selling, award-winning author and “one of the great American prose stylists of our time"  – New York Times

Paul Auster’s brilliant eighteenth novel opens with a scorched pot of water, which Sy Baumgartner -- phenomenologist, noted author, and soon-to-be retired philosophy professor – has just forgotten on the stove.

Baumgartner’s life had been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna, who was killed in a swimming accident nine years earlier. Now 71, Baumgartner continues to struggle to live in her absence as the novel…


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Don‘t forget about my book 😀

What You Made Me Do

By Barbara Gayle Austin,

Book cover of What You Made Me Do

What is my book about?

What You Made Me Do is a thriller packed with dark family secrets. Willem Veldkamp has a miserable childhood, thanks to his domineering mother. When she vanishes without a trace, one nightmare ends, but another begins.

Then there’s little Anneliese Bakker, who survives her own troubled childhood. She leaves home as soon as she can, vowing never to return. Fast forward to adulthood. Willem and Anneliese meet, fall head over heels in love and get engaged. Yet they keep silent about the darkness in their pasts. A mistake. Because if there’s one thing about secrets, it’s that they surface at the worst possible moment.