The Best Books We Read in 2024

The Best Books We Read in 2024

by Joe Walters & the IBR Staff

“Unforgettable!” “Perfect!” The best books we read in 2024.

We do things a little differently here at Independent Book Review.

We review indie books only, and we throw publication date out of the window. This best of the year book list ranges from 1899 to 2025, because what matters most is quality. Relevance is wrapped up in that, regardless of release date.

In previous years, we’ve asked our reviewers to include 3-5 of their best books of the year, but we’re bigger now. Our reviewer list has grown, and we’ve got all the more reason to zero in on the best of the best.

21 reviewers, only 2 books to choose as their best reads of 2024 (with some honorable mentions thrown in for good measure). Did your favorite indie make the cut?

Here are the best books we read in 2024.

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1. Fire Exit

In which a life can transform in the quiet

Charles Lamosway watches his daughter live a better life across the river from him. One where she fits in. Where she doesn’t know she’s half-white, half-unwelcome. Should Charles tell her he’s her father, or does not knowing what runs through her blood provide more for her than the truth would?

Fire Exit is one of those novels that comes across as quiet, but in the context of these people’s lives, it is earth-shattering. What is more powerful than blood? I left this novel knowing real people, ones I was sad to say goodbye to. This is an exquisite gem and one I’m proud to place at #1 on my list.

2. Nothing Left to Lose, or How Not to Start a Commune

All your favorite 70s stereotypes come to life in this laugh out loud hippie memoir

Memoirs can be about nothing and everything. Or they can be Nothing Left to Lose, one person’s story that represents so many people’s stories.

How could author Jeff Richards possibly have done all of what we imagine the 70s counterculture movement to do? Drugs, sex, road trips, communes, you name it. Jeff Richards has done it. Some memoirs are about the content; some about the prose. This is both.

I didn’t want to put a book with a 2025 release date in my best reading of 2024 list, but once I finished Nothing Left to Lose, I had no choice. Put this on your radar now before it floors it out of town.

Honorable Mentions:

• My Father Once Told Me by Blas Telleria (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)
• A Mouthful of Air by Amy Koppelman (Bookshop | Amazon)
• The Jellyfish by Boum (Bookshop | Amazon)

1. Ohmigod!

A funny, inventive story about a man with anxiety and the return of god

How many people have thought about what life would be like if their god came back to Earth as he’s promised? What would you say? What would you wear? Aaron Asadi takes the return to places you’ve never imagined (and won’t expect) in Ohmigod!

I’m still debating what I think everything means in this story—the mark of a damn good, thought-provoking novel. A couple times, my mouth hung wide open. I gasped. Laughed. And yet, the writing style is so casual that things feel calm right before they explode. It makes big reveals feel even bigger. 

I read Ohmigod! with haste and excitement. Asadi takes what could be a common or simple idea and transforms it into something creative and digestible and funny and kinda scary but also somehow super chill. I could talk about this book for a long time. Someone ask me!

2. Until the Streetlights Come On

The PERFECT read for parents looking to simplify their lives with the outdoors.

Slow down and enhance your natural rhythm from being outside more! There are so many parenting books to read as a new parent, but this has been far and away the most impactful one for me. Your kids need to go outside at any age. Matter of fact, I do too. Learn how and why in this supremely important, accessible book.

Give to yourself this holiday season! Here are the BEST gifts for book lovers.

1. Apocalypsing

Death and the apocalypse is as good a time as any to take charge of your life.

Domestic foibles. Impending armageddon. Aliens in the transdimensional afterlife. Jason Anderson’s Apocalypsing is a quick-witted, pop-culture savvy, sci-fi satire that is equal parts absurd and introspective.

The apocalypse will not simply be a tragedy to live through, but an active verb of what the people will do to save each other’s souls in the end times. This book is hilarious, current, and—at times—tender. An excellent choice for fans of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Good Omens.

2. The Peril of Remembering Nice Things

A powerful memoir reminding us to find the truth in our stories when both history and memory fail us 

History is rarely captured in its nuanced entirety; the full truth often lies in the shadows of the stories left untold. Jeffrey Wade Gibbs’s memoir shines a light on repressed memories and warped histories through an investigation guided by the heart.

Well researched & beautifully written, this memoir is as much an ode to the American South as it is an indictment of it. Here, readers will come to see that to truly love something is to also be critical of its failings. 

Honorable Mentions:

• Somebody’s Someone by Linda Oatman High (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)

1. Where When It Rains

Hedonism meets consequences in this sumptuously devastating literary novel. 

Where When It Rains is a devastating study of the consequences of living as though the world and everything in it is meaningless. While the characters are a lost, numbed, and nihilistic lot, there’s an underlying thoughtfulness to them that makes them feel incredibly authentic. These are people who have been disappointed by life time and time again, who don’t have the language for the emotions they’re feeling. So they brush them away with drugs and alcohol and the companionship of others who care as little as themselves.

While other novels explore this sort of hard-nosed cynicism, few show the raw vulnerability and deep humanity lying under the façade. As painful as it can be at times, Where When It Rains is lovely. Dark, bleak, and hopeless, but lovely nonetheless.

2. Whiskey Wars

The stakes just keep climbing in this satisfying prohibition-era mystery series.

The thing I’ve admired in every one of the Moonshiner Mysteries so far is the fact that the formula changes so drastically. The characters grow in each novel; there’s no systematic paint-by-numbers plot line. The story follows whatever trajectory it needs to reach a satisfying conclusion.

This latest installment has all the charm and excitement that fans will expect and enough historical clout and action to hook new readers. It’s about a moonshiner in Montana whose moonshine still is destroyed, and she turns to prohibition icon Mickey Duffy for help.

Honorable Mentions:

• The House on Constantinople by Howard Wetsman (Amazon | Review)

1. Glitches of Gods

A genius engineer cultivates the next big thing in AI and keeps rebooting himself into different realities

Julien may be my favorite fictional character of the year. I remain in awe of him like a professor whose work I just discovered, and I also really want to be his friend. Julien is laugh-out-loud funny even when he’s having miserable banter with his AI assistant. He’s just doing his best in an impossible situation. 

I can’t thank the author enough for Glitches of Gods existing as a reminder there’s always human-made art out there for those who seek it; that there are still people who care about humanity and who care about creating clever stories that convey a powerful message. I could not recommend this story more, especially if you love sci-fi and imaginative future-tech, but are feeling overwhelmed or disheartened by the current mainstream conversation around AI and how it has permeated the zeitgeist.

2. A Bitter Pill (The Bookshop Mysteries, 1)

A charming, bookish modern mystery

Bitter Pill never loses focus from its charming setting and instantly adorable leading ladies: bookshop employees chasing leads and questioning potential suspects, while trying to brim up sales for their beloved Bookworm. 

I feel as though I’ve found my new favorite bookshop. Only caveat is that I’ll have to open Bitter Pill to visit it again and again. Fans of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building are a perfect match for this novel, as t is brewed with an intergenerational detective duo and a balanced blend of time-honored wisdom and considered insight from its older characters. 

Honorable Mentions:

• Sundown in San Ojuela by M.M. Olivas (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)
• Jigsaw of Light by J.C. Button (Amazon | Review)

1. The Wood Sprite

About as wild as thrillers get

The Wood Sprite by James Dobie is filled with surprises. It drips with murder, horror, and strange family secrets straight out of a V.C. Andrews novel.

Each chapter in this alluringly dark novel is a cliffhanger. You’ll struggle to catch your breath, just as Dobie’s characters do. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but you won’t stop reading despite the heart-pounding trepidation. Paranormal thriller fans should definitely pick this up.

2. Mimic

An exciting paranormal adventure with a swirl of the macabre, mystery, and some downright creepiness

Content creator Damion Beck is last seen on a livestream playing with a spirit board. His whereabouts are unknown from the moment his camera malfunctions. Initially, people believe the culprit behind Damion’s death is an ordinary human criminal, but the more that psychic Dee King dives into the case, the more she realizes the murder suspect might be a multi-dimensional monstrosity. 

Mimic’s mystery and plot twists are its sparkling stand-out features, and this mystical creature makes it a real page-turner, especially once you venture through the puzzle of its purpose. 

A fun, fast-paced joyride. Mimic has it all.

Honorable Mentions:

• The Passenger by Joie Lesin (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)

1. A Sense for Memory

An unforgettable immersion—smart science fiction at its very best

Immersive details yield a great narrative experience for the reader in this collection of two novellas. The book’s worldbuilding is impressive, exquisitely detailed in every aspect from geography to biology to cultural norms. The individuals and societies portrayed would be called “alien” by humans, but we’re not there. While the conflicts are relatable to planet Earth, there are no Sol system explorers to weigh in with opinions.

A Sense for Memory raises important political and ecofiction themes too: How does society balance individual rights with society’s needs? What is cruel punishment? What are sentient beings’ responsibilities to the land and “lower” animal and plant life?

This book is a real pleasure to read.

2. Deluge

Laura’s new town is cursed in ways both obvious and hidden.

In Deluge: The People That Melt in the Rain, a stranger comes to town. Yet it’s the town itself that’s strange; the new girl, Laura, appears to be perfectly normal. Laura and her mom move to Deluge for a new, perhaps too-good-to-be true, job. But they are immediately confronted by a frog-infested rain shower, a wonderful opening scene for the graphic novel.

Deluge’s illustrations are phenomenal. The drawings are realistic, with palettes ranging from muted to colorful, depending on the needs of the narrative. Deluge will appeal to readers young and old, both for its interesting story, appealing characters with real problems, supernatural and mysterious aspects, and beautiful graphics. 

Honorable Mentions:

• Who Killed Leeanne? by Mira Gibson (Bookshop | Amazon)
• Alien Nation by Raymond King (Amazon | Review)

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1. The Tower of Love

Gothic, gorgeous, thrilling, unnerving, and deliriously ahead of its time 

The Tower of Love is a strange, 125-year old book by a transgressive French author who was known for cross-dressing (illegal in France at the time), spent two years in prison for the publication of one of her novels, and otherwise broke every imaginable rule. Given Rachilde’s undertakings, I was floored by the simple narrative force of this novel about two men locked in a lighthouse together.

There are echoes of Melville’s Ishmael in the shifting naivety of the lighthouse-keeping narrator Jean Maleux. But behind his naivety are reverberations of a knowledge he won’t share, histories we don’t have access to. Frankly, the book is as deep as a well and the definition of a must read.

2. Tap Dancing on Everest

A riveting memoir about the travails of growing up, the trauma of mountain climbing, and the elation of being in the great outdoors

Beginning at the dramatic climax of a years-in-the-making expedition to climb Everest’s east face without oxygen for the first time, Zieman’s memoir doubles back to trace the bumpy path that led her to become the team medical officer as a twenty-five year old medical school student. 

What materializes is a deep portrait of Mimi’s youth and milieu in New York as the ambitious daughter of two Holocaust survivors. 

The overall quality of the writing in this book is exceptional. The memoir’s many large and small vignettes, its minor characters and central ones all leap into focus. Whether Zieman’s haunted, psychotherapist father or a boy that she rescues in a climbing accident, personality and life abound. A beautiful, wrenching story about the trials that we endure and the rewards we reap.

Honorable Mention:

• The Thinking-About-Gladys-Machine by Mario Levrero (Bookshop | Amazon)
• The Hidden Power of Rising Dividends by Greg Donaldson (Amazon | Review)

1. No One Left

Deception and discrimination threaten life and liberty on a Navajo reservation in this stellar crime thriller. 

No One Left is an intricately plotted and action-packed sequel to In the Silence of Decay. As the first book makes clear, life in New Mexico in the late 1970s is far from paradise, especially for the Native American community living on the reservation near Sanostee.

The murder mystery at the heart of No One Left proves to be even more complex and convoluted than it initially appears, giving way for a number of twists and turns as the story progresses. The story imparts with some keen social commentary and historical insight along with its compelling thriller aspects.

A rip-roaring and conspiracy-filled crime novel with good characters and even better curveballs.  

2. Blood and Mascara

A hard-boiled detective story set in the late 1990s but with more than a hint of classic noir like The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon

Colin Krainin’s Blood and Mascara traverses the seamier side of Washington, DC and exposes all the blood, gore, and corruption to be found there. Through pitch-perfect PI dialogue and a plot packed with political duplicity, sleaze, and casual violence, Krainin presents a fiendish murder mystery that shines a light on both the best and worst of humanity.

An old-school detective novel with modern sensibilities and a healthy dose of nastiness, Blood and Mascara pairs an engagingly flawed PI with an eclectic supporting cast and pits them against both a complex plot and a host of nefarious villains. 

Honorable Mention:

• Home for the Bewildered by Michelle Tobin (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)

1. Patterns

A beautiful take on how the moments that make up the story of a life can only be fully revealed with the perspective of time

In Patterns: The Mystical Journey of an Ordinary Life, visual artist, professor, and long-time psychiatric nurse Honey Lee Gaydos combines memories and collage art in a look back at pivotal moments in her life. 

Though to outsiders these moments would seem mostly unremarkable, they are laden with a rush of feeling for the author, and they lead to changes in her life that are at times small and at times large, from adjusting her outlook to uprooting her life and moving to another state.

Patterns is an exquisite combination of powerful art and evocative prose. It’s a journey into beauty and emotion by embracing one’s own complicated nature and the confounding forces of the world we inhabit. 

2. The Last Whaler

A dark, emotional tale about facing the harshness of grief while living through a brutal, sunless Arctic winter

Astrid thought she could do it. She thought she could accompany her husband, Tor, to his beluga whaling station for the hunting season. In some ways, she was right. In others, not quite.

Just as they think their trials in the harsh north are over, one miscalculation leaves them stranded, facing the long cold period of 24-hour darkness, when the sun doesn’t rise for months.

The Last Whaler touches on themes of isolation, faith, and storytelling to process life’s darker moments. It meditates on the effect humans have when engaged in large-scale hunting in delicate ecosystems. It’s about these big themes, but it’s also about the struggle of a single person to stay alive despite overwhelming grief. Then to stay alive despite overwhelming odds. It’s about how the dangers that lurk within us are as terrifying as those to be found without. And the dogged impulse of the living to keep on living. 

Honorable Mention:

• The Insistence of Memory by Susan Quilty (Amazon | Review)
• But I Digretch by Gretchen Astro Turner (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)

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1. Bad Foundations

A working-class White Noise, a story about family, crap jobs, paranoia, and an uncertain future

Cook works in crawl spaces, inspecting them for rot, but even when he emerges from the claustrophobic confines, driving across Indiana to the next client, the crawl follows him.

From the canon of working-class literature and literary family stories comes Bad Foundations, an unputdownable dive into the crawlspace sludge of a working man’s life and the inevitable rebirth that comes when he emerges to see his family in a not-so-blindingly-fluorescent light.

2. The Body Is a Temporary Gathering Place

Bertaina is at his best in this collection of meditative essays on fatherhood, marriage, and self

Each essay is incredibly personal, holding nothing back, bearing all. It’s funny. It’s deep. It will glue you to your seat pondering your own life, finding those strange connections between the internal and external worlds that make up a life.

Honorable Mentions:

• Of Fathers and Gods by Jim Roberts (Bookshop | Amazon)
• You Could Be That Kind of Girl by Téa Franco (Bookshop | Amazon)
• Leasing by D.T. Robbins (Amazon)

1. 1986

Atmospheric & real—a recollective mood on childhood, family, and friends in the 1980s, coated with the nostalgia of times gone by

1986 is a collection of interlinked short stories following an unnamed boy—turned teen, turned man—and his ever-so-relatable childhood, filled with Nintendos, G.I. Joe’s, Garbage Pail Kid cards, and all the things they could get in trouble for when they’re bored and have friends they want to impress. 

This book is about the feeling. The atmosphere. The time. The things we can’t forget, well into adulthood. We can learn so much from kids, as long as we’re willing enough to listen. This is the only childhood they’ve got, and they’re doing things you’re too afraid to do. Jump back in time with your old self in this knife-sharp story collection.

2. What We Tried to Bury Grows Here

A dynamic tale built of different voices and the comprehensive struggles of war

In 1936, Isidro Elejalde leaves his Basque village in Northern Spain to join the combat against the fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War. While Isidro serves as the story’s central figure, his journey unfolds through a web of compelling voices, all telling of his life and simultaneously exposing the larger story. 

Zabalbeascoa’s debut is a sharply compelling exploration of complex war-time themes, featuring a propulsive narrative structure and a story that challenges readers to consider the need for human empathy in the most difficult times.

“I want this war to end,” I said, “but I want to preserve life. Are both things possible?”

Honorable Mentions:

• Fathers and Fugitives by S.J. Naudé (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)
• Writing for Money & Meaning by Julie Anne Eason (Amazon | Review)

1. Children of Madness

Stranger Things meets Lord of the Rings in a new generation’s classic fantasy epic.

Children of Madness is an epic adventure led by a new group of heroes that will capture even the coldest of hearts. Readers will fall in love with the Sour Flower Gang almost instantly. As a group, they’re whip-smart and skilled. They vote for things as a group, swear profusely, and often are filled with joy despite considerable circumstances. 

Early manages to balance light and dark throughout an immense journey, not only by including scenes where kids can be kids, but also by infusing supporting characters with some measure of both good and evil. 

With winning characters and fantastic creatures and locations, Children of Madness feels like it could be read straight from a leather-bound book with gold leaf edges and all. Timeless. 

2. Bomb Island

A tense coming-of-age tale about a boy’s last few weeks in a commune off the coast of Georgia

Fish lives on an island with his found family: Whistle, his “sage-mother;” Reef, the “young man;” Nutzo, “the old man;” and Sugar, a full-grown white tiger. But Sugar’s behavior becomes more predatory, and Nutzo goes missing. When Fish meets a girl on the mainland, he finds himself stuck between vastly different worlds. 

Bomb Island is packed with evocative symbolism and big-hearted character dynamics, making for a cataclysmic, fast-paced story that kept me reading through the night.  

Honorable Mentions:

• A Professional Lola by E.P. Tuazon (Bookshop | Amazon)

1. Our Daughter Who Art In America

Smart, heartfelt stories that challenge norms and spark important conversations

From the bustling and chaotic atmosphere of Lagos markets to the dark shorelines of South Africa to the hot territory of Kenya, Our Daughter, Who Art In America is a diverse, poignant, and engaging anthology that transcends borders and invites readers into the heart of human experience and African culture. 

The book—collectively authored by eleven talented African writers from different parts of the world—navigates the theme of grief with a nuanced and multifaceted approach. Across the anthology, grief is explored not merely as a standalone emotion but as an intricate part of the human experience, intertwined with other themes like motherhood, resilience, cultural identity, and societal norms. It’s a thought-provoking kaleidoscopic view of the human experience.

2. The Significance of Curly Hair

A poignant story about the bond between a granddaughter and her grandmother

The Significance of Curly Hair is a heartwarming and enlightening memoir that reminds us to cherish our time with our loved ones. Through a six-day account, author Kara L. Zajac takes us on a journey of grief, healing, family bonding, and hope.

The Significance of Curly Hair is more than a memoir of loss; it is a celebration of life, love, and family. It serves as a special reminder to appreciate the present and hold our loved ones close.

1. A Thousand Tiny Stitches

A tender tale about making a late daughter’s dreams come true

After a tragedy takes the lives of her daughter Amanda and her son-in-law Matt, Lily Wolfe becomes the caretaker of her heartbroken eight-year-old granddaughter Emma. Lily is left to deal with Amanda’s estate, including the house she dreamed of turning into a quilt shop. 

A Thousand Tiny Stitches takes the mentality of “it takes a village to raise a child” and applies it to a bigger picture concept: it takes a village to make dreams happen. Throughout the novel, the compassion and aid from others is endless. I loved the emotion and interpersonal lives of her cast of characters, and I’m confident you will too. Stephanie Claypool pens a masterful story of grief, love, and hard work with this one. 

2. Not the Same River

Discover the profound within the ordinary with this impactful collection.

W. A. Polf’s Not The Same River explores the timelessness of the ordinary experiences that make life extraordinary. Polf’s stories traverse the terrain of turmoil and triumph, even when triumph looks a little more commonplace than you might expect.

Not the Same River exemplifies what depth of character and emotion can look like on the page. Each story will give you something real & genuine to think about. There’s something absolutely wonderful and haunting about these stories and how they make you look at life.

Honorable Mentions:

• Nice Try, A.I by Lisa George Abraham (Amazon | Review)

1. Strings

An intricately woven exploration of one man’s journey through the splintered possibilities of fatherhood

Fatherhood is redefined through speculative glimpses of love, fear, and uncertain futures in Joseph Edwin Haeger’s Strings. In the aftermath of an explosion, William, our protagonist, is consumed by an overwhelming fear for his unborn child, a fear that unravels his mind across three distinct narratives.

Despite the fear and uncertainty, despite the heartbreak that inevitably comes with bringing a new life into the world, William’s love for his child is the one constant across every reality. It’s a love that transcends the narrative and consumes and defines him, even as he struggles to reconcile it with his own sense of self.

Haeger’s portrayal of William’s fragmented realities offers readers a glimpse into the universal fear of parenthood—the fear of failing, of losing control, of not being enough. And yet, within this fear lies a quiet hope, a recognition that, while we may not be able to control the world around us, we can still choose to love fiercely, even when the future remains uncertain.

2. Angry Daughter

A remarkable memoir where the path from resentment to redemption unfolds with stark honesty and unwavering faith 

Nanci Lamborn’s debut is an introspective exploration of forgiveness, redemption, and the transformative power of faith from a Christian perspective. Through her raw and poignant narrative, Lamborn invites readers into the tumultuous landscape of her past, where buried wounds of shame, rejection, and abandonment festered beneath the surface. 

Lamborn’s narrative serves as a testament to the transformative potential of compassion and empathy, offering readers a glimpse into the profound beauty that can emerge from the depths of pain and suffering. In the end, Lamborn’s journey toward forgiveness is an inspiring reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and the boundless capacity for healing and reconciliation. 

Honorable Mentions:

• The Water Stricken by Rina Olsen (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)
• Sabine & Vincent Van Gogh (The Dream Collectors) by R.W. Meek (Amazon)
• 180 Days by Alfred Bottello (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)

1. Flicker

Flicker ignites thrill and excitement while examining humanity’s chaos and despair.

The Northern District has an arsonist who is consistently burning down houses in the middle of the night. This arsonist is Flicker‘s narrator and protagonist, Heat Agaki, a teenage girl who dreams of setting everything aflame. 

The passion for fire lives within Heat, and soon that drive to burn it all down begins to take on a mind of its own. When the fireball within her takes more control, Heat continues to self-ignite and spin out of control. Her emotional turmoil feels intimate and raw, especially when she talks directly to the reader.

Flicker adeptly explores the human psyche—an additive thought-provoking layer to the novel. One thing’s for sure: It will leave you with a burning desire for the sequel.

2. Sacred Blood

Fascinating technology, crazy schemes, and a bit of freaky science

Adam is part of a technically discontinued experiment: The Phoenix Elite Initiative. It is made up of seven individuals cloned from historical figures who are tasked with saving the world against nuclear destruction.

Lovers of of history, science, and military strategy will be floored at all of what this fast-paced, action-packed story does.

Honorable Mentions:

• The Rookie Spellslinger by Patricia Harrington Duff (Amazon | Review)

1. No Good Deed

A novel with a soul that entertains as it educates about sex trafficking and the individuals sucked into its diabolical orbit

Inspired by true events, Wallace’s impressive sophomore novel No Good Deed examines the seedy criminal underworld of sex trafficking in the American South. It’s a compulsive story of everyday people selflessly sacrificing to help those in need among us. 

His protagonists are good people facing unspeakable brutality and evil; they are ordinary people thrust into becoming the heroes they never knew they were. No Good Deed is a superbly written and propulsive story with an unforgettable climax.

2. Half the World

An enchanting historical novel set in a deeply suspicious society ripe for rebellion

In 1977, newlyweds Angela and Doug Weston arrive in Iran for an opportunity to build a nest egg and enjoy the beauty of Persian culture, but they are not prepared for awaits them in Half the World. 

This is an authentic story, lushly told, perhaps because Shahrak experienced the Iranian Revolution firsthand. Her depictions of pre-Revolution Iran with its walled gardens, majestic mosques, and the squalid living conditions of the have-nots of Esfahani society are well-drawn and compelling, painting a portrait of an oppressed society on the cusp of overthrowing the shackles of one regime, only to choose the shackles of another.

What makes Half the World so enchanting is not only Shahrak’s fertile prose and convincing characters, but her obvious love of Persian society and culture that blooms on every page, leaving a whiff of bittersweet nostalgia for a world that no longer exists.  

Honorable Mentions:

• Punch Line by Richard A. Danzig (Amazon | Review)

1. Chained Birds

A compelling true crime exposé of a corrupt prison program and the lives forever changed when it was brought to light

Carla Conti is a true crime journalist and staunch prison reform advocate. In Chained Birds, Conti becomes part of the story herself. 

It all started with a snowball, and it would, pardon the pun, snowball into something more. One inmate launched a snowball at a corrections officer before assaulting him—the officer’s revenge led to an orchestrated rec cage assault that involved Conti’s subject, Kevin Sanders, through no fault of his own. This is the event that brought him to Conti’s attention, as well as the prison’s Special Management Unit, which turned out to be rife with abuse, corruption, and violence.

Conti writes with an endearing balance of humor and passion, and she is a driven and intelligent advocate for those without a voice. Without her assistance on Sanders’s case, he might have disappeared into the system and the SMU program may have gone unnoticed.

Chained Birds is like two great books in one: a captivating true crime story that exposes a deplorable prison program and an engrossing memoir of a journalist making a difference.

2. The Reverse Tower

A dark fantasy with lyrical prose, vibrant characters, and a harrowing mystery

The world of Asp is one of wonder, magic, and violence where mages can command bones, blood, and gore to their bidding. But as dark and ominous as Asp is, there is another land that pulls people into a hellscape. An endless desert stretching beyond the horizon and nothing in sight save a singular tower. A tower that hangs in the sky pointed downward with no apparent end. And all are drawn to it. 

The worldbuilding is intense, deep, and engrossing. The world of Asp has a fantastic but familiar feel to it, almost as if it were Earth but centuries beyond some apocalypse. The Reverse Tower is dark and fascinating, a building that’s part community and part otherworldly being. 

For every touch of normalcy, there’s a pool of unreal magic and wonder. It’s a dark tale of mystery and violence with broken people driven to survive under the watchful eye of a sentient tower hanging impossibly in the sky.

Honorable Mentions:

• Heavy Weight of Darkness by J.M. Erickson (Bookshop | Amazon)
• In Pursuit of the Giant Sable Antelope by John Manuel (Bookshop | Amazon | Review)

1. Taxonomic Vignettes

A powerful, well-crafted, and intelligent collection reflecting the realities of life and relationships

Taxonomic Vignettes dissects life and loss with genuineness. 

This poetry collection’s mastery is most evident in the portraits it paints of all the people who come and go in our lives. Peppered with pop culture and literature references, every stanza is smart and vulnerable simultaneously. Not only is it enjoyable to pick out all the references you’re familiar with, but the reference always adds a layer of deeper understanding to the surrounding stanzas. 

There’s such heartbreaking brilliance, vulnerability, and relatability in these poems.

2. Kat Girl

A sexy romance that celebrates the power of second chances

Kat Girl gives all the romantic scenes you could hope for from the genre—from sweet to steamy—inviting us in on the action of a budding relationship. 

Still, it might be the focus on internal conflicts that attracted me the most. Kat’s still reeling from three failed marriages and an unspeakable loss. She’s trying to trust something good in her life while she’s facing her grief and baggage from her past to get the future she’s always wanted. 

On the Bridgerton scale of steamy, this one is definitely season three—except maybe a little steamier. Reach for Kat Girl if you’re looking for something hot to rev your power drill.

1. Tennis Players As Works of Art

Like a museum exhibit in a book—an impressive collection of art and prose celebrating tennis.

It took seven years for David Linebarger to assemble this collection of nearly seventy artworks by over forty artists, all directly connected to the sport of tennis. Each one is augmented by a brief page or two of original writing, with some quotes and excerpts creatively sprinkled in.

This book packs in a lot. Facts and biographical information mix comfortably with emotions spanning joy, anger, sadness, frustration, and even pathos. The common thread is a reverence for a sport anyone can play that comes across as genuine, not sentimental. 

Tennis Players as Works of Art is as rewarding as an absorbing museum exhibit, without having to leave your sofa or armchair. And not just for tennis aficionados.

2. The Sum of All Things

An intricately woven plot about saving Earth’s freedom with disparate, personable characters

In a not too distant future (the Internet and Google Translate are still current), Earth is on its way to yielding its freedoms to the Subliminal Empire. Other planets have already done this, and Vita is determined to not let Earth suffer her planet’s fate. 

The poetic economy of often very brief chapters amps up tension and propels the conflicts forward. Their symmetry brings cohesiveness in a prose showcase of the author’s apparent poetic talents.

This is a deftly packed & poetic novel that you’ll be glad you picked up.

Honorable Mentions:

• Blood and Mascara by Colin Krainin (Bookshop | Amazon)

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What were the best books you read this year? Let us know in the comments!

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