My Top 10 Books of 2024 – Part One
I couldn’t decide whether to cheat or not. Should I move my favourite audiobooks into their own section and give myself more room for extra favourites in this list?
Or should I feature them in both? Then I looked back to last quarter and I did move them. So here are my favourite 10 books of 2024 so far, not counting audiobooks.
The Dubrovnik Book Club by Eva Glyn
I only have three experiences of book clubs – one being an online book club called The Pigeonhole, of which I have been a member for six or seven years. In that time I have made ‘friends’ all over the world, shared our love of playing detective, and discussed as we read along – usually over a period of 10 days – a few chapters each day.
Number two was supposed to be Cheltenham’s ‘best book club’. We met in a pub and there were over 20 of us. We didn’t read the same book – we each brought our BYOB and talked about it to encourage others to read it. At least two-thirds were non-fiction which I don’t read. I was bored and never went back, though Covid arrived before the next meeting so I didn’t need to make any excuses.
For my full review click here
The Descent by Paul E. Hardisty
If I thought The Forcing was hard to review in January 3023, then this one is nigh impossible, but I’ll give it my best shot.
The Descent alternates between two timelines – the first one being now ie 2024 which we see from the point of view of a young assistant (we don’t know her name) to the ‘Boss’ (we don’t know his name either initially). If you’ve read The Forcing you might have an inkling. She is around 20 years old and is one of his favourites. She earns a fortune for someone of her age, but what she has to do for the money is not exactly part of the official job description. This part is the ‘prequel’ to The Forcing.
For my full review click here
Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney
Omg! Omg! Omg! What a stunning debut novel! I loved this so much.
We have two perfect protagonists – 13-year-old Ava who has an unusual hobby, and investigating police officer DI Seth Delahaye. Ava goes out in the middle of the night, to look at the roadkill she keeps in her forest ‘lab’ to work out the rate at which they decompose and why. A future star of Silent Witness maybe? One night though, she finds more than she bargained for.
Delahaye is involved in the search for missing teenager Mickey Grant. He’s going to need help from the community – he only recently arrived from the Met – and Ava has the local knowledge and her unusual skills. But no-one will believe a child when she delivers her inside information, so she puts on an adult voice to call the police. Because she knows where the body is.
For my full review click here
What We Did In The Storm by Tina Baker
What We Did In The Storm is typical Tina style, full of dreadful, dysfunctional characters, but we can’t help loving them (well some of them) anyway. I always thought the Scilly Isles was a quiet, peaceful place until I read this book!
And there are a lot of characters – I still don’t know who Fiona is – but I soon got to know the rest. We have Hannah the sexy barmaid, who works for Alison and Bobby in the local (and only) pub on the island of Tresco. Fifty-plus Beatrice who is a bit like Margot from The Good Life (if Margot was permanently bladdered to use Ted’s expression), her son Kit who falls in love with Hannah, but obviously Bea doesn’t think she’s good enough and Charlotte, who is Beatrice’s Instagram-obsessed, posy, pouty goddaughter and is after Kit. Beatrice approves. Of course she does.
For my full review click here
My Father’s House Rome Escape Line Trilogy #1 by Joseph O’Connor
I don’t often read stories about the Second World War, especially about Nazi occupation, concentration camps and the fate of the Jews. Being of Jewish extraction – my mother had to escape Vienna in 1938 – it can become too personal. So I only read one every few months, otherwise I feel choked with emotion.
My Father’s House takes place in occupied Rome and follows the same story as the film The Scarlet and the Black, starring Gregory Peck as Irish Catholic Priest Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty. It’s a true story, set mainly in the Vatican, where a small group of eight friends came together to help Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy and the risk of being killed or sent to the concentration camps by the Nazis. They called themselves the ‘Choir’ and they did actually sing and play instruments to act as cover for their true reason for meeting.
For my full review click here
Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R Weaver
I’m a huge fan of crime fiction and mysteries, but I don’t usually read techno thrillers. However, this one revolves around the climate crisis and what might happen if we don’t tackle it now. And that is something I am very interested in.
I don’t know anything about AI though and I found some of the concepts like ‘egospace’ and NR (Neuro Reality) a bit beyond me. Someone I was chatting to in our readalong tried to explain that it’s like a TV series I’d never heard of and a bit like those virtual reality headsets. Well, I’m still none the wiser, but I think I get the egospace. It’s your own personal space, like the desktop on your computer before you go into the apps.
For my full review click here
Daughters of Warsaw by Maria Frances
In 1978 I accompanied my father to Poland to visit his family. He hadn’t returned since 1939, when he joined the Polish infantry at the age of 16 and was captured by the Russians and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp north of Siberia. When we arrived, one of his older half-sisters had died four hours before we got there and another was in nursing home suffering with dementia. No, she didn’t have any good days, unlike Magda in the book. During our visit staying in a small town quite close to Wroclaw (I got very excited when Zofia goes there), my father had a reunion with his nephew and his best friend from school. They reminisced, and laughed and drank a lot of brandy (not vodka), and got very drunk and cried. I mention this, because there is a scene where Lizzie finds a missing relative and they drink vodka and celebrate and I was immediately reminded of that night with my dad in Poland.
For my full review click here
Shaking Hands With Elvis by Paul Carroll
I’m so stunned by this that I don’t really know where to begin. I’ve never been sure about assisted dying, but then I listen to someone like Dame Esther Rantzen talking about joining Dignitas. “The 83-year-old, who has stage four lung cancer, is campaigning for people who have physical illnesses, and a life expectancy of six months or less, to have the right to choose when they die.
“Assisted dying is illegal in England, Northern Ireland and Wales – and anyone who travels abroad with a person who ends their life could be prosecuted when they return.” – Sky News
For my full review click here
Crow Moon by Suzy Apsley
More crows. It’s not that I have a thing about corvids, but they seem to feature in quite a few of the books I read. Poor birds, they do get a bad rap. But then I think back to ‘the crow and the duckling incident’ on a visit to Hever Castle, and maybe they deserve it.
When I first read the synopsis, I did wonder how I would manage to read this, knowing that Martha’s three-year-old twins had died in a fire. I don’t know how she manages to carry on. Maybe it’s because she has her older son Dougie to stop her from giving up.
The story begins with Dougie’s best friend Fraser going missing. At first they think he might have just stayed out all night, but after a few days the community knows there is something more sinister and search parties are out looking for him.
For my full review click here
To The River by Vikki Wakefield
At last something very different from my usual feast of crime novels and psychological thrillers, with two unusual women at its heart. Then there’s Blue, the fiercely loyal and brave dog that is Sabine Kelly’s constant companion. And Sabine needs protection – she’s been on the run for twelve years, living on a houseboat on the river.
The first thing I must say about this book is that you will need to decide very early on whether you believe in Sabine. Because if you don’t and you think she was capable as a 17-year-old to murder her mum Dee and seven-year-old sister Aria by setting their caravan on fire, then you will struggle to engage. Sabine has never told anyone what really happened that night, but after so many years in hiding, she is ready to reveal the truth.
For my full review click here
