This was a heck of a reading year for me. I read over 230 books!!! This is by far the most books I have ever read in a year.

I often get asked how I can possibly read as many books as I do. I’ve also been accused of having no life, being really boring (yada yada yada). The truth of it is, I am single, I have no kids, I live alone (aside from my dog) and I would choose reading a book over watching a TV series 95% of the time. I do both physical and audiobooks, which means rarely am I not reading. And yes, I do have a life. I spend plenty of time with friends and family as well. I just love to read.

That said, I had a really tough time picking a top 10 this year. So much so that I picked a top 20, and I limited the top 20 to books that were released in 2024. But then I also read some REALLY good books that were released in previous years, so I have also listed those at the bottom of this list.

Again, the top 10 were really tough to choose because I loved so many of the books that I read. My top 3 were especially difficult to rank because I loved them all equally. Honestly, I kep coming back to All the Colors of the Dark. I still think about that book which is how it nabbed my #1 spot this year. James deserves all of the awards it received this year and Anyone’s Ghost brought up so many personal feelings for me I couldn’t possibly rank it lower than #3.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 reads:

#1

These next 10 were also faves and I will always recommend them whenever anyone asks for something in their genre. A Season of Perfect Happiness was a dark horse that I had never heard of and fell in love with. It’s so touching and beautiful. Another dark horse was The Mother Act. I loved that it is set in the world of theatre and focuses heavily on a complex mother/daughter relationship.

Lastly, here are 10 more books that I read this past year that I adored. I didn’t include them in my top 20 because they were released prior to 2024, but they are still worth checking out if you’ve not read them.