Recommendsday: Best new books of 2024 so far

Yes, it’s nearly the end of July, so we’re well over six months in to the year, but I’m here and I’m using this week’s Recommendsday to shout out my favourite books of the year so far, in no particular order.

But I’m going to start with At First Spite, Olivia Dade’s latest novel, which came out in February and which I read basically as soon as the paperback hit my doormat. It’s the first in a new series, and features a heroine who finds her self living in a tiny house between her ex-fiancé on one side and his brother on the other. If you go and read my Book of the Week review for this, you’ll see that it’s not all sunshine and roses for Athena, but it all works out beautifully. And I can’t wait for the next book in the series, which is currently called Dearly Departed, whenever it arrives.

Next up is a March release – Kate Claybourn’s The Other Side of Disappearing, which is a romance, a mystery and a road trip as two sisters travel across the US with a podcast production crew to try and find out what happened to the con-man their mum used to date. This also has a retired college football (the American kind) player – so if you’re after sporty-themed books this is another one – but I couldn’t include it in last week’s Recommendsday, because: statute of limitations, and also twice in a week would be boring!

And now an April release – Emily Henry’s Funny Story. And I ummed and ahhed about whether to include this because I feel like I’ve written so much about her over the years, but then I went back and checked my review and I read it in less than 18 hours, which is probably the quickest of any of the books on the list, so how could I leave it off? It’s another newly single heroine, who is stuck in close proximity to her ex, but more different to At First Spite than that makes it sound. It’s so good, and I would read it again today, if only I didn’t have so many other books on the go at once…

On to May, and a book that I bought in paperback after reading the kindle sample and then read immediately. I explain in my review of Summer Fridays why this is going to divide romance readers, but I loved it and I think it is closer to “a Novel” than “a romance”. Travel back to 1999 New York with Sawyer and spend the summer with her and Nick as she figures out what she’s doing with her life. If you’re about to go on holiday, this might be the perfect sun lounger read.

This was very nearly an all romance post – and indeed I’ve grouped them all together, but I wanted to include one other new release – Mona of the Manor. Yes, it’s the tenth in the Tales of the City series but I think it stands alone more easily than the other contender for this final place which was the final Maisie Dobbs novel, The Comfort of Ghosts. Mona of the Manor is a fill in of a portion of the Tales Story we haven’t seen – and as it’s in the British countryside in the 1990s it’s pretty self-contained. And it’s so much fun as Mona tries to make ends meet by turning the country house she’s inherited into a not-quite-a-hotel with the help of her adopted son.

And there you have it. My five favourite new books of the year so far. I think. But as ever, I’m a fickle thing, and who knows what will be the top five by the end of the year!

Happy humpday!