THE TOP TEN NOVELS THAT I READ IN 2024

Good morning! It's time again to unveil the best books that I read this year. This is the sixth consecutive year I do this since I started this blog. In fact, I've been making these lists for a bit longer than that. They're a bit too long to post on normal social media, like Facebook or Threads. Even sites like Goodreads and The Storygraph aren't well suited for this. That's why I launched this blog. I wanted a place where I could share my reviews and opinions with the world.

This year, I decided to post this list now, rather than in December as usual. That makes it less likely that a great read I finish last-minute doesn't make it as one of the picks. It almost happened with Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson. It was a fantastic book, but I read it very late in 2023. I just would rather not cut it too close again. Without further ado, here are my choices for the top 10 books I read in 2024:

BOOK REVIEW: THE HIT BY DAVID BALDACCI

Title: The Hit

Author: David Baldacci

Genre: Thriller

Published on: April 23, 2013 by Grand Central Publishing

Master assassin Will Robie must track down a deadly rogue agent, but the attacks conceal a larger threat that could send shockwaves through the U.S. government and around the world in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller. 

 

Will Robie is a master of killing.

A highly skilled assassin, Robie is the man the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst—enemies of the state, monsters committed to harming untold numbers of innocent victims.

No one else can match Robie’s talents as a hitman…no one, except Jessica Reel. A fellow assassin, equally professional and dangerous, Reel is every bit as lethal as Robie. And now, she’s gone rogue, turning her gun sights on other members of their agency.

To stop one of their own, the government looks again to Will Robie. His mission: bring in Reel, dead or alive. Only a killer can catch another killer, they tell him.

But as Robie pursues Reel, he quickly finds that there is more to her betrayal than meets the eye. Her attacks on the agency conceal a larger threat, a threat that could send shockwaves through the U.S. government and around the world.

Most of the time, I'm not the kind of reader who judges books by their cover. The one for The Hit really caught my eye, as it's so good. The main characters posing like that looks rather impressive. This is the second novel in a thriller series featuring Will Robie. He's a forty-year-old hitman who works for a clandestine agency under the DOD. Their focus is to take out targets who are close to becoming great danger for the world. Robie in particular has only ever killed bad people. It's been a few months since the ending of the previous book. The Hit finds Robie embarking on his newest and most dangerous mission yet.

One of the agency's higher-ups, referred to as Blue Man, is the guy who assigns Robie the mission. He learns that one of their own people has turned against them. While people within the agency normally don't know each other (for security reasons), Robie knows his latest target really well. She's Jessica Reel, the only female assassin in the agency. Reel is reputed to be as good at what she does as Robie is. That's why he was picked to eliminate her. Reel murdered her handler while she was supposed to be taking out someone on the other side of the world.

BOOK REVIEW: THE EDGE OF FOREVER BY MELISSA E. HURST

Title: The Edge of Forever

Author: Melissa E. Hurst
Genre: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Published on: June 2, 2015 by Sky Pony

In 2013, sixteen-year-old Alora is having blackouts. Each time she wakes up in a different place with no idea how she got there. The one thing she is certain of? Someone is following her.

In 2146, seventeen-year-old Bridger is one of a small number of people born with the ability to travel to the past. While on a routine school time trip, he sees the last person he expected—his dead father. The strangest part is that, according to the Department of Temporal Affairs, his father was never assigned to be in that time. Bridger’s even more stunned when he learns that his by-the-book father was there to break the most important rule of time travel—to prevent someone’s murder.

And that someone is named Alora.

Determined to discover why his father wanted to help a “ghost,” Bridger illegally shifts to 2013 and, along with Alora, races to solve the mystery surrounding her past and her connection to his father before the DTA finds him. If he can stop Alora’s death without altering the timeline, maybe he can save his father too.

I started reading The Edge of Forever with moderate expectations. The cover’s good looking, but it was the synopsis that drew me in. It made this book sound similar to the Rewinder trilogy by Brett Battles, which I’ve read. The protagonist of this story is Bridger Creed, a seventeen-year-old cadet from 2146 United States. In his world, there are people born with the ability to travel back in time. Bridger’s one of them, which is why the Department of Temporal Affairs is training him. At the start, Bridger is on a training trip to a significant event. What’s supposed to be a straightforward mission soon takes an unexpected turn.

Bridger witnesses something that he has a hard time believing. His father Leithan, a DTA agent, is present—even though he’s supposed to be dead. The man quickly vanishes before Bridger can do much of anything. But his distraction has disastrous consequences. Vika, Bridger’s girlfriend and fellow trainee, is severely injured. Their superiors quickly shift back to their time. There, Bridger not only has to deal with the consequences of leaving his post. He also has to ponder why Leithan wanted to save someone from the past. People in Bridger’s time call these people “ghosts”, because their fates are fixed and it’s against the law to mess with them.

BOOK REVIEW: THE GIRL UNLEASHED BY JUDITH BERENS

Title: The Girl Unleashed

Author: Judith Berens

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Published on: August 3, 2019 by LMBPN Publishing

No matter the century, being a teenage vampire is hard when there’s no one around to teach you how to be cool, date and lift a car out of the way without getting caught.

 

Vickie has grown into a rockstar vampire with her powers, but she can still cause harm. Not a good way to stay hidden when everyone has the number to TMZ and a camera in their pocket. Selfie with the teenage vampire anyone?

Social media can bite worse than a vampire’s fangs.

That’s not her only problem. The Circle may be gone, but a government agency is looking into supernatural activity and everything points at Vickie. Big brother is not happy.

To make matters worse, Alexis and Vickie clash over misunderstandings and Vickie’s desire for more independence. Can the girls get past their disagreements and work together as a family?

Vicki’s danger meter is going off and she can sense a threat to her new family.

Can Vicki right some wrongs and make up with Alexis before she finds herself in an even worse situation?

Find out in The Girl Unleashed.

Book five in the Last Vampire series marks a turning point. Protagonist Vickie Hewitt managed to take out a threat that loomed over her throughout four books. As a vampire, there was a group of people bent on killing her. That she is just fourteen and harmless did not stop them. The group, known as the Slayer Circle, caught up to Vickie at last. With the help of a surprising ally, Vickie managed to kill the Circle members. It was a thrilling fight, though it felt a little underwhelming to me. With how menacing the Circle sounded, their defeat felt a little too easy. 

Now that the Circle is gone, Vickie can go back to leading as normal a life as she can. As the last vampire, she’s alone in the world. Luckily, Craig Watson and his daughter Alexis have been there for her since she woke up. Vickie has adjusted well to living as a high school student. She’s a star athlete now (competing in cross country) and has a boyfriend, Eric. He’s one of Alexis’s longtime friends who developed a crush on Vickie soon after they first met. Their relationship is going really well. Vickie’s clueless about dating in the twenty-first century, though. She comes from a time where parents married their children off at fourteen. I kid you not!

BOOK REVIEW: THE LAST FLIGHT BY JULIE CLARK

Title: The Last Flight

Author: Julie Clark

Genre: Mystery

Published on: June 23, 2020 by Sourcebooks Landmark

Two women. Two flights. One last chance to disappear.

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns bright and he’s not above using his staff to track Claire’s every move.

What he doesn’t know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish. A plan that takes her to the airport, poised to run from it all. But a chance meeting in the airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision.

The two women switch tickets, with Claire taking Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico crashes, Claire realizes it’s no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva’s identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

As premises go, the one in The Last Flight doesn’t seem terribly original, but it’s still compelling. And I haven’t come across many books where two main characters swap identities. That’s the catalyst that starts the story in The Last Flight. The protagonist is Claire Cook, a young woman who’s married to a rich and powerful politician by the name of Rory. They seem to lead perfect lives, though things are vastly different behind closed doors. Contrary to his public demeanor, Rory has a worryingly short temper. You quickly realize that he’s one of those jerks who absolutely doesn’t deserve his wife. Rory also has an overinflated ego, and he believes Claire should be grateful to be married to someone of his caliber.

The situation started to turn dire enough that Claire’s been working on a way to escape. The fortune she has access to helps, but Claire’s careful not to give herself away. This is a feat when you learn how much control Rory has over her life. He’s gone as far as dictating which friends Claire is allowed to have. Fortunately, she has a powerful childhood friend whom Rory doesn’t know about. She’s Petra, who comes from a mob family. No, she’s not a bad person. Seeing how evil Rory is, you’d think he’s the one in the mob. Anyway, Petra is able to help Claire make arrangements to disappear. A last-minute change ends up screwing that plan. Rory is now going to Detroit instead of Claire…where he’ll find evidence that’ll give her away.