As we entered into the holiday season, I ended up taking a break from reading. It wasn’t intentional. I picked up “Here One Moment,” Liane Moriatry’s newest novel (I’m always hit or miss with her) and just couldn’t get through it… and because I wasn’t excited for it, I ended up watching our favorite Christmas movies at night (when I typically read) and didn’t finish one new book in the 4th quarter.
All of that to say, I’ve started “The Wedding People,” and while I’m only a handful of pages in, I’m hopeful it will be more of a success than the last book.
Every year I round up my favorite books from the year, and I had a fun time reviewing all the ones from 2024. It was so easy for me to select my favorites, since I thoroughly enjoyed them all. The majority of my top picks come from the summer months… which I found interesting… probably because it involves long Sunday afternoons reading by the pool (haha)…. which sounds sort of delightful right about now….
So if you’re looking for a new book for the new year, I can’t recommend the below more. Happy reading (and weekend ahead)!
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- THE THINGS WE CANNOT SAY: This was my absolute favorite book of the year. If you enjoy WWII fiction, then I can’t recommend this book more. It’s so beautifully written and I had tears several times while reading it. I love how it vacillated between the past and present, tying the two together, across generations. I absolutely loved “The Nightingale” but might have liked this one more! A quick synopsis below:
“In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate.
Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.
Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.“
2. THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE: This was tied as one of my favorite books of the year and I can’t say enough amazing things about this book. It came highly recommended to me by someone on instagram, and I brought it along with me to read on our long haul Europe flight this summer… and it didn’t disappoint. I absolutely loved it and it was one of my favorite books of the year so far. It explores so many female dynamics and goes between past and present tense. Including a brief synopsis below:
“Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.
Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and learn the story of Serafina—a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly the more she challenges the status quo, the more she finds herself in danger.
As Sara discovers more about Serafina, she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother. At once an immersive multigenerational mystery and an ode to the undaunted heroism of everyday women.“
3. THE PUSH: This book one of those books that leaves you with so many thoughts and it explores so many complex issues like generational patterns, gaslighting, motherhood expectations, and the concept of nature vs. nurture. I had so many mixed feelings about the different female characters … sadness, sympathy, hope that things would be different, etc. I highly recommend the book… and while I know a lot of people say it is disturbing, unfortunately the underlying themes and experiences written about are a reality for a lot of women and children (which I’ve seen first hand in my work as a therapist). If you want something lighthearted, this isn’t a good read for you…. But if you want something thought provoking, while at the same time an air of suspense, then I highly recommend this. Synopsis below:
“Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter—she doesn’t behave like most children do.
Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
Then their son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.”
4. THE SECRET OF VILLA ALBA: After finishing the Sicilian Inheritance I was craving something similar, and this one popped up as a recommended read on Amazon. It had good reviews so I decided to give it a change. And, wow. I loved it. Filled with mystery and love, it’s beautifully written and explores so many themes and dynamics. A very very close second (if not tied) as a favorite from this last quarter (if not the year)….
1968, Sicily. Just months after a terrible earthquake has destroyed the mountain town of Gibellina, Enzo and his wife Irene Borgata are making their way back to the family home, Villa Alba, on roads overlooked by the eerie backdrop of the flattened ghost town. When their car breaks down, Enzo leaves his young wife to go and get help, but when he returns there is no trace of Irene. No body, no sign of a struggle, nothing.
2003. TV showman and true crime aficionado Milo Conti is Italy’s darling, uncovering and solving historic crimes for his legion of fans. When he turns his attention to the story of the missing Irene Borgata, accusing her husband of her murder, Enzo’s daughter Maddi asks her childhood friend, retired detective April Cobain, for help to prove her father’s innocence. But the tale April discovers is murky: mafia meetings, infidelity, mistaken identity, grief and unshakable love. As the world slowly closes in on the claustrophobic Villa Alba, and the house begins to reveal its secrets, will the Borgata family wish they’d never asked April to investigate? And what did happen to Enzo’s missing wife Irene?
5. WHAT ALICE FORGOT: I’m typically hit or miss with Lian Moriarty books, but this one was a major win for me. I loved all of the characters, and how well developed they were. For me I thought it did a great job of exploring the ways in which we change, are we recognizable, what are the reasons for this change? Entertaining, while still being very thought provoking. Including a brief synopsis below:
“Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over—she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…”
6. BIG LITTLE LIES: After not reading her books for a while, I went back to back with another Lian Moriarty book. This was another major winner. I’ve never seen the TV series (now I am in the middle of watching it… what an all star cast) but the book was amazing. It addresses issues of secrecy, friendships, alliances, and domestic violence all in one. Including a brief synopsis below:
“A murder…A tragic accident…Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead. Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.”
7. FUNNY STORY: I’ve yet to read an Emily Henry book that I didn’t enjoy, and while “Happy Place” was my all time favorite, this one was pretty high up there. Two breakups, two broken hearts, one apartment… it made for a heartwarming, sometimes funny, sometimes romantic, story. The brief synopsis below:
“Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?”
8. ONE PERFECT COUPLE: Ruth Ware has been one of my favorite psychological thriller authors for a long time… and while her last couple of books weren’t my favorite, I loved this one. With it’s take on a reality island show set on an island, the setting was enjoyable, and I really loved how well she developed all the characters and the overall storyline. Find the synopsis below:
“Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she agrees to try out with him.
A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla finds herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.
But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.”
9. SWAN SONG: Another favorite author, and another amazing book. I thoroughly enjoy Elin Hilderbrand novels and this one was one of my favorites that she’s written (my other is “5 Star Weekend”). Set in beautiful Nantucket, and involved a wide range of intriguing characters that had me hooked from the beginning. Such a perfect pool/beach read! Synopsis below:
“Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons—how did they make their money, exactly?—Ed, Sharon, and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.
The last of Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling Nantucket novels, Swan Song is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.”
10. THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ: Another beautifully written WWII novel, based on the true love story and survival of Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. I loved that there was additional information at the end of the book as well. There isn’t much else I can say other than I highly recommend this book. Sharing a brief synopsis below:
“This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov—an unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity.
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov’s experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.”
