Favorite Reads of 2024

Here we are again, counting down to new year. And whatever else 2024 brought, it gave me some books I really enjoyed.

In no particular order:

Cicadas by Avery Cockburn

In 1987, as the cicadas emerged from their 17 year nap in a cacophony of sounds, Joel and Danny met. Once innocent day where the most they did was dance, stoned, in a sunlit meadow and yet, they forged a connection that neither one forgot, before tragedy ripped them apart.

In 2004, as the next brood of cicadas emerged, Dan traveled to find Joel – now an entomologist – hoping to reconnect with the boy he never forgot. But Joel’s relationship status was already “it’s complicated,” and one night that felt completely right turned into a cold empty bed in the morning.

And then 2021. The tone of the book is not that angsty, and maybe the humor emphasizes the serious parts, because there’s an undercurrent that made me think, and remember. There’s a pang of poignancy for all the lost years between these two, and a sweetness of connecting at last.

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Home Ice Advantage by Ari Baran

I enjoy hockey romances and was delighted to find a new author to binge on. This one was perhaps my favorite of the three (which could be read in any order, but there is some benefit to following the characters in the sequence written – this is book 3)

This third book gives us Ryan, a scrappy but likeable guy who’s been coaching peewee after leaving the pros with a stellar career that included playing on one Stanley Cup team. He’s given the chance to coach a pro team, right over the head of Eric, the closed-in and dour assistant coach who thought he should’ve been moved up. Eric had a strong career too, but never quite to Ryan’s level. He’s not anywhere as much a people person, but he’d been keeping the team afloat under the previous toxic head coach, and considers the players his guys, although with a tough love element.

I appreciated that there was a real reason for Eric to dislike and resent Ryan, in this enemies to lovers story with great characters and good balance of hockey and romance.

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Half-Drawn Boy by Suki Fleet

This is a gorgeous story mainly from the POV of an autistic teen with some degree of synesthesia. Gregor lives with his older brother Alexei and his brother’s boyfriend Bruno, who provide a warm, accepting, nurturing foundation for Gregor to be himself. With that support, Gregor is with some difficulty navigating school and friendships. He has a hard time communicating because he’s nonverbal and even in writing, words feel prickly and sharp and uncomfortable to him most of the time. So he uses photos, memes and drawings, symbols and single words on his phone to get his meaning across. He’s also an artist, and in his art he creates the most complete access to the things he wants to convey.

Noah is dealing with his own issues. He’s in foster care with two younger foster siblings for whom he feels responsible. The foster parents are disengaged and careless, and Noah’s afraid that if something goes wrong, they will send him or a sibling away and break up the little family he’s created. So he drives himself hard to keep his siblings safe, even at his own cost. Seeing Gregor, slowly getting to know him, is the sweet warmth of Noah’s days in a world of stress, hypervigilance, and responsibility.

The beauty of the book is how well the author takes you inside Gregor’s (and occasionally, Noah’s) head and makes the reality of being neurodivergent or a traumatized teen in a difficult situation clear with a degree of inner consistency and logic and joys as well as struggles. Beautifully done.

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Death in the Spires by K.J. Charles

I’m a huge fan of this author – I preorder sight unseen – and in this early-20th-century mystery set in Oxford, we meet her usual complex characters, a vibrant setting with just the right details, a great plot, and a hint of social commentary that flows with the story.

In a group of 7 tight friends, students at the end of their second year at Oxford and the associated women’s college, one of them was murdered in his room, very probably by another of them. The fallout cast suspicion on them all and destroyed their friendships. From a group used to living in each others’ pockets, all destined for great things, they became strangers. Two of them were arrested and subsequently released, arrested because one was rumored to be queer, and the other was Black, not from evidence presented. The Black man had an alibi from the dead man’s sister, so the case languished.

Ten years later, Jem is working a dead end job when a letter is sent to his boss, accusing him once again of the decade old murder. When he finally looks for the others of that group, he discovers the death has still upended all their lives, and they all still get repeated hate mail. Jem is determined to solve the mystery so they can move on. But a murderer still walks among them, and asking questions now may prove to be both painful and dangerous. The romance is secondary to the mystery, but characters and story are as always, sublime.

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Amid Our Lines by Zarah Detand

This author’s writing style hits a sweet spot for me. This is a fairly simple meet-cute romance arc. Eric is a successful songwriter with a knack for dating guys who will leave his heart bruised. His most recent relationship was with a man who secretly longed for his ex, who then got back together. They’re both famous, which leaves Eric seeing their pictures around town and hearing about them all the time. (Having read You’re My Beat adds background but IMO is not at all required.)

Kojo, Eric’s roommate and best friend, is a force of nature, a talented chef who has taken a new job at a hotel in the Swiss Alps, and who convinces Eric to come along for some casual part-time labor and new scenery where his ex won’t dominate the landscape.

Walking into the hotel in the gorgeous Swiss mountains, Eric is startled to realize that the host is a young man he once drooled over (and jerked off to) as a star of a classy online porn site. It was fun to see Adrian’s porn career a very minor aspect and no concerns about being in the closet (at least for the MCs.) The secondary characters, especially best friends and parents, were supportive and amusing. There’s a minimum of angst, so this works as a warm comfort read.

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A Gentle Way to Love by Abrianna Danae

I really enjoy polyamory and stories with an open relationship and this one ticked all the boxes. Blaise and Grant were both the separate partners of a woman whom they each loved, but who never wanted them to meet. Grant has limited other friendships and no other partner, but Blaise is also married to Sawyer and they are coparenting Blaise’s young daughter with that woman, since motherhood was not something she ever wanted. Their marriage is open, and Sawyer has another guy he’s been with since college. Who also has a partner. The web of the interconnected mostly-male polycule has been working well until the woman abruptly dies.

At her funeral, Blaise and Grant meet for the first time. They can empathize with each other more than anyone else there, and yet, it’s awkward because she never wanted them together, liking her love-life kept in neat boxes. Now they have met, they find solace in each other and a kinship that turns to friendship.

This story is a bit idealized, as several couples, triads, and their friends and lovers and partners work out a pattern of love – sexual and platonic – and supportive friendship. The lack of fights and arguments and jealousies and difficulties is a little unrealistic for this many interlinked individuals. I felt the young daughter got a bit of short shrift, as she struggled with losing a mother who had strong ideas and yet had been distant from her. Having her prefer to stay at her grandparents’ was convenient in allowing the guys to construct their new relationships more easily, but seemed a bit too hands-off particularly for Sawyer. But as it stands, the story is a lovely exploration of all the different ways people can love when they don’t put limits or mundane expectations on themselves or their partners.

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How Six Saved the Frogs by Blaine Arden

This is science fiction but the hard science element is lowkey and lovers of fantasy with nonhuman characters could equally well read it IMO.

Wouter is grieving the accidental death of his brother, who was an interplanetary agent, and cleaning out the apartment when he accidentally triggers a travel disc – a teleportation-type device that whisks him off to an alien planet. There he encounters a race of intelligent beings who look like frogs, but who love human music, and who have a bio-fuel that is in high demand. He finds out there from his brother’s fellow agent, Jack, that they were supposed to be on a mission to help the Bani people travel across perilous territory to their safe wintering grounds before the cold sets in and kills them.And Wouter is determined to help.

Nonbinary gender is a theme in this story, along with grief and healing, variations of sexuality, and the ability of love to exist in the absence of desire. The plot has some moments of adventure, some moments of fun, a lot of mud, a few explosions, some bad guys, and a solid ending. The ability to do limited time travel with the teleportation discs seemed unnecessary to the plot and a bit scientifically questionable, but it was a minor quibble. Although the plot moves this story along, its real charm was in Wouter and Nif, the alien culture, and the affirmation of brains and hearts ahead of bodies. A fun read with a lot of originality and heart.

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Solstice by Eli Easton and RJ Scott

This is the first book in a murder mystery trilogy by a pair of authors I enjoy, and while it has a solid HFN ending, the same characters continue in the next two books to their HEA. Here we meet Gabriel, a small town sheriff and Tiber, a pet behavior consultant.

Gabriel returned to his hometown after a long undercover operation with the LAPD went bad at the end. He’s traumatized by that ending, and estranged from his brothers because while Gabriel was inexplicably out of touch in LA, their abusive father died, and Sam was left with a younger brother to raise and a business mired in debt. Since Gabriel still can’t say why he never responded to pleas for help from his brother, their relationship is cold. But he can’t focus on his personal life right now, when a dead white man is found on a local tribe’s sacred site with an X cut in his chest. With only one deputy and limited resources, the case is Gabriel’s to solve, or screw up.

Tiber, with his behaviorist credentials, picked the small town of Prophet as a refuge, running from an emotionally abusive ex. He works remotely with pet-parent clients, and so the isolation is no obstacle and makes him feel safe. The local Native American tribe, although not his own people (he’s 1/4 Navajo), give him a sense of connectedness to the region. Tiber doesn’t interact with the locals much, until the sheriff comes asking for help to catch the distressed loose dog of a murdered man. Tiber can’t say no to a traumatized animal, and it will change his life.

I liked the twists of the case which didn’t delve too deeply into the implausible to explain the murder scene. Both main characters have their weaknesses and strengths, and I empathized with both of them. Tiber’s ability to communicate with animals goes beyond a brilliant grasp of pet body language and extensive behavior training into the paranormal, but not so far that it made the story feel like something other than a contemporary. The relationship is appropriately slow burn. I enjoyed the other two books of this trilogy as well.

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The Villain Who Wasn’t by Liv Rancourt

Micah is a guy who came into his shapeshifting talent when he was young, broke, and expecting a baby with his girlfriend. No surprise he didn’t stick to the straight and narrow when crooked was easier and more lucrative. But one bad choice put him in the crosshairs of a demon, and he’s been doing bad things and running for a long time now.

He’s on the run again, and planning to hide out at a rental cabin site he owns, only to find out the other cabins have been rented by a werewolf pack. Anders, the pack Beta, isn’t happy about having a stranger around on what was supposed to be a family get-together with fur and full moon involved. But he can tell Micah isn’t human, and he’s inexplicably attracted to the reclusive cabin owner.

When the wolfy getaway has an unwelcome visitor to deal with, attraction turns to appreciation. But the danger that is after Micah is on a whole different level. Even a werewolf may not be enough to keep Micah safe, and Anders’ pack doesn’t welcome an untrustworthy non-wolf.

I liked the opposites attract aspect of this, and I appreciated that Micah wasn’t just misunderstood – he did do deeply wrong things, whatever his reason. And there were consequences. There was a surprise crossover (to subparheroes)  in here I wasn’t expecting, but I don’t think you need to recognize it to enjoy the book.

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You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

These mid-20th century stories are my favorites of Cat Sebastian’s work (and that’s saying something.) Sebastian hits the bullseye with the melding of social and personal angst and issues, along with warm and deep love between her characters. In this case, the book’s themes involve grief and recovery, and the closet of the 1960s. And how those interacted.

Because for newspaper reporter Mark, losing his lover William to a heart attack in his 30s was not only devastating as an event, but doubly so because despite living together in love, they were not out to any but a couple of close friends. So Mark couldn’t speak to William’s family, found out about the funeral location from the paper, and has gone a year and a half drifting through his life, unable to move on.

Until an assignment to interview a mouthy new baseball player shakes him out of his rut. And in Eddie, battling a disastrous trade to the local team, Mark sees someone he empathizes with. That emotion, the first to break through his shell of grief, opens the way to more. The damage done by the closet (which is STILL happening – major league sports have almost no out players) is achingly vivid here. So is the way that recovery from grief isn’t linear, and is more a matter of reshaping your life around loss than getting past it. The characters are easy to empathize with and love. Another book worth savoring and rereading.

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An Ex-Hero’s Guide to Axe Handling by Jenn Burke (Subparheroes shared world series)

I’m a fan of Jenn Burke’s and I love what she did with this not-so-superhero trope. Ward Sullivan was Firefox, a highpowered superhero, until he was betrayed and damaged, left with a power he doesn’t dare use again, for fear of doing himself further damage. He’s bitter and angry, and lonely. And afraid, though he’d never admit it, that his life is irrevocably destroyed.

Devlin Campbell is a quiet man with a minor power who doesn’t even have a code name. His ability to make people like him, whether they want to or not, is morally difficult for him. To the point where he tries to get sexual consult from hookups established by phone, so he won’t coerce them into something they don’t want without even realizing it. Luckily Ward is that rare person – unaffected by Devlin’s “like me” power and able to be honest with him.

I loved the characters in this, and their journey to love. They balanced each other, and as much as Ward was the damaged one, Devlin needed to find a way out of the small life he’d created for himself.

I appreciated a strong female secondary character. Teen Hallie has strengths and weaknesses and is given her chance to shine in her own right. I liked that a couple of places, where cliche was a possible route, the story dodged it and went the more real direction. This has more angst and poignancy than some of the others in this series, but that’s never a drawback for me.

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Lust and Other Drugs by T.J. Nichols (Mytho series)

I read my way through the Mytho Investigations series, for the imaginative worldbuilding, the inventive plots, and the personal dilemmas of the MCs. Each one is HFN but with open threads leading onward.

In this first book, we meet Jordan – a human cop, and Edra, a dragon shifter whose position as Knight is essentially the same thing for the mythos population.

A decade ago, two worlds collided in space-time and merged. Earth remained dominant, but parts of the mythos world survived, along with some of its population. Buildings collapsed or were replaced by temples and groves. Satyrs, vampires, elves, werewolves (trapped in half-form), and others suddenly found themselves in the human world, with their magic limited but not gone. There were internment camps, there are nations at war, but San Francisco is now working toward coexistence.

Jordan has been chosen as the Police liaison to the mythos population, with Edra as his counterpart. Jordan is sympathetic to the newcomers in ways a lot of the human population (particularly law enforcement) are not. But he still has a long way to go to begin to understand them. That task is complicated by his attraction to Edra, and by Jordan’s addiction to Bliss – a satyr drug that brings pleasure and is supposed to be harmless, but clearly isn’t.

The conflicts are believable, (and if humans do not come off well, that’s clearly today’s reality) and the solutions are not too pat. I rode along with this whole series and enjoyed the trip.

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I also have to give honorable mention to series books that I really enjoyed:

Between the Teeth by Taylor Fitzpatrick finished off the trilogy of the same name. More than a romance, this is the story of one young, autistic, professional hockey player. David travels a long hard road from a closed-off, friendless, hockey machine, to a man who is able to have friends, to be loved and love in return. Slow, slow burn and tough at times, this is such a wonderful picture of an autistic MC by a very favorite author.

Twisted Shadows, the sequel to Allie Therin’s Liar City (a top 10 last year) is a wonderful continuation of this urban fantasy/paranormal with empaths a minority in trouble from within the government and outside it. The romance between Reece, our empath, and Evan, the Dead Man, and empath wrangler, takes a huge jump forward, but the ending is very open, though it didn’t feel like a cliffhanger. Can’t wait for book 3.

Rook’s Time by Kim Fielding is an excellent sequel to last year’s Carnival of Mysteries book, Crow’s Fate (another top 10). They defnitely should be read in order, but here we find out a lot more about Simeon, as the world, magic, and fates begin messing with him and Crow. Solid established couple and imaginative plot with an HEA.

The Dratsie Dilemma is the latest in Gail Carriger’s San Andreas Shifters. Although there’s a new MC, we’ve seen him before, and the returning characters make this a read-in-order book IMO. Shifters, merfolk, mages, and humor with enough angst not to be fluff.