The Best Books of 2024 – Fiction (A Year-End List Aggregation)

Fiction – 2024

“What are the best Fiction books released in 2024?” We looked at 440 of the top Fiction books, aggregating and ranking them so we could

Other Years: 2025 2024
Other Subjects 2024: Art/Coffee Audiobook Bio/Memoir Children Comic Cookbook Fiction General History Mystery/Thriller/Horror Nonfiction Picture Poetry Sci-Fi/Fantasy Science/Nature YA
#1
James: A Novel

James: A Novel

by Percival Everett
Amazon Bookshop
#2
Intermezzo

Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney
Amazon Bookshop
#3
Martyr!

Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar
Amazon Bookshop
#4
All Fours

All Fours

by Miranda July
Amazon Bookshop
#5
Colored Television

Colored Television

by Danzy Senna
Amazon Bookshop
#6
Our Evenings

Our Evenings

by Alan Hollinghurst
Amazon Bookshop
#7
The Mighty Red

The Mighty Red

by Louise Erdrich
Amazon Bookshop
#8
The Safekeep

The Safekeep

by Yael Van Der Wouden
Amazon Bookshop

"It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be--led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel's doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel's antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn't. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house--a spoon, a knife, a bowl--Isabel's suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to infatuation--leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva--nor the house in which they live--are what they seem"--Dust jacket.

#9
Creation Lake

Creation Lake

by Rachel Kushner
Amazon Bookshop
#10
Headshot

Headshot

by Rita Bullwinkel
Amazon Bookshop
#11
Long Island

Long Island

by Colm Tóibín
Amazon Bookshop
#13
Wandering Stars

Wandering Stars

by Tommy Orange
Amazon Bookshop
#33
The Anthropologists

The Anthropologists

by Aysegül Savas
Amazon Bookshop

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD LONGLIST * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE * A DAKOTA JOHNSON x TEATIME BOOK CLUB PICK * VULTURE #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE SELECTION "The Anthropologists is mesmerizing; I felt I read it in a single breath." -Garth Greenwell "Savas is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows." -Bryan Washington Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Back in their home countries parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly out of reach. But Asya and Manu's new world is growing, too, they hope. As they open the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release? Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of homebuilding and modern love, written with Aysegül Savas' distinctive elegance, warmth, and humor.

#55
Butter

Butter

by Asako Yuzuki
Amazon Bookshop

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in the Tokyo Detention House convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a master class in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that Rika might be the one changing. Do she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”—Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

#56
Greta & Valdin

Greta & Valdin

by Rebecca K. Reilly
Amazon Bookshop

"Valdin is still in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who used to drive around Auckland in a ute but now drives around Buenos Aires in one. Greta is in love with her fellow English tutor Holly, who doesn't know how to pronounce Greta's surname, Vladislavljevic, properly. From their Auckland apartment, brother and sister must navigate the intricate paths of modern romance as well as weather the small storms of their eccentric MÄ ori-Russian-Catalonian family"--

#115
Stone Yard Devotional

Stone Yard Devotional

by Charlotte Wood
Amazon Bookshop

Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, a novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be good. Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident. But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past. Meditative, moving, and finely observed, Stone Yard Devotional is a seminal novel from a writer of rare power, exploring what it means to retreat from the world, the true nature of forgiveness, and the sustained effect of grief on the human soul.

#119
The Echoes

The Echoes

by Evie Wyld
Amazon Bookshop

From the award-winning novelist, a ravishing new novel set between London and rural Australia, both a love story and a ghost story Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he is still here, he watches his girlfriend, Hannah, lost in grief in the apartment they shared and begins to realize how much of her life was invisible to him. In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah was haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seemed to offer the potential of a fresh new chapter, but the past refused to stay hidden. It found expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max. Both a celebration and an autopsy of a relationship, and spanning multiple generations, The Echoes is a novel about love and grief, motherhood and sisterhood, secrets and who has the right to reveal them—what of our past can be cast away and what is fixed forever, echoing down through the years.

#126
The Land in Winter

The Land in Winter

by Andrew Miller
Amazon Bookshop

⭐ Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 ⭐ ⭐ Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025 ⭐ ⭐ Winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2025 ⭐ 'One of the best writers at work today' TELEGRAPH 'Has an uncanny beauty and depth... A novel that travels into the darkest places of history and the strangest corners of the human mind' GUARDIAN 'Money, class, love: all of life is in there' SUNDAY TIMES 'Tender, elegant, soulful and perfect... Superb' SAMANTHA HARVEY, Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital 'A classic in the making' ELIZABETH DAY, author of How to Fail and One of Us DECEMBER 1962, THE WEST COUNTRY. Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that's already faltering. But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel. Where do you hide when you can't leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to? More praise for The Land in Winter 'Perfect' OBSERVER 'Delicate and devastating' I PAPER 'Incredibly satisfying' FINANCIAL TIMES 'A novel of dazzling humanity and captivating, crystalline prose' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'I loved The Land in Winter . . . There were moments I thought of Penelope Fitzgerald... A thing of rare beauty' RACHEL JOYCE, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry 'An exquisite achievement, luminously written, full of wonder at the diversity and strangeness of human experience.' FRANCIS SPUFFORD, author of Golden Hill Praise for Andrew Miller 'Andrew Miller's writing is a source of wonder and delight' HILARY MANTEL 'One of our most skilful chroniclers of the human heart and mind' SUNDAY TIMES 'A writer of very rare and outstanding gifts' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'A highly intelligent writer, both exciting and contemplative' THE TIMES 'A wonderful storyteller' SPECTATOR

#145
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

by Tia Williams
Amazon Bookshop

From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic love story one hundred years in the making... Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers. One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way. Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked. Includes a Reading Group Guide.

#150
American Spirits

American Spirits

by Barb Rosenstock
Amazon Bookshop

CAN THE DEAD TALK TO THE LIVING? Discover the astonishingly true story of Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox—the Civil War-era sisters and teen mediums who created the American séance. A real-life ghost story for young adult readers interested in the supernatural, American history, and women’s rights! Rap. Rap. Rap. The eerie sound was first heard in March of 1848 at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York. The family’s two daughters, Kate and Maggie, soon discovered that they could communicate with the spirit that was making these uncanny noises; he told them he had been a traveling peddler who had been murdered. This strange incident, and the ones that followed, generated a media frenzy beyond anything the Fox sisters could have imagined. Kate and Maggie, managed (or perhaps manipulated) by their elder sister Leah, became famous spirit mediums, giving public exhibitions, and advising other celebrities of their day. But were the Fox sisters legitimate? In the years that followed their rise, the Civil War killed roughly 1 in 4 soldiers, increasing the demand for contacting the dead. However, media campaigns against the sisters gathered steam as well... This thrilling and mysterious true story from veteran author Barb Rosenstock (Caldecott Honor winner) will spark teens’ interest in American history, encourage media literacy, and reveal insights into the Civil War era, fake news, and women's rights.

#162
Be at Peace

Be at Peace

by Donal Ryan
Amazon Bookshop

Winner of the Irish Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Nero Novel of the Year From one of the most acclaimed Irish writers today, a new novel about smalltown Ireland that explores a community on the mend and the power of love and trauma to both bring people together and divide them “I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise. . .” In a small town in Ireland, the local people have weathered the storm of economic collapse and now look to the future: The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the scars of its history, new stories have begun to unfold. But an insidious menace now creeps through back-alley shadows and into the lives of the townspeople. Old grudges fester and new ones arise. Young people are lured by the promise of fast money while the generation above them tries to hold back the tide of an enemy beyond their control. And the peace of this town is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. A stunning, lyrical novel told in twenty-one voices, Heart, Be at Peace reveals a community that together looks to overcome the betrayals, secrets, and grudges that can divide families, neighbors, and entire generations.

#195
Death by a Thousand Cuts

Death by a Thousand Cuts

by Shashi Bhat
Amazon Bookshop

Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • One of Apple Canada’s Best Ebooks of 2024 • CBC Books' Top Pick for Most Anticipated Canadian Fiction for Spring 2024 A breathtaking and sharply funny collection about the everyday trials and impossible expectations that come with being a woman, from the Governor General’s Literary Award-shortlisted author of The Most Precious Substance on Earth. What would have happened if she’d met him at a different time in her life, when she was older, more confident, less lonely, and less afraid? She wonders not whether they would have stayed together, but whether she would have known to stay away. A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman’s relationships with others and with herself.

#212
Ghost Cities

Ghost Cities

by Siang Lu
Amazon Bookshop

Ghost Cities &– inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China &– follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney's Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn' t speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. How is his relocation to one such ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient Emperor creates a thousand doubles of Himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess-playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known Empire is destroyed &– then re-created, page by page and book by book, all in the name of love and art? Allegorical and imaginative, Ghost Cities will appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino.

#214
Girl in the Making

Girl in the Making

Amazon Bookshop

Devastating’ Anne Enright ‘Beautiful’ Louise Nealon 'Magnificent' Aingeala Flannery 'Masterful' Kathleen MacMahon Jean Kennedy is a gentle, perceptive girl growing up in a very strange world: suburban Dublin in the 1970s and '80s. In the company of her mother, her Aunty Ida, and her little brother Baby John F., Jean experiences love and joy. But home is not a safe place, and Jean is unequal and unprotected. When she speaks just one small part of the truth, she must quickly learn to navigate the dangers and possibilities of a world she scarcely understands. Jean’s hypnotic, unsparing and ultimately hopeful voice captures the dreams and terrors of girlhood in a brutally hypocritical world, and offers glimpses of a better life. Through it all, Jean’s voice pulsates with insight and passion. Girl in the Making is a deeply moving, propulsive coming-of-age story from a major new talent. ----- ‘A gifted writer’ Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times ‘Tender and perceptive ... simply unforgettable’ Sue Leonard, Irish Examiner 'Reminiscent of the work of Tessa Hadley and Elena Ferrante' Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett 'Devastating and superb' Anne Cunningham, Irish Independent

#225
Hi, It’s Me

Hi, It’s Me

by Fawn Parker
Amazon Bookshop

Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Finalist • Globe and Mail Top 100 Best Books of 2024 • One of Indigo’s Most Anticipated Canadian Books • One of the CBC’s Canadian Fiction Books to Read in Fall 2024 • Governor General's literary Award for Fiction, Finalist Women Talking meets Study for Obedience in this stunning depiction of fresh grief by Fawn Parker, the Giller Prize–longlisted author of What We Both Know. Shortly after her mother’s death, Fawn arrives at the farmhouse. While there, she will stay in her mother’s bedroom in the house that is also occupied by four other women who live by an unusual set of beliefs. Wrestling with longstanding compulsive and harmful behaviours, as well as severe self-doubt, Fawn is confronted with the reality of her mother’s death. It is her responsibility to catalogue the furniture and possessions in the room, then sell or dispose of them. Instead, Fawn becomes fixated on archiving her mother’s writing and documents, searching for signs, and drawing tenuous connections to help her understand more about the enigmatic woman in the pages. I am surrounded by mocking evidence of her inhabitancy of this room. Quickly, it is expiring. Today she was alive. When the day runs out that will no longer be true. Tomorrow I will be able to say that yesterday she was alive, at least. The next day, nothing. She will just be dead. The fact seems to be at its smallest now, growing with time. For now she is many things, and there are many places left to find her. In Hi, It’s Me, Fawn Parker is unafraid to explore the bewildering relationship between the living and the dead. Strikingly original, provocative, and engrossing Hi, It’s Me takes us into the furthest corners of grief, invoking the physicality and painful embodiment of terminal illness with astonishing precision and emotional force. This mesmerizing, devastating novel asks: Why must it be this way?

#252
LES YEUX DE MONA

LES YEUX DE MONA

by Thomas Schlesser
Amazon Bookshop

« Cinquante-deux semaines : c'est le temps qu'il reste à Mona pour découvrir toute la beauté du monde. . C'est le temps que s'est donné son grand-père, un homme érudit et fantasque, pour l'initier, chaque mercredi après l'école, à une œuvre d'art, avant qu'elle ne perde, peut-être pour toujours, l'usage de ses yeux.. Ensemble, ils vont sillonner le Louvre, Orsay et Beaubourg.. Ensemble, ils vont s'émerveiller, s'émouvoir, s'interroger, happés par le spectacle d'un tableau ou d'une sculpture. Empruntant les regards de Botticelli, Vermeer, Goya, Courbet, Claudel, Kahlo ou Basquiat, Mona découvre le pouvoir de l'art et apprend le don, le doute, la mélancolie ou la révolte, un précieux trésor que son grand-père souhaite inscrire en elle à jamais.. Retrouvez les 52 chefs-d'œuvre à l'intérieur de la jaquette dépliable. »--Page 4 de la couverture

#283
New Stories

New Stories

by Owen Marshall
Amazon Bookshop

So much is chance, don’t you think?’ Accidental meetings, unexpected turns in the road, job offers that take you into new territories: our lives seem arbitrary and unpredictable, as if at the whim of the god of fortune. In this latest, stunning collection of short stories by acclaimed writer Owen Marshall, people teeter on the brink of experience. From murder to an affair, to a promotion or a breakdown, the array of vivid characters aren’t always aware of what they encounter, not sure whether they are being given an opportunity, a challenge, a temptation, a lesson, or just another day to get through. Meanwhile, feelings of fear, lust, curiosity and frustration simmer beneath the surface. Will the people grasp what life throws at them? ‘What are the chances, aye? One in a million or more, like being struck by lightning or having a satellite fall on you, yet it has to happen to someone.’

#300
Pretty Ugly

Pretty Ugly

by David Sedaris, illustrated by Ian Falconer
Amazon Bookshop

Contradictions (both real and apparent), oppositions, enigmas, provocations, challenges——this is the kind of material that makes a life, and is the kind of material that, in fiction, one is never quite sure of. With Pretty Ugly, Kirsty Gunn reminds us again that she is a master of just such stuff, presenting ambiguity and complication as the essence of the storyteller's endeavour. The sheer force of life that Gunn is able to load these stories up with is both testament to her unrivalled skill and an exercise in what she describes as 'reading and writing ugly', in order to pursue the deeper truths that lie at the heart of both the human imagination and human rationality. So here we have all the strange and seemingly impossible dualities that make up real life——and pretty ugly it can be, as well as beautiful, hopeful, bleak, difficult, exhilarating. But never, ever dull.

#307
real ones: a novel

real ones: a novel

by Katherena Vermette
Amazon Bookshop

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE* *FINALIST FOR THE 2025 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD* From the author of the nationally bestselling Strangers saga comes a heartrending story of two Michif sisters who must face their past trauma when their mother is called out for false claims to Indigenous identity. June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones. Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family. But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work. The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface. In prose so powerful it could strike a match, real ones is written with the same signature wit and heart on display in The Break, The Strangers and The Circle. An energetic, probing and ultimately hopeful story, real ones pays homage to the long-fought, hard-won battles of Michif (Métis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn’t Métis.

#338
The Beholders

The Beholders

by Hester Musson
Amazon Bookshop

Held me completely in its thrall until the very last line' SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN, bestselling author of Pandora 'A well-researched and thoroughly convincing page-turner' LAURA SHEPPERSON, bestselling author of The Heroines SOME HOUSES ARE HAUNTED BY THE LIVING June, 1878. The body of a boy is pulled from the depths of the River Thames, suspected to be the beloved missing child of the widely admired Liberal MP Ralph Gethin. Four months earlier. Harriet is a young maid newly employed at Finton Hall. Fleeing the drudgery of an unwanted engagement in the small village where she grew up, Harriet is entranced by the grand country hall; she is entranced too by her glamorous mistress Clara Gethin, whose unearthly singing voice floats through the house. But Clara, though captivating, is erratic. The master of the house is a much-lauded politician, but he is strangely absent. And some of their beautiful belongings seem to tell terrible stories. Unable to ignore her growing unease, Harriet sets out to discover their secrets. When she uncovers a shocking truth, a chain of events is set in motion that could cost Harriet everything, even her freedom...

#347
The Cracked Mirror

The Cracked Mirror

by Chris Brookmyre
Amazon Bookshop

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed. You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes. Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer. A cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, The Cracked Mirror is the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, a genre-splicing rollercoaster with a poignantly emotional heart.

#348
The Cure for Drowning

The Cure for Drowning

by Loghan Paylor
Amazon Bookshop

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE Evocative, magical and luminously written, The Cure for Drowning is not only a brilliant, boundary-pushing love story but a Canadian historical novel that boldly centres queer and non-binary characters in unprecedented ways. Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is. Soon she and Kit, and Kit's older brother, Landon, are drawn tight in a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war. Landon signs up for the Navy. Kit, now known as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, becoming a bomber navigator relied on for his luck and courage. Rebekah serves with naval intelligence in Halifax, until one more collision with Landon changes the course of her life and draws her back to the McNair farm—a place where she'd once known love. Fallen on even harder times, the McNairs welcome all the help she is able to give, and she believes she has found peace at last. Until, with the war over, Kit and Landon return home. Told in the vivid, unforgettable voices of Kit and Rebekah, The Cure for Drowning is a powerfully engrossing novel that imagines a history that is truer than true.

#355
The Gentleman From Peru

The Gentleman From Peru

by Andre Aciman
Amazon Bookshop

Another masterful tale of longing and desire.' Glamour 'Aciman writes with an aching sensitivity.' JOHN BOYNE 'You don't so much read André Aciman's novels as tumble breathlessly into them.' The Times We spend more time than we know trying to go back. We call it fantasising, we call it dreaming. . . but we're all crawling back, each in his or her own way. A group of college friends find themselves marooned at a luxurious hotel on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. While their boat is being repaired, they can't help but observe the daily routine of a fellow hotel guest - a mysterious, white-bearded stranger who sits on the veranda each night and smokes one cigarette, sometimes two. When the group decides to invite the elegant traveller to lunch with them, they cannot begin to imagine the miraculous abilities, strange wisdom, and a life-changing story he is about to impart to one of the friends in particular. . . Deeply atmospheric and sensual, The Gentleman From Peru weaves achingly poignant insight into a story of regret, fate and epic love. READERS ADORE THE GENTLEMAN FROM PERU: 'A wonderful story of love, loss and regret . . . written in a beautifully descriptive, touching and sensuous way.' 'It captivated me from the start. André Aciman instills the heat of the Amalfi coast on every page.' 'Intriguing, moving and thought-provoking.' 'A deeply moving, lush and affecting tale of life, love, regret and loss. Beautifully written and keenly observed.' 'I was moved by the beauty of the prose . . . This was superb.' 'An epic and timeless love story . . . beautifully written.'

#364
The Leap Year Gene

The Leap Year Gene

by Shelley Wood
Amazon Bookshop

February 29, 1916: On Leap Year Day, war widow Lillian McKinley gives birth at last to a baby girl who gestated far longer than she should. Kit proves to be a happy and intelligent child, but unnaturally slow to age--growing just one year older every four. For decades, she and her family must keep on the move to protect her secret--from insatiable newshounds, Nazi scientists, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies. When Kit can finally pass for an adult, she must decide whether she wants to stay perpetually on the run or form lasting ties. Ultimately, once the human genome is mapped and research on altering it begins, she'll need to make some difficult choices about the strange quirk in her DNA that has made her who she is.

#368
The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh

The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh

Amazon Bookshop

FROM THE WINNER OF THE INDIE BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2021 'With Ingrid Persaud's, assured, wizened and brilliant hand at the pen, these women become vitally, thrillingly, and unforgettably alive.' MARLON JAMES 'A voice that has a vibrancy of its own.' RACHEL JOYCE 'A talented and engaging storyteller.' Sunday Times 'Persaud has a knack for finding the sublime in the ordinary.' SARA COLLINS, Guardian From the award-winning author of Love After Love, comes an epic of wonder, danger and risk. Popo is brilliant, vulnerable and stuck - but despite those who want to own her, she is determined to free herself from the traps of her past, whatever the cost. Mana Lala is equally as focussed on her little boy who connects her to the man she loves, and she will do anything to keep them both close. For Doris, life is an opportunity she will grab with all her might - hers is another iron will constrained by the truths of being a woman in 1930s Trinidad. And then there is Rosie, pouring her soul into her business, her lover Etty and her store. Four brave and brilliant women, connected and controlled by one man, and a world that puts all power to his elbow. This is their story, and for some of them, it is all that is left. Readers adored Lost Love Songs: 'Amazing! I couldn't put the book down. The characters were so real, and the story flowed. A must read.'⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Vibrant and vividly written, I loved every minute of it.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book has touched me on so many levels . . . a compelling read, eloquently written, entertaining, with depth and breadth. Highly recommended!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#373
The Mires

The Mires

by Tina Makereti
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Water will come and you think it will be soft. You think it will be smooth and find its way around your things: your houses and cars and furniture, your gardens and windows and hope. But water can be the foot of an elephant, the horns of a moose, a herd of buffalo running from a lion, water can be the kauri falling in the forest, a two-tonne truck, a whole stadium filled with 50,000 people, screaming . . . Water is life, and water can be death.' Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child who is drawn to the waters of the indigenous wetlands. New to the street is Sera and her family, who are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe and living next door is Janet, an older white woman with an opinion about everything. When Janet's adult son Conor unexpectedly arrives home sporting a fresh buzzcut and a disturbing tattoo, no one suspects just how extreme the young man has become - no one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting. FINALIST OF THE OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS 2025

#376
The Night Alphabet

The Night Alphabet

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A Guardian Book of the Year 2024 'A glorious jewel of a novel' Sophie Ward 'Exhilarating, profoundly beautiful and exquisitely written' Salena Godden 'A mesmerising debut from one of the most talented literary stylists writing today' The Bookseller 'Hugely imaginative' Marie Claire (Best New Books, 2024) 'It's hard to think of many books more restlessly inventive' Guardian (Book of the Day) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hackney, 2233: a woman walks into a tattoo parlour. Jones' body is covered in tattoos but she wants to add one final inking to her gallery - a thin line of ink that connects the haunting images of her body art together, creating a unique and mysterious map. As the two tattoo artists set to work, Jones tells them the story behind each tattoo. As Jones is no ordinary woman, these are no ordinary stories: each one represents a doorway to a life Jones fell into, a 'remembering'. Set across geographies and time-spans, The Night Alphabet is a deep and bold investigation into violence, resilience and women's stories.

#388
The Silence In Between

The Silence In Between

by Josie Ferguson
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Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your new-born baby... This is what happens to Lisette. Overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city - and the world - in two. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate. Lisette's teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother. Both have lived for music, but while Elly hears notes surrounding every person she meets, for her mother - once a talented pianist - the music has gone silent. Perhaps Elly can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home....

#392
The Temperature

The Temperature

by Katerina Gibson
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A tweet. A storm. A secret. A revelation. In this age of isolation, what brings six very different people together? Fi is about to get fired over a viral tweet. Lexi Bostick is losing her grip on the environmental organisation she’s devoted decades of her life to. Sidney is avoiding everyone—including the persistent stranger who keeps coming into the café bookstore where she’s been hiding since she dropped out of her PhD. Govita is living in their studio space illegally and taking ketamine instead of working on their art. Somehow, they’ve also managed to adopt a dog. Thirty-something single dad Tomas watches too many movies alone at night—visited by memories of the housemate who once made the place feel like a home. And then there’s Henry, a Vietnam veteran aging out in rural isolation, writing hateful letters to the person he blames for ruining his life … Written with an extraordinary range of understanding, The Temperature is a compelling portrait of life in our fracturing society. Following the award-winning Women I Know, it confirms Katerina Gibson as one of the most ambitious, engaging and significant of our emerging writers. ‘Gibson is a masterful storyteller. These characters became kin, their humanity palpable and familiar. I am obsessed.’ Ella Baxter, author of New Animal ‘An exquisite, complex and timely novel … With sharp awareness and a wry playfulness, The Temperature explores the questions, connections and devastating truths of the times we find ourselves in.’ Else Fitzgerald, author of Everything Feels Like the End of the World ‘A smart, tender and sometimes deliciously vicious study of six very different people trying to find their way through broken times.’ Kate Mildenhall, author of The Hummingbird Effect

#404
This Is How You Remember It

This Is How You Remember It

by Catherine Prasifka
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You’re nine when you get your first computer. It’s not long before you discover porn. You don’t know what you’re watching, but you do know that you shouldn’t tell anybody. Later, older, your first kiss is captured on camera and shared with everyone in your year. Part of the incessant cycle of posting, sharing and liking. Now, you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel hollow inside. Now, you know that something has to change. Chilling, potent and intensely intimate, This Is How You Remember It is about a life lived online - and about finding another way when it’s all you’ve ever known.

#431
Woman, Life, Freedom

Woman, Life, Freedom

by Marjane Satrapi
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The emancipator revolution of woman, life, freedom in Iran was the most different political and cultural movement among the whole middle east, because it was calling for liberalism in the Middle East. Iranians rose up bravely against the Islamic totalitarian regime. By putting away traditions and political Islam as a governing model in the Middle East region, they want to destroy the rigid laws and put an end to the religious governing system. They want change and are fighting for women's rights, liberalism, equality, and democracy. In this book, the nature and the reason of this revolution is debated.

#433
Woodworm

Woodworm

by Layla Martinez
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The house breathes. The house contains bodies and secrets. 'A house of women and shadows built from poetry and revenge' Mariana Enriquez The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes. It was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can't leave. They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws unwanted attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice. Layla Martínez's eerie debut novel Woodworm is class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun. Translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott