2024 Wrap Up: The Biggest Book Surprises of 2024

When deciding on these last few themes for my wrap up, I thought I would do a post about the books that surprised me the most this year. Some of these are in a good way, and some of them are not.

Surprised Me In A Good Way…

• A Crown of Oaths and Curses was the first book by J Bree that I had read, and after hearing so many things about her other series, I was really apprehensive and I was surprised by how much I loved this. This is the slow-burn of all slow-burns which I adored and when I say this is enemies to lovers, I mean ENEMIESSSSS to slightly less enemies. I loved it and I can’t wait to read the second book.
• Indigo Ridge was another surprise for me. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this one. Romantic suspense has never really been one of my go-to genres, but when this one came up for book club I really really loved it. I can’t wait to continue with this series in 2025.
• The Book of Doors is my favourite read of the year and I’m honestly so surprised by it. It’s not my typical read but it got me out of a reading slump and I truly loved everything about it. It has made me realise how much I love magical realism books. A definite stand out for the year.
• Out on a Limb was another one that I was surprised how much I loved it. Another one that I read for book club and I was apprehensive as this one has a pregnancy trope and I really hate pregnancy tropes in books. However, adding in with all the rep and the great writing, I really enjoyed this one so much more than I thought it would.
• Jenna Wolfhart’s books in general has been a fantastic surprise for me. 2024 has seen me read a lot more independently published books and Jenna Wolfhart was definitely a stand out for me. I’ve included Bad Blood because it’s such a unique and interesting read. But also her Falling for Fables series if you’re a cosy fantasy lover.
• Daughter of Chaos has been such a good surprise for me. I went into this one expecting it to be kind of romantasy like based on the cover and the fact I got an ARC of this from YALC (which is typically promoting YA books and romantasy books). I got to the 50% mark and there was no romantic interest in sight and I loved it. It was a fantastic surprise for me.

Surprised Me In A Bad Way…

Before I go on to share these books, there are not bad books! However they are books that I had high expectations for and I was surprised by how much they didn’t hit for me.

• I see so many amazing things about One Dark Window and every time I see someone raving about it, I’m like ‘what did I miss?’ I read this one in January for my book club and I don’t know whether it’s because I listened to it on audiobook or not, but I found it slow paced and boring. I enjoyed the ending but the rest of it was just ‘meh’ to me. This is one that I am debating trying again and just physically reading it this time but I don’t know. I definitely don’t get the hype for this one.
• The Bell Witches was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 and it just completely fell flat for me. I am a big fan of Lindsey Kelk’s adult contemporary romcom books, and so I was super excited to see her dive into fantasy but something just didn’t work for me. I found the book very very slow, but then the pacing sped up so dramatically towards the end that plot twists that just didn’t make any sense happened very quickly. I didn’t really feel much towards the characters so this one was just not it for me.
• I never thought I’d ever be in the position where I was saying that a JLA book surprised me in a bad way but here we are. I’ve really struggled with her last 2 or so Blood and Ash World books and I actually DNF’d Born of Blood and Ash. I felt like the previous book was so drawn out and it made me ridiculously bored and unfortunately this continued in this one. I think I’m just completely done with this world and the characters now and I just can’t get through it. This is the first JLA book I have ever DNF’d and it makes me super sad.