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The Most Anticipated Books of 2024

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | January 2, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | January 2, 2024 |

Books Getty Images 2.jpg

Another year, another pile of books left unread by my bedside (and multiple shelves, and random surfaces around my house.) There’s so much to read and never enough time to do so, which is both humbling and depressing. And then there are so many titles coming soon to get giddy over! Hey, those Christmas book tokens aren’t going to spend themselves. I have pretty specific tastes but will also read just about anything, so the ten titles I’ve chosen here are representative of the kind of stuff that gets me excited. Choosing your most anticipated books of the year is tough given that the release calendar remains half-empty and the second part of 2024 has yet to be filled. So, I focused on works that have solid publication dates. There will be more to buy in the coming 12 months. Oh so much more!

The Book of Love by Kelly Link

Kelly Link’s short stories are magical, there’s no other word to describe them. We wait for each new story or collection with bated breath, and the idea of a full-blown novel seemed impossible. But here it is! The Book of Love is a welcome doorstop blend of genres that has me more giddy with anticipation than any other book on this list, which is saying something given the competition. A year after disappearing from their hometown, a trio of teens find themselves in a high school classroom. They’re dead, but the circumstances surrounding their passings are cryptic. Their strange former music teacher seems to have answers, but to get them they’ll have to complete a series of magical tasks. And there are other supernatural creatures eager to take advantage of their plight.

Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler

Trans rights! We’re stuck in the midst of a terrifying revival of transphobia that has engulfed both sides of the Atlantic and birthed a slew of bad-faith ‘gender criticals’ who think that stripping a marginalized group of their legal and bodily autonomy is good, actually. A lot of TERFs keep trying to claim the one and only Judith Butler as their ally, which is just a fancier way of them admitting they’ve never read any of Butler’s work. Ha. Perhaps they’ll finally get the message with the release of Who’s Afraid of Gender, wherein Butler analyses how the entire concept of gender has become the modern boogeyman and culture war battleground while having no real interest in the subject at hand.

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

Erik Larson has written so many excellent nonfiction books that you’d hate him for his skills if his work wasn’t so impeccably readable. Since I have to accept that we’ll probably never get that adaptation of The Devil in the White City — prove me wrong, world! — we can happily settle for his next title, The Demon of Unrest. This one follows the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War. America is about to irrevocably change, divided into two and torn apart with the threat of Southern extremists seceding from the Union more plausible than ever. Plenty has been written about Honest Abe and him freeing the slaves, accurately or otherwise, but this seems like a dive into a lesser-discussed part of his Presidential tenure.

The Stranger I Wed by Harper St. George

I don’t typically gravitate towards historical romance, but Harper St. George’s work has quickly become some of my favourites in the subgenre, with her Gilded Age Heiresses series proving to be a particular delight. She’s kicking off a new series in 2024, the Doves of New York, which follows an American heiress in London. Cora Dove and her sisters were the topic of much scandal back home due to their questionable legitimacy. After they each receive a hefty dowry from their grandmother, things seem to be changing for the better. But it comes with strings attached: the funds will only be released if Cora and her sisters find suitable husbands, and not in New York. Enter Leopold Brendon, Earl of Devonworth, a no-nonsense member of Parliament with more focus on social change than love in his life. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned marriage of convenience?

Immortal Pleasures by V. Castro

I’m morally and contractually obligated to have at least one vampire novel on this list, and this one was too juicy to ignore. La Malinche was a Nahua woman who translated for the conquistador Cortés. Decried as a traitor, she was reborn as Malinalli, an immortal vampire. Now, she fights for vengeance, for justice for the conquered peoples of her homeland and those who continue to enrichen themselves from colonialist suffering. When she arrives in Dublin in search of a pair of Aztec skulls, she meets two men, one mortal and one not, who both intrigue and desire her.

James by Percival Everett

Percival Everett is as provocative as he is prolific. You may be aware of him for Erasure, which was recently adapted into American Fiction, or for The Trees, a Booker Prize nominee. With James, he’s taking on one of the titans of American literature: Huckleberry Finn. The Jim of the title is the enslaved boy who ends up accompanying the young rapscallion Huck on his journey down the Mississippi River. What happens when you take one of the most well-known novels in the English language and shift the point-of-view? The results are sure to fascinate.

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

It didn’t take long for me to fall hard for the short stories and novellas of P. Djèlí Clark, and I eagerly followed him as he made the jump to full-length novels. His works are densely layered fantasies that borrow from classic mythology, Afrofuturism, and sly social satire. his next title, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, is sadly not about cats, but it does feature magical undead assassins. Eveen the Eviscerator is one of the fiercest figures in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. She lives only by her most sacred and unbreakable of vows. If you accept a job, you carry it out. So, when the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her into conflict with everything she’s ever known about herself.

The Morningside by Téa Obreht

I have a strangely clear memory of the deafening levels of hype that surrounded The Tiger’s Wife, the debut novel by Téa Obreht. Published when she was barely 25, it received a major publicity rollout, a slew of awards, and crowned its young author as the voice of the future (it’s also an amazing book that more than deserves its lofty reputation.) It took her almost a decade to write a follow-up. Mercifully, we don’t have to wait as long for her third novel, The Morningside. In the not-too-distant apocalyptic future, Silvia and her mother are expelled from their ancestral home and forced to take shelter at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower on Island City, a place half-submerged by the entrenching oceans.

The Fetishist by Katherine Min

Katherine Min was a celebrated writer and professor who passed away in 2019, leaving behind a number of award-winning short stories and an unpublished novel. It’s now ready to see the light of day after a publisher bidding war, and it’s not hard to see what caused all the excitement. Min’s friend, writer Cathy Park Hong, described The Fetishist as ‘a reframing of Lolita from the perspective of an Asian fetishist.’ The novel blends three perspectives - the title white man who preyed upon a young Asian woman, the victim Alma, and Alma’s daughter Kyoko, who seeks revenge following her mother’s death.

One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole

One of my favourite romance writers also happens to be an excellent crime novelist. When No One is Watching was billed as a story of gentrification with a side-order of Get Out. Her latest, One of Us Knows, seems to be going more for a classic ghosts-and-murder vibe. Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her career, Kenetria Nash and her alters accept a job as the resident caretaker of a historic home nestled on the Hudson River Island. She can’t afford to mess up this opportunity, but then a group of strangers gets stuck on the island with her. When one of them winds up dead, she’s the prime suspect.

Keanu Reeves is Not in Love With You by Becky Holmes

As a pop culture writer who spends much of her time discussing celebrities and fandom conspiracies, the idea of an exploration into the bleakly ludicrous world of online romance scams is right up my alley (and who can resist that title?) Online romance fraud is a worldwide problem that preys upon the vulnerable and rinses them into emotional and financial ruin. It’s also something many people see as a joke, as something the gormless fool who fell for it deserved because who among us would be daft enough to believe a bona fide celebrity is asking us on a date via a chatroom? Becky Holmes’ book promises to be in-depth but light-hearted in its dissection of this weird world and the psychology of fraud. Hey, maybe Keanu really did need your Venmo username for serious reasons?!