As we slip quietly into 2025 it’s time to reflect on my absolute favourite books of 2024. It’s six this time, four of which are audio books.
It’s always hard. There were instant standouts again. I have tried to include a mix of genres but failed yet again. I read a lot of crime fiction, which occasionally make my quarterly selections, but my Top books of the year tend to be something a bit different, so here we go.
I have included audio books in this list.
The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy
Hard to believe this is a debut novel. It’s so beautifully written and often heartbreaking. It’s not just the characters of Max and Bettina, but also Clara and Holger who stood out for me.
It’s a dual timeline novel, starting in 1929 and into WW2 itself, and then in 1993, when Bettina Vogel’s daughter Clara is trying to find out who her father was. Having travelled alone to America to bid for a selection of porcelain from the factory at Allach (which later moved to Dachau), she returns with a number of items, including the celebrated The Viking. The Nazis, particular SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, adored the porcelain, believing it to be pure, and loved pieces that showed German soldiers and animals in perfect representation. They did not like anything ‘degenerate’, as they called it, particularly expressionism. Unfortunately, Bettina, having attended the Bauhaus, is an expressionist, her hero and mentor being Wassily Kandinsky.
For my full review click here
The next four are audio books. In fact two by the same author appeared twice on my favourite audio books, but I have chosen just one from each.
Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
I think this has to be one of my favourite books ever. It’s so original, with a cast of characters that I absolutely adored. It’s set in the area around the banks of the River Thames in 1887. I love that it is set in my part of the country, so I recognised many of the places, particularly Kelmscott, which I associate with William Morris and the Kelmscott Press.
It’s a story about stories and storytelling, much of which happens at the pub run by Joe and his wife Margot. They have lots of children, the girls referred to as ‘the little Margots’, which tickled me no end, and Jonathan, the youngest, who today would be recognised as being Downs.
For my full review click here
We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker
There are thousands of ratings and reviews of this book, so I’m not going to try and precis it. It’s been done so many times already and there is nothing I can add.
But as for my feelings – well there were so many moments when I cried. Especially towards the end. Duchess tries her best to protect her little brother Robin, but everything she does makes his situation worse. One thing she says results in the saddest moment of the whole story for me.
Sometimes she drove me mad, other times I wanted to hug her. I wanted to remove her bitterness, without damaging her strength and spirit. ‘I am the outlaw Duchess Day Radley,’ she says. And five-year-old Robin is a prince. Except she is really a vulnerable thirteen-year-old who has lost everyone who could take care of her.
Since choosing this book I have read All The Colours of the Dark and I was conflicted as to which one to include. I’ll keep this one though for now.
For my full review click here
The Story Collector by Evie Gaughan
The Lost Bookshop was one of my top five books of 2023 so it came as no surprise that I would love this one. And I did. It’s a dual timeline novel – Anna’s story set one hundred years ago, and Sara’s story set in modern times.
Anna is a young farm girl, her head turned by the son of the local landowner. But then she meets Harold, an American scholar studying at Oxford University, who is writing his thesis on the fairy stories that abound on the West Coast of Ireland. He needs someone who speaks the language to translate for him, and after much discussion, it is agreed that Anna is perfect for the task.
For my full review click here
Broken Madonna by Anna Lucia
What an emotional read. From an orphanage in the poverty-stricken Apennine Mountains of Italy in 1949, to both Italy and England in 1999, this book will leave you in tears, at least it did me. Adelina, aged 15 and 11-year-old Elizabetta are best friends. Fragile and deeply religious, Elizabetta looks to Adelina for support.
When Elizabetta claims to see the Madonna by the River Mollarino, Adelina is sceptical. She thinks her friend is too easily overcome with emotion. But when injured soldier Giulio is ‘healed’, the whole town flocks to see her. She becomes known as The Barefoot Flower Girl of Atina. Her fame spreads and she becomes yet another child to have been ‘visited’ by the Virgin Mary. These appearances are known as the Marian Apparitions, the best known of which is probably Our Lady of Fatima.
For my full review click here
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
I loved this book. I listened to it on Audible and really enjoyed the narrator’s soft Irish accent. Bridie Devine is a fantastic character, a female detective in the late 1800s, who is never phased by what she sees, which includes the dead bodies of murder victims.
There are so many other brilliant characters in this richly woven tale of murder, kidnapping, circus curiosities, and incompetent police. My favourites include dead boxer Ruby Doyle, who only Bridie can see (apart from the lions and snakes that is), seven-foot-tall housemaid Cora, and Eurilie (no idea how to spell it as I was listening to the audio book), the Queen of Snakes.
For my full review click here
