It's almost March and the team has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of some exciting new publications for 2024. We've been flipping through publisher catalogues, reading online reviews and watching author interviews, to compile the list of books we're most looking forward to getting to this year.
Though by no means exhaustive, we hope some of these varied titles pique your interest and are added to your own creaking bookshelves! Let us know what you can't wait to read this year.
Marianne
I'm not usually driven by trying to read titles as soon as they are released, but there are quite a few that I have on my radar for 2024. One of my resolutions for the year was to try and read some of the titles I already have at home, but resolutions are there to be tweaked, aren't they? And there's nothing so tempting as a brand new book that's just calling your name!
I've been waiting for the new Benjamin Myers title 'Cuddy' to be released in paperback. Set in the north of England, this is themed around the life of St Cuthbert, the hermit and unofficial patron saint of the North, and the building of Durham cathedral. The novel spans the ages and varies it's stylistic themes throughout. It also won the Goldsmiths Prize last year and has been met with great acclaim, and I'm looking forward to it.
Sinead Gleeson is releasing her fiction debut Hagstone this year and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. With themes like community versus isolation, art and folklore, folk horror this sounds like complete Marianne catnip. I loved Constellations a few years ago, so I'm particularly excited for this. Also, just look at that gorgeous cover!
I'm also really looking forward to the brand new Marian Keyes book, 'My Favourite Mistake'. I don't know anything about the plot of this new novel. I don't even know if it's another Walsh novel, but I do know that whatever she's writing about she's warm, funny and empathetic, that I'll buy it, and love the day spent in the company of her and all the characters she's created.
Sarah Perry's new novel 'Enlightenment' is released on 2nd May, and I'm very keen to read it, having loved The Essex Serpent and Melmoth. Enlightenment is once again set in Essex, and is a story of 'love and enlightenment' that takes place over the span of twenty years and the friendship of two attendees of a Baptist chapel in the town of Aldleigh.
I also really fancy 'Ghosts of the British Museum' by Noah Angell. This ticks all the boxes for me: folk history, ghostly rumour, colonial relics and political history, all in one book.
'An absorbingly creepy travelogue through the corridors, tunnels and basements of our most famous cultural repository. With Noah Angell as our guide, the British Museum becomes a haunted prison filled with imperial plunder and restless spirits clamouring for attention.' - Malcolm Gaskill
I have been fascinated with ghostly happenings in the British Museum since reading an article in the Economist few years ago, so I'm really glad that this author has taken up the challenge of the research and writing to produce this book!
Olivia
There are so many new releases to look forward to this year! I can be something of a book magpie and will generally seek out titles that are new and/or the work from publishers that I follow.
Verdigris by Michele Mari, translated by Brian Robert Moore and published by And Other Stories, sounds like utter Liv fodder! It's an Italian translation, published by a small indie press. It follows the unlikely friendship between a young boy, Michelino and an old groundskeeper, at a rural estate in 1960s northern Italy, one summer. As the child decides to help piece together random parts of the old man's faltering memories, the horrors and mysteries of his past life are brought startlingly to their present day. It sounds thoroughly intriguing, with many of Mari's contemporaries considering him one of the great literary talents working in Italy today.
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid is definitely on my 2024 reading list. I loved reading Reid's debut, Such a Fun Age, which follows a group of friends as they face contemporary life as young, black women and the microaggressions they experience in their gentrified neighbourhood. The tough subject matter is handled with a light, humorous touch by the author. She creates funny, relatable, yet complicated characters, and her new novel is seemingly poised to do similar things. Come and Get It is set at the University of Arkansas in 2017, with campus politics and messy entanglements driving the narrative forward. Reid writes great dialogue and has a sharp eye for satire, so I'm expecting an interesting, fun few hours in the company of her latest.
I am patiently waiting for August, when Time of the Flies by Claudia Pineiro, translated by Frances Riddle, is finally published! I fell in love with the Argentine writer after reading Elena Knows back in 2022, when Charco Press picked up the famed author for English translation. Her latest novel is a thriller, focusing on the protagonist, Ines, who has been released from prison after serving fifteen years for the murder of her husband's lover. She opens her own business: 'FFF': Females, Fumigation, and Flies, a pest control/private investigation company, exclusively catering to women. One day, a client requests Ines' past expertise to help solve a problem of her own... It sounds like an intriguing, original concept and I am looking forward to indulging in Pineiro's fantastic writing once more.
Chloe
I am really looking forward to the new Elly Griffiths book, ‘The Last Word’, which was only released at the end of January. I was introduced to Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway series when I started working at Willoughby and have read all of her books since. I think I would class her as one of my favourite authors.
This is a standalone novel about two friends running a detective agency in Sussex, and with only minor cases to solve, they are both longing for something bigger to get their teeth into. When a local writer is found dead, it leads to pair to a sinister writing retreat to investigate. Sounds intriguing!
I also have ‘I Hope This Finds You Well’ by Natalie Sue on my wish list, which will be published towards the end of May. My friend highlighted it to me and I thought it sounded like a different and funny premise for a book. When an IT error allows depressed & anxiety-ridden Jolene access to all of her colleagues emails and private messages, she uses this opportunity to her advantage. But she soon realises she’s uncovered more than she bargained for.
Aishah
There are so many books I’m looking forward to this year. Whether it’s a new release from an author I love, or a title I’ve seen splashed all over social media, I can guarantee that my wallet is about to be a lot lighter and my bookshelves a lot fuller.
My most highly anticipated read of 2024 is definitely going to be Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune. I absolutely adore The House in the Cerulean Sea, and while I think it works well as a standalone, I would love to jump back into its world and spent a little more time there. This new books picks up a while after Linus settles into life at the Marsyas Island orphanage but pulls us into a different point of view with Arthurs story. Arthur Parnassus is the director of the orphanage and finally feels like his life is setting down and finding the happiness he always looked for, planning to soon adopt the six magical chargers in his care alongside his partner Linus. Of course nothing is ever that straight forward as he soon finds himself needing to make a statement on his dark past and revisiting his own miserable childhood at the same orphanage he now protects. Meanwhile a new child joins them and threatens to upset the stability and protection Arthur has tried to create for his family, they all find themselves during closer to their tipping point.
I’m also looking forward to new books such as Make the Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake a fun holiday romance full of all the fun hallmark tropes, a lead who was left at the alter, reuniting with a ex while pretend to be strangers, cookie decorating, horse back reading and it doesn't take much of the feelings and memories to come rushing back. Exactly the kind of light-hearted book to for a cosy winter night.
Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland a loose retelling of Herla and the Wild Hunt is said to be packed full of the mythological intrigues, ancient magic and compelling story telling we've come to expect from the mind and pen behind Sistersong. And of course, lets not forget
Long Island by Colm Tóibín. The very much anticipated sequel to Brooklyn, which was published nearly 15 years ago. Set two decades after the original ends, we re-join Eilis and Tony and find out their life isn't the hopeful fairy-tale ending that we hoped it would be. But instead is full of the realities of life and the fallibility of people. Tony has fathered a baby outside of their marriage and with the threat of the baby being left on Eilis's doorstep, she packs up her two teenage children and take them on her first trip back to Ireland for the first time in decades. I love Colm Tóibíns prose and his nuance when it comes to his characters and their decisions. I feel like this will go down very well and will be the perfect follow up on his biggest and most loved book so far.
There is also the new-to-me author Allison Saft, who has not one but two books coming out this year! A Fragile Enchantment will be a romantic historical tale with ancient magic interwoven as a women who can stitch emotions and memories into fabric is hired to dress the wedding party of her neighbouring country only to get dragged into their political infighting. And A Dark and Drowning Tide is set to be a far darker and haunting mystery, following the murder of the Lorelei’s beloved mentor aboard their expedition ship and her determination to uncover the truth. With all the good things I’ve heard about her previous book, A Far Wilder Magic, I’m definitely looking forward to diving into her work, both old and new.
Lastly, a really odd-sounding book that I’m sure I’m going to love is Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. Because who doesn't love horror fantasy about a very eldritch horror-esque creature who falls in love with a human. Told from the perspective of said monster- Obviously.
Alisha
I just know it’s going to be a great year of reading! I’m sure there are so many books that will find their way to me during the year, so I’m very excited to see what pops up!
After really enjoying The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, I’m really looking forward to Mandanna’s newest book, A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping. After several incidents cause Sera Swan to lose her magical powers, she finds herself running an inn in Lancashire, dealing with its many quirky guests. Longing for her magic to return, she finds a book that could be the key to restoring her powers for good. The only problem is, she must work with Luke Larsen, the one night stand she had years ago and hasn’t spoken to since!
Passiontide by Monique Roffey is also something I’m really excited about reading. After her success with The Mermaid of Black Conch, she has become an author 'to watch' for me. It's a tale of four women who spark a revolution and attempt to find the strength and bravery to imagine a different world for themselves. Sign me up right away!
Porochista Khakpour is a new author to me, but her new book, Tehrangeles sounds great. I know this is going to be a very funny read, infused with moments of sadness and heart. The Milanis, a multimillionaire Iranian-American family are so very close to having their own reality tv show, when their deepest darkest secrets are dragged out before the cameras have even started rolling. Even their cat has something to hide!
The Volcano Daughters by Gina Maria Balibrera is a book something I’m very much looking forward to opening and soaking up every single word. Balibrera’s debut follows two sisters in 1920’s El Salvador as they run from the shadow of a brutal dictator, and a terrifying genocide. On the run, both of them are followed by furies and the ghosts of their friends who have yet to finish telling their stories.