Once again I tried to streamline the process of picking out a favorite book from the previous year, by posting my monthly favorites.
More selective with Indie authors, we read and listened to more library books in 2024 than previous years and the books again include a wide range of genres from #cozyanimalmysteries to #historicalfiction. The big surprise when all tallied it out was that I failed both my #historicalfiction challenge as well as the #audiobook challenge which I had been confident in winning.
Links on titles are to my review which will include source and purchase information…
Jan –The Frozen River
Feb – The Wager
Mar –The Wrong Side of Goodbye
Apr –The Debt Collector
May – Your Forgotten Sons
Jun –Prevailing Wind
Jul – 12 Coffins and Lilac Ink (a tie-both 5 stars)
Aug –The Broken Truth
Sept – Darling Girls
Oct – The Johnstown Flood
Nov – Summit’s Edge
Dec – The Phoenix Crown
Not all these monthly favorites garnered five-star reviews from us. There is a good mix of genres among which are non-fiction, family drama, historical fiction, literary fiction, and and even a YA! Once again, it would appear that historical fiction is a strong favorite, so surely I’ve miscounted the category in the Challenges.
Of my favorites in 2024, I loved both Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth and The Wager by David Grann, both in audiobook format. Did you listen to either? The latter is breathtaking in description, brilliantly tension-building, emotional, and filled with the astonishing story of the shipwreck and survivors. So…
Favorite novel of 2024 – The Wager by David Grann, narrated by himself and Dion Graham
Let’s Start Over!
January finds me wrestling with the conversion of 2024 to 2025, new categories and an updated Challenge page. Out of the four main challenges I do every year, only two goals were successfully met. When I got everything caught up, disappointed to discover I was one short of meeting the Netgalley Challenge and experienced an epic fail with the Historical Fiction Challenge. I’ve signed up for those challenges again, posted the new logos with their links, and reset my challenges for 2025. Check out my Challenges page!
My (Goodreads) Year in Books
At about the same time, the release of all those great Goodreads stats is impossible to miss when they insist on sending them to you. I hope you got yours. I took note of the info; it was most interesting. Yes, there was a problem or two with the shortest book, as they show Battle Annie at 34 pages, also noted for the fewest shelved. Nope. (The most shelved was All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, also on my favorites list and winner of the Pulitzer as well as a four-part mini-series on Netflix.) My longest, a David Baldacci book, The 6:20 Man at 593 pages. Our average book length was approximately 334 pages with an average rating of 4.1 stars.
The first of the year is always rather daunting for me, a struggle, especially wresting with the classic editor in WP that is still trying to force the block editor on me.
Have you looked over your Goodreads stats, set your new challenges? Ran a critical eye over what went wrong or right?
Do any of the above grab your interest? Read it already? How’s your #TBR?
Disagree with our reviews? I’d love to know and always welcome your comments!
©2025 V Williams
Graphic courtesy Freepik.com
Rosepoint Publishing 
I have The Wager on my TBR – paper, though, not audiobook. My willpower gave up under the weight of glowing reviews! I find the GR stats really inaccurate for page counts since audiobooks tend not to have the right number of pages listed. I like to be able to see all the book covers, though!
ARGH!! reply to comments has been changed again and i don’t know if my replies are going through or not. at any rate, i loved the Wager, so gripping. every now and then i quit multi-tasking and just sit down and listen. for me, this is one of those. don’t know how long the book is actually tho.
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