4 fiction titles to book forward to in 2024

A whole new year of reading is upon us, and there are so many exciting titles to dig into! We thought we’d kick off 2024 by highlighting just a few.

Here & Now associate producer and resident bookworm Kalyani Saxena is back with four books she’s already read and loved that you can get your hands on this year.

“Your Blood, My Bones” by Kelly Andrew 

Releases April 2

Kelly Andrew’s sophomore novel is a devastating trip into the woods you'll be reluctant to return from.

Protagonist Wyatt Westlock is back at her childhood home with one purpose: to set it on fire and burn away all the bad memories of her youth. But when she discovers her former best friend Peter strung up in chains and left for dead in the home’s basement, let’s just say her plans change.

Peter’s past holds ugly secrets of ritualistic cult murder and monsters both human and supernatural. And even as the two work together to escape the house they’re trapped in, something hungry and terrifying waits in the trees.

With a deft hand and evocative prose, Andrew terrorizes her readers with suffocating eldritch horror and stomach-churning emotional angst. Both unbearably creepy and expertly written, “Your Blood, My Bones” is a haunting book that will pick your bones clean and leave you with a deep and inescapable sense of yearning for home and what it used to be.

(P.S.: If you like to see your favorite characters suffer, you’re going to devour this story whole.)

“The Familiar” by Leigh Bardugo

Releases April 9 

Gloriously sumptuous, darkly romantic, and wistfully tragic, “The Familiar” is a triumph for Leigh Bardugo. You'll love and revile every moment spent in Bardugo's expertly painted Spanish Golden Age where the glistening trappings of wealth are sullied by the rotting corruption of the Inquisition's power.

The book follows Luiza Cotada, a lowly scullion maid living off scraps while hiding Jewish ancestry from the Spanish Inquisition. But when her mistress discovers Luiza’s affinity for magic and miracles, she’s propelled into a dangerous game of politics and religion. Her only hope for survival? The cold, immortal Guillen Santángel, who has an agenda of his own.

Like all of Bardugo’s novels, the strength of “The Familiar” lies in its characters. Luiza makes a riveting protagonist. Her awareness of the precarity of her situation is barely tempered by her growing hunger for more. As she transforms from scullion to miracle worker, she walks the knife's edge of danger, knowing that with every rise in status comes an equally far fall. And of course, I have to spare a word for Santángel — the immortal familiar whose sense of mystery is as alluring as the scent of tragedy that follows him everywhere he goes.

“I Hope This Doesn’t Find You” by Ann Liang 

Releases Feb. 6 

If you watched Netflix’s “To All The Boys I Loved Before” in 2018 and the movie has lived in your brain rent-free ever since, you’re going to adore Ann Liang’s “I Hope This Doesn’t Find You.”

The story centers on Sadie Wen, a high school student who dedicates as much energy to academic excellence as she does being a people pleaser. But in a private inbox, she writes angry email drafts about all her classmates, especially her infuriating and stupidly handsome academic rival Julius Gong.

The emails were never supposed to see the light of day. But when they’re leaked, Sadie’s carefully curated mask of pleasantness is ripped off. For the first time Sadie must be honest with herself and make peace with Julius, who perhaps sees her more clearly than anyone else.

This is a story for anyone who spent years of their life defining themselves in terms of academic worth. It’s delightfully charming and painfully relatable. You’ll fall in love with the irritatingly swoon-worthy Julius Gong and think, “Wow, I really wish I’d had a cute nemesis to feud with in high school.”

If you’re looking for a shot of joy, this book is it.

“My Throat An Open Grave” by Tori Bovalino 

Releases Feb. 20

Tightly written and clearly envisioned, “My Throat An Open Grave” by Tori Bovalino is a standout new release. The story is cloaked in fantasy-like horror but remains grounded in its themes of religious trauma and the pernicious evil of purity culture

Leah Jones is an outcast. She’s barely able to finish high school while balancing the responsibility of caring for her baby brother Owen. Everywhere she goes, the judgemental eyes of her highly religious town pin her down with shame. But when Owen is taken by the mythical Lord of the Wood, Leah has no choice but to go get him back. What she finds in the woods will change her forever.

This is a story about the unrelenting pressure of expectations on women. Bovalino explores how choice is an illusion for so many while highlighting how women must carry society’s shame. If you like books about women who misbehave and refuse to be punished for it, you’ll want to pick this one up.