The Must-Read Books from the First Half of 2024
Chosen by the IBR Staff

What constitutes a must-read book?
Book recommendations are undeniably personal. Each reader is different and comes to each book with their own set of experiences and reading histories. One person could think a book is the best thing they’ve ever read, and their best friend could say, “Meh.”
So there’s got to be a way to differentiate, right? This isn’t just a good book. This is a YOU-HAVE-TO-READ-THIS-RIGHT-NOW book. This is a must-read book.
These things can be thrillers, thought-provoking literary tomes, escapist fantasy adventures, time-travel romances, self-help books, you name it. What matters most is that someone you trust read this thing, loved it, and thinks (if you like books similar to this), you HAVE to check it out.
Replete with genres all over the map, this collaborative list from the experts at IBR is populated by brand new indie books that so many readers are going to love. Some may call it some of the best books from the first half of 2024. We wouldn’t disagree.
Here are our 15 must-read books from the first half of 2024.

1. Mother Doll

A brilliantly layered novel of connection and disconnection, of life and afterlife
Author: Katya Apekina
Genre: Literary Fiction / Family Life
Print Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Recommended by: Toni Woodruff
What it’s about:
Enter, the novel’s opening line: “It was ironic that Zhenia and Ben would come home from spending time with people who had kids and be so giddy with relief and self-righteousness over their decision not to have any that it would make them want to fuck.”
And then Zhenia gets pregnant. Mother Doll is a breathtaking dual-timeline story of motherhood, daughterhood, grandmotherhood, and the links of past and future. It’s a funny and deeply moving story about generations and the things we do that shape us and our bloodlines.
Is this her grandmother reincarnated in her womb? Is it the prospect of a future with this child the thing she’s been missing, or is it the past that she couldn’t do without? Something has made her like this. It couldn’t just be her.
Paul, a journalist medium who receives a message from Zhenia’s great-grandmother, is the one who breaks this story open. The ghost of Irina (her great-grandmother, who abandoned her beloved grandmother) needs to tell Zhenia the story of her surprising, wild, revolutionary life. Mother Doll intricately weaves three stories into one funny, unforgettable novel.
Why you should read it:
How do you follow up a novel as good as The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish? That novel broke me, stitched me up, left me in satisfied pieces. So I had high hopes for Mother Doll. And usually that spells a fumble.
But not for Katya Apekina.
Mother Doll is so spectacularly different from her first novel, and yet it’s just as memorable, textured, and surprising. I didn’t know Apekina had such humor in her repertoire! But here comes one of the funniest books I’ve read this year. And in such a tragic package.
Irina and Zhenia make Mother Doll the hit it is, but it’s the connection of the past, present, and future that brings its deepest satisfaction. Irina’s story of Russian revolution is unpredictable and vast, while Zhenia’s story is unpredictable and slight. I loved them both.
This is a masterclass of a sophomore novel.
–Toni Woodruff
2. Marco Polo Mother & Son

Exceptional writing [steeped in] missed opportunities
Author: Thoreau Lovell
Genre: Literary Fiction / Family Life
Print Length: 232 pages
Publisher: Wet Cement Press
Recommended by: Lauren Hayataka
What it’s about:
Thoreau Lovell’s Marco Polo Mother & Son is a poignant exploration of the intricate relationship between the recently deceased Georgiana and her grieving son George.
On the surface, Georgiana and George appear as different as chalk and cheese and have a distant relationship. Georgiana is a realist—pragmatic, proud, and private—who acknowledges that she is dying from congestive heart failure. Georgiana’s dream is to pass peacefully away in her sleep in her home in Fresno. In contrast, George is a dreamer whose mind is perpetually occupied with thoughts of abandoning his partner Paula and their daughter Lily to focus on his writing. Only the one that understands George the most is the one that he thinks understands him the least: his mother.
Why you should read it:
Lovell crafts a masterful portrayal of an intimate yet distant relationship between mother and son, one filled with unspoken words and unshared memories. Georgiana and George resemble trains on parallel tracks, journeying together yet never intersecting, despite the reader’s yearning for their connection.
His exploration of grief is raw, realistic, and simultaneously ugly, shameful, and beautiful. The portrayal exudes a profound sense of understanding. Every scene and every word serve a purpose, and as the reader experiences the loss alongside George, who surrounds himself with his mother’s belongings, the realization dawns that he never truly knew her at all.
Only an exceptional writer could immerse readers in such profound pain, leaving them reluctant to accept the conclusion of the story. Lovell’s novel adds layers of authenticity and devastation that are undeniably worth cherishing. In creating Marco Polo Mother & Son, Lovell has crafted something extraordinary.
–Lauren Hayataka (Full Review)
3. Bad Foundations

A working-class White Noise, a story about family, crap jobs, paranoia, and an uncertain future
Author: Brian Allen Carr
Genre: Literary Fiction / Absurdism
Print Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Clash Books
Recommended by: Nick Rees Gardner
What it’s about:
Cook works in crawl spaces, inspecting them for rot, but even when he emerges from the claustrophobic confines, driving across Indiana to the next client, the crawl follows him. The damp basement smell of his coveralls permeates his Prius as his daughter argues that his sales slump is due to a curse. And basement walls crumble around him, a metaphor for his depression and his predicament-prone misadventures in Ohio, Indiana, and beyond.
However, as Cook’s family life, work-life, and mental health erode, rather than turning to Jack Gladney’s preference for academia and, eventually, revenge, Cook fries his brain on legal weed and finds his answers in strange and surprising working class strangers. While the petty arguments and slightly askew realities Cook faces are reminiscent of White Noise, Carr’s characters turn away from academia, from teachers and students. With all of its banter, wit, and pure, unabashed heart, Bad Foundations is a hilarious and fresh drama about the crumbling crawlspaces Cook has built his life on and how he can scramble out of the rubble.
Why you should read it:
The writer of Motherfucking Sharks, Opioid Indiana, and several other surreal and unabashed books, Carr is at his best in Bad Foundations. The dialogue, often occurring as petty arguments that span subjects from Taylor Swift, to telepathy, to the earth being a computer program, is vibrant and often revealing of the contemporary worlds’ real life predicaments.
Carr’s characters are self-acknowledged “white trash,” day-drinking and discussing flat-earth theories with over-educated coworkers, trying to drum up a living in an inhospitable corporate social structure. While the ideas discussed in the book are intelligent, there is nothing too high-brow about Bad Foundations. The immaculate prose is fortified with excerpts from text message threads, drawings, and illustrations. While Bad Foundations reaches for depth and clarity in the midst of personal and social collapse, the prose is easily accessible for readers of all backgrounds and reading levels. It is a book that even a nonreader would enjoy.
From the canon of working-class literature and literary family stories comes Bad Foundations, an unputdownable dive into the crawlspace sludge of a working man’s life and the inevitable rebirth that comes when he emerges to see his family in a not-so-blindingly-fluorescent light.
-Nick Rees Gardner (Full Review)
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4. No Good Deed

One man’s act of kindness triggers an explosive sequence of events that threatens everything and everyone he loves.
Author: Jack Wallace
Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Crime
Print Length: 268 pages
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Recommended by: Peggy Kurkowski
What it’s about:
Inspired by true events, Wallace’s impressive sophomore novel No Good Deed examines the seedy criminal underworld of sex trafficking in the American South. It’s a compulsive story of everyday people selflessly sacrificing to help those in need among us.
Christopher Jones is a divorced father working two jobs to make ends meet in Nashville, Tennessee, when his headlights shine across the huddled frame of a young Korean woman in a darkened business doorway along his morning newspaper route. Offering her a ride, he soon realizes that the woman, Kim, is running from trouble. Big trouble. Little does he know his “one good deed” to help a stranger will soon ripple into concentric rings of violence for himself, Kim, and those they care about.
Wallace thoughtfully transitions between Christopher’s and Kim’s backstories—both marked by loss, betrayal, loneliness, but also a stubborn hope for a better future.
Why you should read it:
Wallace’s pacing is pitch perfect as Christopher begins to take back his power in protecting Kim…The thrills are explosive and the cat-and-mouse game increasingly personal.
Wallace effectively teases out the moral complexities of fighting fire with fire. His protagonists are good people facing unspeakable brutality and evil; they are ordinary people thrust into becoming the heroes they never knew they were.
No Good Deed is a superbly written and propulsive story with an unforgettable climax, a novel with a soul that entertains as it educates about sex trafficking and the individuals sucked into its diabolical orbit. Do not miss this one.
-Peggy Kurkowski (Full Review)
5. Still Alive

The mesmerizing life journey of a woman just trying to find peace
Author: L.J. Pemberton
Genre: Literary Fiction / LGBTQ
Print Length: 290 pages
Publisher: Malarkey Books
Recommended by: Erica Ball
What it’s about:
Always reckoning with the consequences of her formative years, V experiments with different ways of living: trying out different buildings, neighborhoods, and even cities. She falls in love with different partners, some men, some women, and, ultimately, with her beloved Lex, and they try multiple times to see if now is the time they can make it work.
Because of her many moves, and, because she has so much to work through, V consistently flashes back to her family’s dysfunction and how that was passed along to her. As such, the narrative jumps from the Portland of her childhood in the 1980s to New York City in the 2010s to the beaches of Los Angeles and onward.
V is actively rejecting the life so many others seem to want with a wry and sarcastic take on the hypocrisies and phoniness she sees around her. Instead, she is seeking the real, the gritty, and the true. She looks for novel and especially sensory experiences, whether through underground punk shows, time spent in the depths of the woods, or falling head-over-heels in love at first sight.
Why you should read it:
Poetic and philosophical, she dips into and out of these different lived experiences, at times throwing herself into them, and other times watching society from a distance.
V is a fascinating and complex character who doesn’t seek to overly define her relationships or sexuality. With its beautiful prose and applicable commentary, Still Alive has broad appeal. It will be especially effective for fans of coming-of-age stories, underground culture and art communities, bisexual or pan-sexual relationships, and lesbian or sapphic fiction.
It’s a coming of age story, and there’s some love in there as well, but in the end, it’s really a story of self-love, a story of craving freedom and finding it within instead of without, and a story of coming home to yourself.
-Erica Ball (Full Review)
6. Changes In the Land

An enthralling piece of fiction that seamlessly blends horror and mystery in an enigmatic, earthy New Hampshire setting
Author: Matthew Cheney
Genre: Horror / Dark Fantasy
Print Length: 90 pages
Publisher: Lethe Press
Recommended by: Melissa Suggitt
What it’s about:
Adams Park: one family’s curse, another family’s burden.
Elias Thornton, along with his children Josiah and Drusilla, carry the weight of responsibility for their family’s purpose. Passed down from generation to generation, they are the caretakers and the protectors of the nature preserve known as Adams Park. Its thousands of acres of land, its animals, its estate’s human inhabitant (Valeria Adams), and its secrets.
The heiress of the estate, Valeria, is somehow ageless, and she believes she knows all the secrets of her family’s curse; it has been bestowed upon her decades ago when she came across a strange cave and it changed her life forever. She is a viper in sheep’s clothing. The further we delve into her history, the more vile she becomes, however justified she believes she is in the actions of her past.
Dr. Steven A. Baird is a history professor, collecting research on the history of Adams Park and of its owners’ genealogy. As he’s drawn closer to the heart of the mystery and begins to unravel the truth of his connection to Valeria, the greater the peril he faces.
As these three characters, their families, and their destinies intertwine, a gruesome and wholly terrifying prophecy is set in motion.
Why you should read it:
Author Matthew Cheney delivers a hauntingly powerful tale with Changes in the Land. This book offers a potent lesson in karma and a stark reminder of the importance of respecting our land and each other.
The background of Adams Park and the heinous events that took place on its land over generations is an aspect of the narrative that helps create an atmosphere of palpable tension building tantalizingly through the story. Cheney weaves a compelling supernatural element and adeptly explores the way our actions leave an imprint on the earth—whether ethereal or concrete. You’ll find yourself almost rooting for the land to take its revenge on the Adams family by the end of this.
Cheney has crafted a succinct and efficient plot in a short amount of pages, leaving just enough room for mystery and well-rounded character development. Who knew nature could be so terrifying? Horror fans with a healthy respect for our environment are going to love this novella.
–Melissa Suggitt (Full Review)
7. Time Is Heartless

A profound adventure exploring the limits of AI and the possibilities of post-climate-collapse technology
Author: Sarah Lahey
Genre: Science Fiction / Romance
Print Length: 348 pages
Recommended by: Andrea Marks-Joseph
What it’s about:
Readers are placed on a ship with Quinn, who is not happy to be there. She feels trapped at sea, where she is parenting her toddler without her husband Tig. Quinn loves Tig, but he keeps disappearing on secret missions for much longer than he ever stays.
Quinn is lonely: unheard and unfulfilled. She’s married to a cyborg who won’t take his mood-regulating medication, and she’s missing her friend who disappeared from her cryo-sleeping tank.
There is so much at stake at all times in this novel; action, plot-twists, and reveals come from every angle. But there is also so much joy in the way Lahey tells this story. These characters feel so real. The novel captures the stress, the worry, and the pain of being human—but also the ridiculousness of everyday life.
Why you should read it:
Author Sarah Lahey and her eclectic ensemble of characters found their way into my heart, keeping me spellbound and energized with a constantly surprising narrative—In fact, I read this book in one sitting, twice.
Readers who follow the advancements of future tech and are confronting the ethics of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives (but who also love a great love story and mystery) should run, not walk, to pick up this near-future sci-fi novel.
If the topic of what the world will look like post-climate-collapse—biologically, reproductively, technologically, politically, and even fashionably—intrigues you, know that what this book delivers is nothing you expect and everything you want.
Equal parts thought-provoking and riotously joyful, Time is Heartless is a book I’ll be thinking about for months—maybe years.
–Andrea Marks-Joseph (Full Review)
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8. Fire Exit

A quiet and original novel about an outcast, a loner, who clings to hope even when the world is pitted against him
Author: Morgan Talty
Genre: Literary Fiction / Native American & Aboriginal
Print Length: 256 pages
Publisher: Tin House Books
Recommended by: Nick Rees Gardner
What it’s about:
Lamosway’s is a story about blood quantum, the controversial measure of how much “Indian blood” a body contains as a way to determine whether or not someone belongs as a member of their tribe. Because of blood quantum, Lamosway is booted off the Penobscot Reservation when he turns 18, and now, as a middle-aged man, he watches his estranged daughter Elizabeth who is being raised by a Penobscot stepfather and her mother across the river.
Charles observes the life he almost had unfolding across the river, wondering which parts of himself flow through his daughter’s veins, knowing what she doesn’t: that his blood is not legally native, that according to blood quantum, she doesn’t belong. When, as an adult, Elizabeth returns to her parents’ reservation home, Charles considers whether now is the right time to tell her the truth.
Lamosway, as a protagonist, isn’t necessarily driven by anything. He feels the need to tell his biological daughter the truth but is prohibited from doing so by his daughter’s mother. He wants to belong to the tribal community but is prohibited by arbitrary laws. He wants to drink, but he knows his tendency toward alcoholism and refrains. While Lamosway holds down a job “clearing the land,” all of his drive has been tempered by forces outside of his control. But as the family and community he surrounds himself with struggles and falls apart, he does his best to hold the world around him together.
Why you should read it:
Creating quiet stories requires exceptional talent. In order to pull a novel like this off, the writer needs a memorable protagonist too: a Jay Gatsby or Anna Karenina or Ignatious J. Reily type who lodges in the reader’s mind like an old friend. Think Dennis Johnson’s “Fuckhead,” from Jesus’ Son, a character who readers would recognize from any Iowa dive bar, but whose depth, whose insights about life, ask the reader to reconsider what they know.
Now we can add Charles Lamosway to this list.
Lamosway’s character growth, though minimal, is depicted quite brilliantly; each shift in personality, each flash of irrational anger sloshes out of a deep well. And Talty uses this backstory of injustice as a rising tension; to read Fire Exit is to wait either for Lamosway to get a break or for him to be broken.
While Talty’s narrative is already irresistible, especially for readers who enjoyed Night of the Living Rez, it is also filled with Charles Lamosway’s wisdom, a philosophical depth that lingers beyond the page…Fire Exit is one of those books that will become more meaningful with the days, weeks, and months after closing the cover.
–Nick Rees Gardner (Full Review)
9. Next Time

A time-travel novel exceptionally worthy of a binge-read
Author: Randy Brown
Genre: Time Travel / Romance
Print Length: 332 pages
Recommended by: Kristine Eckart
What it’s about:
When William extends a helping hand to Miriam, who seems to have appeared from nowhere, he gets more than he bargained for. But Miriam’s ignorance of the current date, modern culture, and her surroundings raise some red flags. That’s when she reveals her secret: she can travel through time. Working on his master’s degree in history, William is intrigued and offers to be a resource for the next time Miriam appears. But as William continues his life, studying and spending time with his girlfriend, he still can’t get Miriam out of his mind.
Miriam appears more in William’s life over the years, and their relationship turns from friendship to romance. They must navigate the complexities of dating while existing in different dimensions of time. However, as the police start to take a particular interest in tracking down and questioning Miriam and William’s struggles with Miriam’s absence, complications arise. They must figure out how to deal with the investigations and how far they’re willing to go to save their relationship.
Why you should read it:
Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites. The novel’s pacing is spot-on, never spending too much time in between Miriam’s appearances and always keeping the plot moving with action sequences of police interrogations and disagreements between family and friends. These scenes keep the reader invested, especially when one of the main characters is missing. Traversing through its spot-on pacing and the scenes that don’t miss, you too will be fervently flipping pages to find the answer of Miriam and William’s fate.
I also appreciated the balance of realism and escapism present throughout the novel. Time-travel books can often feel like they create a world that’s completely different from our own, which provides plenty of entertainment and an escape from the worries we face on a daily basis.
If you love time-travel stories complete with action and romance, Next Time would be the best choice you’ve made in a while.
–Kristine Eckart

10. Everywhere I Look

A riveting look at the impact of dark family secrets
Author: Ona Gritz
Genre: Memoir / Family
Print Length: 250 pages
Publisher: Apprentice House Press
Recommended by: Elizabeth Reiser
What it’s about:
When Ona’s adopted older sister Angie disappears during Ona’s visit to San Francisco, she finds herself conflicted between being concerned and feeling indifferent. Ona is no stranger to Angie’s disappearing acts, so she is hesitant to worry.
This all changes when her brother-in-law’s body is discovered, shot execution-style. Soon after, a pregnant Angie and her infant son are found murdered as well. Ona finds herself struggling with grief, but in some ways Angie’s terrible end is not ultimately shocking. As Ona explores her feelings surrounding the loss of her sister, she realizes how many aspects of Angie’s life she misunderstood and is led on a long journey of uncovering secrets she chose to ignore.
Why you should read it:
There are a number of fascinating twists and turns in this story, but nothing is salacious. At its core, this is more of a reflection on a misunderstood life than a true crime story, and it is clear how important it is to Ona that she respects her sister’s memory.
Ona is also refreshingly honest about herself and does not sugarcoat her actions growing up. Rather than falling into the trap of portraying herself as the put-upon “good” sister, she instead shows how her flaws were simply more easily forgiven by her family. The guilt she feels over being the favored and nurtured child is palpable; it’s a heartbreaking realization the author goes through as she comes to terms with her culpability in Angie’s feelings of being unwanted.
At its core, Everywhere I Look is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and wildly fascinating story about families and the secrets that destroy them. It is sure to stick with you.
-Elizabeth Reiser (Full Review)
11. Overthink

Successfully transform your overwhelming thoughts with this valuable self-help book.
Author: Lyndsey Getty
Genre: Self-Help
Print Length: 150 pages
Recommended by: Lisa Parker Hayreh, PhD
What it’s about:
This book asks the reader to identify their thinking difficulties and to apply the most effective techniques to consistently improve them. It walks you through the basics of becoming more aware of your thoughts and how to accurately label unhelpful thinking as it occurs.
The author’s detailed and well-articulated guidance helps us distinguish between unproductive and productive thoughts. The principles of productive thinking are discussed in detail for readers to try in real time, and detailed worksheets are given to help each person track their progress and build success.
Moved to help others find relief quicker than she did, Getty has shared a vital and practical manual that blends psychological wisdom, proven strategies, and personal triumph.
Why you should read it:
Part memoir, part straight-talking guidebook, this resource can help create lasting positive change. Overthink is like having a highly trained expert by your side, guiding you to stop negative self-talk and think productively.
Overthink shines the way forward out of mental torment. Lyndsey Getty maintains a compassionate understanding of the daunting anguish connected to unproductive thinking. She encourages us to become our best selves and shares her own truths & agonies to show us it’s okay to have them.
I have been geeking out a bit in response to Lyndsey Getty’s Overthink. It is utterly remarkable that a lay person wrote such a technically sound and effective self-help book while also appropriately sharing her own struggles and successes. I hold a really high standard for self-help books so my praise in this area is hard won. Overthink sidesteps the technical jargon dominating the mental health/self-help fields. She has created an impeccably streamlined guide that can be applied broadly to a whole host of unproductive thinking difficulties.
–Lisa Parker Hayreh, PhD (Full Review)
12. Tap Dancing on Everest

A riveting memoir about the travails of growing up, the trauma of mountain climbing, and the elation of being in the great outdoors
Author: Mimi Zieman
Genre: Memoir / Adventure
Print Length: 244 pages
Recommended by: Warren Maxwell
What it’s about:
Beginning at the dramatic climax of a years-in-the-making expedition to climb Everest’s east face without oxygen for the first time, Zieman’s memoir doubles back to trace the bumpy path that led her to become the team medical officer as a twenty-five year old medical school student.
What materializes is a deep portrait of Mimi’s youth and milieu in New York as the ambitious daughter of two Holocaust survivors. Her father’s entire family was killed in Latvia while her maternal grandmother fled Germany for Palestine with her young daughter, Mimi’s mother. Living with the legacy of such a brutal and incomprehensible past reverberates in Zieman, triggering eating disorders, an unrequited love of dance, and an ultimate turn toward medicine.
While plagued by her family’s expectations and rules, mountains and trekking become an early source of independence. Through a series of split decisions and journeys, Zieman ends up alone in the Nepali Himalayas, hiking for weeks on end and forging relationships with fellow hikers that take her all the way to the feet of Everest.
Why you should read it:
The overall quality of the writing in this book is exceptional. The memoir’s many large and small vignettes, its minor characters and central ones all leap into focus. Whether Zieman’s haunted, psychotherapist father or a braggadocios boy that she rescues in a climbing accident, personality and life abound.
One of the things that’s wonderful about this uncommon approach to writing the mountain climbing narrative—the very fact that Zieman is present as a doctor, not a climber, and doesn’t herself climb Everest—is that we see a different side to the climbing story…This is a tale about the experience of living on mountains, beside mountains, under mountains, and hoping that the people climbing them will survive. The depth of psychology and detail that go into Zieman’s descriptions are mesmerizing.
In short, this memoir travels widely. It brings a large swath of territory into its purview that, while seemingly diffuse, builds to a triumphant peak. It is a beautiful, wrenching story about the trials that we endure and the rewards we reap.
–Warren Maxwell
13. Nola Face

A memoir that explores the contradictions of language with boldness, nuance, and playfulness.
Author: Brooke Champagne
Genre: Memoir / Essays
Print Length: 192 pages
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Recommended by: Elizabeth Reiser
What it’s about:
The essays in Nola Face recount Brooke Champagne’s upbringing in an Ecuadorian family in New Orleans, her marriage and motherhood, and her path as a writer. But narrating a memory is, we soon learn, never as easy as putting facts on the page.
Instead, the essays in the collection play cleverly with the fallibility of writing itself, never letting the reader forget the way language mediates the relationship between the author penning each essay and the author who lives as a character on the page.
Why you should read it:
A memoir as thoughtful as it is creative, Nola Face would be an excellent choice for readers in love with the craft of writing.
These essays let the reader behind the curtain, reflecting explicitly on the impossibility of describing an event precisely as it happened without the distorting force of language.
Champagne is a master of the art of the opening sentence…These deft opening lines draw the reader in to each new essay, in search of elaboration, explanation, and another thrilling turn of phrase.
It’s not only the opening lines that delight in this collection. Long, complex sentences stuffed with recollections and reconsiderations abound in Nola Face…. At their best, they read like pirouettes, swinging the reader through a remarkable range of images, ideas, and linguistic moves to land with grace.
–Elena Bellaart
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14. Secrets Ever Green

The exquisite, emotional adventure of a young woman pushing through grief to uncover magical secrets
Author: Sara Knightly
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy
Print Length: 268 pages
Recommended by: Andrea Marks-Joseph
What it’s about:
Ivy Rune is not the natural Arborist talent everyone believes she is. Every year, in the town of Windermere, students are allocated a career and, in Ivy’s case, permanent accommodation, depending on their results in the final practical exam.
If Ivy fails her final exams, she will not have a job in the industry she’s trained for, and most importantly, she won’t be able to live in her childhood home, which holds her final memories of her father and has been left empty waiting for her in the decade since his presumed death.
A mysterious man approaches Ivy with instructions (ostensibly from her father, ten years ago, specifically for Ivy) that lead her to discover a magic underworld hiding in plain sight, unlocking the secrets to where her father spent his time before he disappeared. Suddenly, in the middle of the most crucial week of her life, where studying in the library will secure her future, Ivy is exploring the forest, following handwritten clues from her dead father.
Why you should read it:
Author Sara Knightly has created a wondrous and charming hometown for Ivy. Windermere is filled with lore and whispered, near-forgotten myths so naturally woven into the story that it felt as though I had grown up in the community with Ivy and her best friend York, understanding their fears, ambitions, and curiosity on a cellular level.
This natural, almost effortless sense of being surrounded by Secrets Ever Green’s world applies to its characters, too: I felt the complexity of Ivy wanting guidance and support from the adults in her life, and I felt in my veins the betrayal and shame she experienced when they treated her in a way that made it clear, through unintentional twists in their phrasing, that she was not loved unconditionally, nor was she theirs to care for indefinitely.
The way grief is written into Ivy’s story is remarkable. Often it’s just one line that hits at the heart of her pain, and then the story continues. Knightly has mastered the art of pulling back the protagonist’s layers to their most vulnerable truth and then moving the story along in light of that knowledge. Ivy has tangled herself up in grief, moving forward because it’s all she knows, but the story is weighed down by her heartache. In fact, even in Ivy’s darkest moments, though we are barely holding back tears in sympathy, we feel the story surge forward because what could possibly happen next?!
–Andrea Marks-Joseph (Full Review)
15. Terra Solaris (Gods & Monsters)

A formidable tale of power and creation
Author: Jaiden Baynes
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Myth
Print Length: 374 pages
Publisher: BayMar Publishing
Recommended by: Audrey Davis
What it’s about:
In a very distant past, but a universe quite similar to our own, Gods, Titans, and Monsters roam the planets amongst the humans.
When the human Typhon’s greed and desire for power overtakes him, he aims to conquer the Kosmos and all its inhabitants, leaving a scarred, torn world in his wake. The goddess Terra, in an effort to restore stability, agrees to help her brother Jupiter rise to power to defeat Typhon and re-unite the planets.
Unfortunately, it does not last. As Jupiter is swept into his own corruption, Terra is left to grapple with her own thoughts and feelings while finding the strength to do so and seeks to restore a balance to the universe once more.
Why you should read it:
Jaiden Baynes’ newest young adult fantasy series Gods and Monsters gives a fresh face to creationism and ancient Greek mythos as we commonly know them. The same names remain, but their bearers and stories are very different. This story captivates as Baynes gives readers a new set of rules to play with for these characters, including new beasts and horrible foes, miraculous unseen powers, gods and new universes, and even a little bit of romance.
If you enjoyed the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, this story would be great for you. I would happily recommend this series to fellow action/adventure and fantasy fans. Readers will appreciate the dry humor and well-paced action as they follow new and powerful characters through their trials in saving the universe from capture and ruin.
–Audrey Davis (Full Review)
What are your must read books of 2024 so far? Let us know in the comments!
About the IBR Staff

Independent Book Review is your source for the best in indie books. With 25 readers on staff, we aim to show the reading world why they can put their trust in independently published lit. Meet the team or follow on Instagram & Twitter.
Thank you for reading “The Must-Read Books from the First Half of 2024!” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.
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