2024 has been another crazy and stressful year that has thankfully left us with many good reads and hopes for 2025. This year, I read just over 285 books and discovered some new-to-me authors, and trying to narrow that list down was tough. I have read so many amazing, life-changing, blow-me-away, knock-my-socks-off books. Somehow, I whittled my list down to 15 books. These 15 books have given me all the feels. They’ve made me laugh, cry, swoon, and taken me on some of the best journeys.
Each year, I try to create a reading challenge that’s fun and challenging but also realistic, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’ve read over 285 books for this challenge, 71 of which have sat on my Kindle for far too long. I’ve discovered a lot of new authors and exciting books in 2024 and can not wait to see what next year’s challenge will bring.
Here are the books that made my 2024 Reading Challenge a success:
| Category | Book |
| A book by an author who is new to me | Your Hand in Mine by Lily Foster |
| Contemporary Romance | Does He Know by Kaylee Ryan |
| Biker Romance | Caution to the Wind by Giana Darling |
| Paranormal/fantasy | Anchor of Secrets by Tessa Hale |
| Sports Romance | Watch Your Mouth by Kandi Steiner |
| Romantic Comedy | Mr. Big Shot by R.S. Grey |
| Accidental Pregnancy Romance | Game Changer by Stacey Lynn |
| Older Brother’s Best Friend | Tell Me What You Want by Lucia Franco |
| A Holiday Romance | Falling for the Grinch by Amy Alves |
| Forbidden Romance | I Wish I Would’ve Chosen You by Whitney G. |
| Billionaire Romance | The Playboy by Marni Mann |
| Jilted bride | Advice From a Jilted Bride by Piper Rayne |
| Workplace Romance | Filthy Lawyer by Whitney G. |
| Fake relationship | Reputation by Jenna Hartley |
| Marriage of Convenience | Irresistibly Dangerous by J. Saman |
| Rock Star Romance | Times Like These by Julia Wolf |
| Dark/Taboo Romance | Five Brothers by Penelope Douglas |
| Mafia Romance | Lethal Vows by Kia Carrington-Russell & T.L. Smith |
| Forced Proximity | Black Ties and White Lies by Kat Singleton |
| Historical Romance | The Outlaw Nobel Salt by Amy Harmon |
| An Enemies to Lovers Romance | Devious Vows by Jagger Cole |
| Age Gap Romance | Eleven Eleven by Micalea Smeltzer |
| Friends to Lovers Romance | Reckless Abandon by Ashley Cade |
| Diverse Romance | Not By Sight by Kay Lyons |
| Small Town Romance | Claim Me Forever by AL Jackson |
| A book where one of the main characters is a First Responder | Caught in the Flames by Kacey Shea |
| Second Chance Romance | The Edge of Forever by J. Saman |
| Dystopian/Science Fiction Romance | Homestead by Claire Kent |
| A Grumpy/Sunshine Romance | More Than I Could by Adrianna Locke |
| Morally Gray Hero | Reckless Hearts by Jagger Cole |
| Redemption Romance | Redemption Road by Katie Ashley |
| Fated Mates Romance | Legacy of Shadows by Tessa Hale |
| Single Parent Romance | I Wish You Were Mine by Jessica Peterson |
| Insta-love | Reckless Love by Hannah McBride |
| Royal Romance | Seducing the Princess by Diane Alberts |
| A Fighter/MMA Book | Sweet Victory by Gina Maxwell |
| Bearded Man On Cover | Built to Fall by Julia Wolf |
| Bad Boy Romance | Brutal Obsession by S. Massery |
| Gothic Romance | Phantasma by Kaylie Smith |
| Favorite Trope | Where We Belong by Ashely Munoz |
| A book everyone is talking about | Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver |
| A book chosen for its cover | The Silence of Monsters by Jay Crownover |
| A book with a one-word title | Blitz by Devney Perry |
| A book with a setting in a different country than where you live | Through the Glen by Samantha Young |
| A book with no people on the cover. | The Wren in the Holly Library by K.A. Linde |
| A book where one of the main characters is/was in the military | Healing Touch by Brenda Rothert |
| A Book with Pirates | The Ever King by LJ Andrews |
| A Book with a number in the title | In Five Years by Rebecca Serle |
| A Debut Novel | Everything We Never Said by Sloan Halow |
| A Book that won an award | Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison |
| A book with less than 1000 ratings on Goodreads | Striking Distance by LK Shaw |
| 4 Books on my TBR | Vacancy by Linda Kage I Wish We Had Forever by Jessica Peterson Foretold by Chantel Fernando Little Dove by Layla Frost |
| 4 New Releases | Sweet Collide by Ava Harrison A Vengeful Occasion by Kristy Marie Pulse by Adirana Locke I Thought of You by Jewel E. Ann |
| A book with a Red Cover | Unrequited by Julia Wolf |
| A book with a Pink Cover | The Virgin Next Door by Lauren Blakely |
| A book with a Blue Cover | Falling for Gage by Mia Sheridan |
| A book with a White Cover | A Fighting Chance by Kat Savage |
| A book with a Black Cover | Forewarned by Chantal Fernando |
| A book with a Yellow Cover | The Dead Guy Next Door by Lucy Score |
| A book with a Purple Cover | Smitten by the Best Man by Piper Rayne |
| Summer: A Book with a Summer Scene | This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune |
| Fall: A book with a fall themed cover | Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliand |
| Winter: A Book that takes place in winter | Not Just a Crush by Helena Hunting |
| Spring: A Book that releases in spring | Dead to Rights by Jessica Prince |
| A foodie book | Till There Was You by Lindsay Hameroff |
2023 has been another crazy and stressful year that has thankfully left us with many good reads and hopes for 2024. 2023 has been one heck of a year for amazing reads. This year, I read just over 300 books and discovered some new-to-me authors, and trying to narrow that list down was tough. I have read so many amazing, life-changing, blow-me-away, knock-my-socks-off books. Somehow, I whittled my list down to 9 books. These 9 books have given me all the feels. They’ve made me laugh, cry, swoon, and taken me on some of the best journeys.
2021 has been another crazy and stressful year that has thankfully left us with a lot of good reads and hopeful for 2022. Despite all of the challenges 2021 brought us, it has been one heck of a year for amazing reads. This year, I read over 387 books, discovered lots of “new to me” authors, and trying to narrow that list down was tough. I have just read so many amazing, life-changing, blow me away, knock my socks off books. Amazingly enough, this year, I was able to keep my list below 16. These 16 books have given me all the feels. They’ve made me laugh, cry, swoon, and taken me on some of the best journeys.
I hope you enjoy my top 16 and the quotes I’ve pulled….
“There was a pause before he delivered on his promise of fast and hard, both adjectives equally as exciting to me, and at that moment, his eyes held mine. This matters.”
“I wanted it to be real. With every passing day, I wanted to belong to someone special and have that someone special belong to me.”
“Hux owned every memory of Calamity, even the ones before we’d met. Because they’d all lead me to him.”
Beneath The Stars by A.L. Jackson
“Be with me for now, Rhys. Tell me that right now, I belong to you and you belong to me. I feel your burden, I feel your heart, and I know you’ll never love me, and I know we’re not supposed to pretend, but I need it, Rhys. I need to feel this for a bit. We never know how long we have, and this is the first true, real thing I’ve ever had.”
Close Quarters by Kandi Steiner
“I don’t care about your past. I don’t care about mine. Nothing else matters to me, other than the future you and I can make together. And I know what I said about my lifestyle the other night,” he said, pulling back to look me in the eyes. “But we will find a way. We will make it work. Because if I’ve learned one thing this summer, it’s that now that I know you exist in this world, I cannot live without you existing in mine, too.”
Eastern Lights by Brittainy C. Cherry
“He stood there completely broken. He showed me his hurts and laid them there to bleed in the open. I saw his fear, I saw his panic, but mostly I saw his love. Love didn’t only show its face during happiness. It didn’t skip by only during the sunshine. No. Sometimes—most of the time—love was a storm at war. Love explored the world during the darkness. It crawled through pain, fought through combats, and hit rock bottom with a million battle scars. Love wasn’t only the rainbows. Love sparked in the lightning and screamed during the thunder. In that very moment, love rained down over Connor, and his love was being directed straight toward me. Raw. Unleashed. True.”
To Have and To Hate by RS Grey
“It was an I-hate-you kiss. Haven’t you ever had one of those?” “I have no idea what that is.” “It’s a kiss not born out of love, but out of hate.” “Yeah, thanks. That’s evident in the name. I’m just confused because I don’t go around kissing people I hate.”
For Keeps. For Always. By Haley Jenner
“I don’t love anything that can cause me pain. Especially people. But I’ll learn to tolerate you.”
The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon
“May we seek to learn each other’s stories so that we might love each other a little better.”
“None of us can help who we are. We are born into the world we are born into. The family. The skin. Nobody gets to choose those things. You can’t be mad at a man for who he is. Only what he is…and the choices he makes.”
“I want to be that guy – the one that when your phone rings, you hope it’s me. The one who holds your hand in the hallway and at lunch. The guy who gets to hold you. I want to be the one who gets to touch you,” he whispered against my cheek. “I want to be yours”.”
“You’re the first girl I’ve ever fallen in love with, Ella, and you’ll be the last girl I ever love”
Blame it on the Tequila by Fiona Cole
“I’m not letting you slip through my fingers again.”
Sancte Diaboli: Part Two by Amo Jones
“The only thing worse than knowing you love someone irrevocably is feeling your sanity leave your soul anytime he looks at you.”
“You give a villain something worth fighting for and he’ll burn the whole fucking world to ash just to hear her heartbeat one more time.”
“Death is the experience you feel when you lose someone you love; pain in just the aftershock.”
“You have given life to a dead heart and soul. You brought me back to life. Hungry and gasping and desperate … for you. My heart beating … for you. No.” He frowned. “It’s as if it didn’t exist before you. I’m alive now in this world that might not have you in it? No. It’s impossible. I don’t want the world to turn another day, the sun to burn another day without you.”
The Mixtape by Brittainy Cherry
“I don’t know if you meant to do that or if it’s just natural for you, but sometimes you speak, and it feels like you’re creating lyrics to my next favorite song.”
“We only get this one life. We might as well make some good memories with it”
“Sometimes family isn’t what we were born into—it’s what we choose”
“It’s not about the songs you’ve played in the past to yourself. It’s about the songs you want to play from this point out. So, what song are you going to play?”
The Baraginer Series by Laura Thalassa
“I’ve loved you from the beginning. And I will love you long after the last star dies. I will love you until the end of darkness itself.”
“I would steal the stars from the sky for you”
“He’s the dark side of the moon. He’s my beautiful, terrible mystery. My friend. My soulmate.”
The Dark Legacy Series by Tate James & Jaymin Eve
“I knew the first time I caught sight of you, Butterfly, that you were going to be trouble.”
“I’m Riley Jameson, not Deboise, and don’t you ever forget it.”
“Sometimes the enemy you know is better than the one you don’t.”
“You’re going to be the death of me, Riles,” Jasper complained as I hurried across the freezing parking lot behind him. “Do you have any idea how badly I’m going to get chewed out for taking your side over Beck’s? He’s going to kill me. Oh my god, I just committed suicide for a chick with nice tits.”
“I’m bossy because I fucking love you, Butterfly. I’m not letting anyone take you away from me. But … if it was important to you, I wouldn’t have stood in your way. I would have just made sure that we were prepared for anything. I would have had backup.” He reached out and cupped my face, his hand rough and soft at the same time. “I won’t stand in your way, baby, but I will stand at your side, where I belong.”
Out of the Blue by P. Dangelico
“Life comes at you fast and love comes out of the blue”
“Truth is loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. As easy as breathing.”
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