Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2024, and I struggled to narrow this down. There are so many amazing-sounding books releasing in 2024! Let’s check out some of the ones on my radar.
Title: House of Flame and Shadow
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Crescent City #3
Page Length: 816
Publication Date: January 30, 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Synopsis: The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath.
Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.
Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he’s in the Asteri’s dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce’s fate. He’s desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri’s leash, his hands are quite literally tied.
In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt’s world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.
Title: Fangirl Down
Author: Tessa Bailey
Series: Big Shots #1
Page Length: 384
Publication Date: Feb. 13, 2024
Publisher: Avon
Synopsis: Wells Whitaker was once golf’s hottest rising star, but lately, all he has to show for his “promising” career is a killer hangover, a collection of broken clubs, and one remaining supporter. No matter how bad he plays, the beautiful, sunny redhead is always on the sidelines. He curses, she cheers. He scowls, she smiles. But when Wells quits in a blaze of glory and his fangirl finally goes home, he knows he made the greatest mistake of his life.
Josephine Doyle believed in the gorgeous, grumpy golfer, even when he didn’t believe in himself. Yet after he throws in the towel, she begins to wonder if her faith was misplaced. Then a determined Wells shows up at her door with a wild be his new caddy, help him turn his game around, and split the prize money. And considering Josephine’s professional and personal life is in shambles, she could really use the cash…
As they travel together, spending days on the green and nights in neighboring hotel rooms, sparks fly. Before long, they’re inseparable, Wells starts winning again, and Josephine is surprised to find a sweet, thoughtful guy underneath his gruff, growly exterior. This hot man wants to brush her hair, feed her snacks, and take bubble baths together? Is this real life? But Wells is technically her boss and an athlete falling for his fangirl would be ridiculous… right?
Title: An Unlikely Proposition
Author: Rosalyn Eves
Series: Unexpected Seasons #2
Page Length: 304
Publication Date: March 5, 2024
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Synopsis: A standalone companion to An Improbable Season , this Regency romance ― perfect for fans of Bridgerton ― is about following your heart, pursuing your dreams, and falling head over heels in love.
Eleanor did not come to London to be proper and boring. After the death of her husband and a year of mourning, the seventeen year old wants nothing more than her independence and to have a little fun. She’s hardly looking to remarry, despite pressures from her late husband’s nephew, who is keen on obtaining her inheritance. Eleanor quickly devises a plan that includes a fake engagement. What’s not a part of the plan? Falling for a dashing, quiet man outside of her social circle – a man who is not her betrothed. Can she survive the Season with her heart and her fortune intact?
Thalia is determined to begin afresh after a disastrous first Season in London. No romantic distractions, but only her work as a poet and newfound companion to Eleanor. Determined to get her poems published, she struggles to be taken seriously as a female writer. As the spring progresses, Thalia does not expect to take interest in a man from her past (a man who is engaged to her employer, no less!), but some feelings demand to be felt even if the timing isn’t quite right.
Rosalyn Eves’s An Unlikely Proposition is a transportive Regency drama that captures the sparkle of London, thrill of friendship, and swoon of new love.
Title: The Revenant Games
Author: Margie Fuston
Page Length: 404
Publication Date: March 19, 2024
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Synopsis: All of Us Villains meets Kingdom of the Wicked in this action-packed fantasy following a teen determined to win the competition held by warring vampire and witch kingdoms, only to develop complicated feelings for the vampire she’s supposed to hand over.
Blood is survival for seventeen-year-old Bly, who lives in the poverty-stricken human villages caught between enemy vampire and witch kingdoms. Most of the time, vampires and witches live in uneasy truce, buying human blood for their food and spells. But for two weeks a year, the ceasefire dissolves, and they hold the Revenant Games.
Any human can play in the games for either the witches or the vampires. Alongside life-changing riches, the witches will raise one person from the dead for whoever captures the highest-ranking vampire. In turn, the vampires offer immortality to whoever captures the most powerful witch. For most humans, the games are a ticket out of poverty. For Bly, it’s a chance to get back her dead sister, Elise, and save the life of her dying best friend, Emerson.
Together, she and Emerson forge a dangerous plan to play both sides and win both resurrection for Elise and immortality for Emerson. But when the vampire they capture stirs a passion in Bly that she hasn’t felt in a long time, she’ll have to make a her sister or the boy who’s shown her there’s more to life than just survival.
Title: All Our Yesterdays
Author: Joel H. Morris
Page Length: 368
Publication Date: March 12, 2024
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Synopsis: A propulsive and piercing debut, set ten years before the events of Shakespeare’s historic play, about the ambition, power, and fate that define one of literature’s most notorious Lady Macbeth.
Scotland, the 11th Century. Born in a noble household and granddaughter of a forgotten Scottish king, a young girl carries the guilt of her mother’s death and the weight of an unknowable prophecy. When she is married, at fifteen, to the Mormaer of Moray, she experiences firsthand the violence of a sadistic husband and a kingdom constantly at war. To survive with her young son in a superstitious realm, she must rely on her own cunning and wit, especially when her husband’s downfall inadvertently sets them free.
Suspicious of the dark devices that may have led to his father’s death, her son watches as his mother falls in love with the enigmatic thane Macbeth. Now a woman of stature, Lady Macbeth confronts a world of masculine power and secures the protection of her family. But the coronation of King Duncan and the political maneuvering of her cousin Macduff set her on a tragic course, one where her own success might mean embracing the very curse that haunts her and risking the child she loves.
Title: A Governess’s Guide to Passion and Peril
Author: Manda Collins
Series: Ladies Most Scandalous #4
Page Length: 304
Publication Date: March 26, 2023
Publisher: Forever
Synopsis: Jane Halliwell once dreamed of a home of her own—but those dreams (and her dowry) died with her father. Now, she works as a governess, preparing her charge for a future no longer within her reach. When her employer is murdered during a house party, however, Jane is forced back into the world of the ton. But stepping in as hostess will require working with the same lord who once broke her girlish heart.
Lord Adrian Fielding was too consumed with his job at the Foreign Office to pay young Jane much heed, but he always considered her a friend. Which is why he’s confounded by her icy demeanor now. More troubling still is his desire to melt the tensions between them. But his mentor’s murder means he must first find the culprit—and ensure Jane’s safety as she manages a house full of foreign dignitaries.
Only Jane insists on joining the investigation, and Adrian, despite all his diplomatic skills, finds himself seduced by her sharp wit and sparkling eyes. But with a vicious killer circling ever closer, will it soon be too late for their chance at forever?
Title: Draw Down the Moon
Author: P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast
Page Length: 336
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Synopsis: Wren Nightingale isn’t supposed to have any powers. Born of magickal parents but not under a moon sign, she was destined for life as a Mundane—right up until she starts glowing on her eighteenth birthday. In a heartbeat, Wren’s life is turned upside down, and she’s suddenly leaving her home for the mystical Academia de la Luna—a secret magickal school on a hidden island off the Seattle coast.
Lee Young has always known about his future at the Academia. He has one goal: pass the trials, impress the Moon Council, and uphold his family’s reputation. But he wasn’t expecting to be attending alongside the girl he’s been secretly in love with for as long as he can remember.
As Wren and Lee are thrown into the Academie’s gruelling trials, they quickly learn there’s something different–and dangerous–about the school this year. Wren will have to navigate a web of secrets, prophecies–and murder. And Lee will have to decide who to protect–his family’s legacy, or the girl he loves.
Title: Otherworldly
Author: F.T. Lukens
Page Length: 320
Publication Date: April 2, 2023
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Synopsis: A skeptic and a supernatural being make a crossroads deal to achieve their own ends only to get more than they bargained for in this lively young adult romantic adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of Spell Bound and So This Is Ever After.
Seventeen-year-old Ellery is a non-believer in a region where people swear the supernatural is real. Sure, they’ve been stuck in a five-year winter, but there’s got to be a scientific explanation. If goddesses were real, they wouldn’t abandon their charges like this, leaving farmers like Ellery’s family to scrape by.
Knox is a familiar from the Other World, a magical assistant sent to help humans who have made crossroads bargains. But it’s been years since he heard from his queen, and Knox is getting nervous about what he might find once he returns home. When the crossroads demons come to collect Knox, he panics and runs. A chance encounter down an alley finds Ellery coming to Knox’s rescue, successfully fending off his would-be abductors.
Ellery can’t quite believe what they’ve seen. And they definitely don’t believe the nonsense this unnervingly attractive guy spews about his paranormal origins. But Knox needs to make a deal with a human who can tether him to this realm, and Ellery needs to figure out how to stop this winter to help their family. Once their bargain is struck, there’s no backing out, and the growing connection between the two might just change everything.
Title: Song of the Six Realms
Author: Judy I. Lin
Page Length: 400
Publication Date: April 23, 2024
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Synopsis: Xue, a talented young musician, has no past and probably no future. Orphaned at a young age, her kindly poet uncle took her in and arranged for an apprenticeship at one of the most esteemed entertainment houses in the kingdom. She doesn’t remember much from before entering the House of Flowing Water, and when her uncle is suddenly killed in a bandit attack, she is devastated to lose her last connection to a life outside of her indenture contract.
With no family and no patron, Xue is facing the possibility of a lifetime of servitude playing the qin for nobles that praise her talent with one breath and sneer at her lowly social status with the next. Then one night she is unexpectedly called to the garden to put on a private performance for the enigmatic Duke Meng. The young man is strangely kind and awkward for nobility, and surprises Xue further with an irresistible offer: serve as a musician in residence at his manor for one year, and he’ll set her free of her indenture.
But the Duke’s motives become increasingly more suspect when he and Xue barely survive an attack by a nightmarish monster, and when he whisks her away to his estate, she discovers he’s not just some country noble: He’s the Duke of Dreams, one of the divine rulers of the Celestial Realm. There she learns the Six Realms are on the brink of disaster, and incursions by demonic beasts are growing more frequent.
The Duke needs Xue’s help to unlock memories from her past that could hold the answers to how to stop the impending war… but first Xue will need to survive being the target of every monster and deity in the Six Realms.
Title: All’s Fair in Love and War
Author: Virginia Heath
Page Length: 384
Publication Date: May 28, 2024
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Synopsis: A new Regency romp of a series, about governess who believes in cultivating joy in her charges, clashes with the children’s uncle who hired her, only to find herself falling in love.
When the flighty older sister of former naval captain, Henry Kincaid, decides on a whim to accompany her explorer husband on an expedition to Egypt, he finds himself unwittingly left in the lurch with her three unruly children and her giant, mad dog. With no clue how to manage the little rascals, a busy career at the Admiralty that requires all of his attention, and no idea when his sister is coming back, Harry has to hire an emergency governess to ensure that everything in his ordered house continues to run shipshape. In desperation, he goes to Miss Prentice’s School for Girls prepared to pay whatever it takes to get a governess quick sharp to bring order to the chaos.
Thanks to her miserable, strict upbringing, fledgling governess Georgina Rowe does not subscribe to the ethos that children should be seen and not heard. She believes childhood should be everything that hers wasn’t, filled with laughter, adventure, and discovery. Thankfully, the three Pendleton children she has been tasked with looking after are already delightfully bohemian and instantly embrace her unconventional educational ethos. Their staid, stickler-for-the-rules uncle, however, is another matter entirely…
Are you excited for any of these? What other books are you looking forward to? Comment below!
Oh, so many pretty covers! I just love seeing what 2024 is going to bring~ Enjoy these books when they come out!
Thanks so much!!
Song of the Six Realms is stunning!! Adding to my TBR! I hope you enjoy all of these, Julie!
Right? I love that cover. Thanks, Leslie!
I am excited for a few of these, but they all look so good. Great list!
Thanks, Joanna!
This looks like a fun TBR! I hope you love them all.
Thanks so much! 🙂
I’m so looking forward to House of Flame and Shadow and Otherworldly too! Hope you’ll love all of these 🙂
Thank you! I’m so excited for the end of the month! lol
Yesssss house of flame and shadow!! I’m reading CC2 right now for the first time. Half way through!! I think I can make it.
OMG you can do it!!! 🙂
I have the ARC of Draw Down the Moon. I love your anticipated list as it hold many books I hadn’t seen before.
Draw Down the Moon sounds soooo good. I hope you love it!
What a great list, as usual. You already know a bunch of books that I’m excited for, some of which are on this list *cough SJM cough* and the cover of Draw Down the Moon is so gorgeous. I was also forced to add All Our Yesterdays to my TBR 🤣 and I’m outraged that I can’t include a gif in my comments! But seriously, enjoy all of these when you get to them!
Thanks, Leah! I see some buddy reads in out future!
Yes, please!
Great list! I’ll have to check some of these out.
Thanks, Yolanda!
All’s Fair looks adorable! Hope you enjoy your 2024 new releases!
Thanks so much, Lisa! I hope you do too.
Ooh, Song of the Six Realms is going straight on my TBR and wish list just for that cover alone 😂 Absolutely stunning! I also can’t wait for Lukens’ new book. I hope you love all of these!
lol – That’s what drew me to the book too. That cover is gorgeous! And I love Lukens’s books. So excited for that one. 🙂