My Favorite Read of 2024

I have become an audiobook devotee. When I first started listening to books about fifteen years ago, I did it only when driving. Listening and driving seemed to require different parts of my brain, enabling me to pay attention to the road and a book at the same time– similar to listening to the radio. I didn't have the same experience at home. If I tried to listen to a book at home, I found myself itching to do something with my hands or eyes and became distracted from the book.

But in the last few years, I realized that there were things I could do at home that allowed me to stay busy and yet focus on an audiobook. I can do laundry and listen. Empty the dishwasher and listen. Make meals and listen. Eat meals and listen. I can brush my teeth, wash my face, change my clothes, and even lie in bed awaiting sleep and listen.

Sure, in the morning I may have to rewind a little to find the last spot I recall, but that is easy to do. And at the end of the workday, when my eyes are tired from reading books and short stories on my computer for clients, I can turn on an audiobook and do online jigsaw puzzles or game at the same time. The brain is a miraculous thing.

It is thanks to audiobooks that I was able to read (can you use the word read for listening to an audiobook? I feel like the answer is yes but it also is not quite right)158 books, as well as three novellas and two novelettes, for pleasure in 2024. What about short stories, you may be wondering. I read those on paper or Kindle. I find I am kinder to authors I listen to, am more willing to shrug off some problems that might have me reaching for my red pen with a paper copy. Since I buy reprint rights to short stories for Black Cat Weekly, I want to ensure I am always vigilant with shorts.

That said, I'm no pushover with novels, novellas, and novelettes. I keep notes on the ones I really enjoyed, what I liked, what concerns I had, and I rank them. It makes things easier come award season to figure out what to list on my nomination ballots. And should a book I enjoyed be named a finalist, I already have notes about that book to help me make up my mind before I vote.

That's not to say I won't reread a book or story that is named a finalist. Indeed, either last year or the year before that I narrowed my Anthony Award choice in one category to one book I had read a few months before and one I finished shortly before voting time, so I read the first book again to better compare the two. Anyway, this is all building up to my saying that I read– okay, listened to– a whole lot of books in 2024, and one easily topped my list. It is… drum roll, please…

“Blood Moon,” a novelette by Linda Castillo. It came out in 2022 from Minotaur Books. The print length is sixty-four pages. Audible says if you listen to it at regular speed, it should take about ninety minutes.

Castillo writes a series about Kate Burkholder, a formerly Amish sheriff in the village of Painters Mill, nestled in a rural Ohio county. When the series began with Sworn to Silence in 2009, Castillo had a book come out each year. A few years later, Minotaur started publishing a novelette by Castillo midway through each year for fans like me who needed their Castillo fix. The novelettes often are a bit lighter and more humorous than the novels. The crime might not even be murder. “Blood Moon” is a perfect example.

In this tale, there is a monster afoot in Painters Mill. Several people have an encounter with it. From their stories, you can imagine different urban legends, and Sheriff Burkholder and her significant other, John Tomasetti, an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Investigation, are on the case.

“Blood Moon” has great suspense, fantastic dialogue, and a solid ending. This novelette is set quite a ways into the series, and I think you would enjoy it even more if you read all the books and novelettes that came before it. There is character development throughout the series that would make the interactions in “Blood Moon” more meaningful to you if you followed the characters from the start. But you certainly could read “Blood Moon” as a standalone should you choose to.

Linda Castillo

You may be wondering why I read a 2022 novelette in 2024 if I love this series. I read so many series that I sometimes fall behind, and that has happened here. But don't worry. I will catch up. I have much to look forward to, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Books in this series have landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and just last year, Castillo's novel An Evil Heart won the Sue Grafton Memorial Award and her novelette “Hallowed Ground” won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. If you like reading police procedurals, you won't go wrong by picking up anything in this series.

Want to learn more? Castillo has written interviews with Burkholder and Tomasetti. You can find them here and here.

Before I go, a little BSP. If you would like to read my short story “A Matter of Trust,” which his eligible for the Agatha Award, among others, you can find it on my newly revamped website. Just click here.

Happy reading!