What is your favorite cozy fantasy book? 🌿 It’s b What is your favorite cozy fantasy book? 🌿

It’s been really fun to see how cozy fantasy books have become so popular over the last several years. When done well, reading one of these stories can feel like a comforting hug or sitting down with a cup of something warm and yummy 😌

The Teller of Small Fortunes was a book I read last year and enjoyed very much. I have The Keeper of Magical Things on my TBR for this year 🙌🏼

Some of my very favorite cozy fantasy books are...
🌪️ The Nature of Witches
☕️ Legends & Lattes (series)
🪴 The Spellshop (series)
🐉 The Tea Dragon Society (series)
🧹 The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches AND A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping
 🥖 A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
🪄 Selcouth (series)
🫖 The Spellbound Sisters (series)
 🗡️ This Will Be (series)
🍄 A Curious Kind of Magic
💀 The Bone Houses AND The Drowned Woods AND The Wild Huntress
🍵 Tomes and Tea (series)

Aaaaand that’s where I’ll cut that list off because otherwise we’ll be here for days 😂 

Have you read any of these books? 📚

—

#cozyfantasy #cozyreads #readingescape #fantasybooks #bookaesthetic cozy read, escapism, book hangover, fantasy world-building, book recs, reread worthy, comfort books
In honor of my first day at my new job at my favor In honor of my first day at my new job at my favorite local coffee shop (everyone say “YAY!” 🥳)… would you take the characters from your current read for a cup of coffee? ☕️

💎 I feel like it would be so fascinating to take Brynja, Ballast, and Saga from When the Light Returns to go get coffee. I’d have so many questions about their magic!

🐦‍🔥 I would give anything to take the entire group of characters from Ruin and Rising to get coffee. It would be such a dream to talk to the people from my favorite series!

📖 To sit down and have a chat with Diana and Matthew from The Book of Life over coffee would be incredible. They’re both so intelligent and I think I’d just sit there gaping at them the entire time!

♟️Honestly, I’d be thrilled to have coffee with *anyone* from The Inheritance Games universe. They’re BRILLIANT and I want to pick their brains for hours on end. 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Have you read any of the books I’m currently reading? 📚

—

#fantasyreads #fantasybooklover #bookcommunity #cozyreads #bookishvibes escapism, book hangover, fantasy world-building, book recs, reread worthy, books and coffee
Tell me about some of the media you’re obsessed wi Tell me about some of the media you’re obsessed with that’s unrelated to books! 🫢

Last summer, along with the rest of *absolutely everyone*, I watched KPop Demon Hunters... and fell head over heels in love with every single thing about it 🙈 

It was a chain reaction of epic proportions 💥 I watched it about a week after it premiered because I kept seeing it online. I liked it, watched it again a week later, LOVED it, suggested it to friends who suggested it to their friends, started deep-diving into all of the behind-the-scenes info, wound up listening to the soundtrack so much that my entire Spotify Wrapped was just songs from that album, still somehow manage to talk about it nonstop to everyone I encounter, and I can’t WAIT for the sequel. Let’s just say it kinda became my personality 😂

Along with KPDH, I spent the last year and some change obsessing over One Tree Hill (first time watching it, got to meet some of the cast last summer, have turned Wilmington into my second home, you know... normal obsessed fan things 😉) and Marielle Kraft’s music (SO FREAKING GOOD. Saw her in concert and got to meet her as well and she’s the sweetest human) 🤎

Do we have any obsessions in common? 🤝🏼

—

#kpopdemonhunters #bookphotography #bookishvibes #bookaesthetic #booknerd cozy read, weekend read, book photography, cozy aesthetic, bookish
Recommend a book that feels like a fairytale 🧚🏼‍♀️ Recommend a book that feels like a fairytale 🧚🏼‍♀️

Recently, I finished THE SUN AND THE STARMAKER by @timesnewrachel ☀️ While it was quite different from the modern, witchy fantasy books I’ve come to associate with her (otherwise known as some of my favorite books of all time), she has created a signature style of storytelling that made reading *this book* feel like coming home 🥰

I felt it instantly when I sensed her intense love for nature and the earth woven through the story, paired with such atmospheric writing that I regularly forgot I was not *in* the ethereal, whimsical world I was reading about 🌌 I felt it again in the way she writes of longing and love so powerful that there’s no doubt the characters will overcome every obstacle they face together 🤎 I felt it once more when I began to cry over supporting characters that (possibly) weren’t meant to elicit such strong emotions in the first place 🥹

THE SUN AND THE STARMAKER was everything I could possibly hope and dream a fairytale would be. It was beautiful and magical, and left me feeling so filled with joy and hope. It’s an absolute masterpiece 🙌🏼

Have you read this or any of Rachel’s other books? 📚

—

#fantasyreads #fantasybooklover #thesunandthestarmaker #rachelgriffin #fairytalebooks escapism, book hangover, fantasy books, book recs, reread worthy, favorite author
Tell me the last vampire book you read 🧛🏻‍♀️ I go Tell me the last vampire book you read 🧛🏻‍♀️

I gotta be real honest with y’all... I don’t read a ton of vampire books 😅 I was a wolf girly starting in middle school, and that really hasn’t changed much. I do love a good vampire book, but they haven’t always been my favorite supernatural creature 🙈

However, maybe due to the V.E. Schwab magic, I absolutely adored Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil 😍 It was precisely as toxic as she promised it would be, and I ATE IT UP. It was dark, seductive, sometimes bloody, and there was never a dull moment. I genuinely didn’t want it to end.

Have you read this one yet? 📖

—

#buryourbonesinthemidnightsoil #veschwab #vampirebooks #fantasyreads #fantasybooklover supernatural fantasy, book hangover, fantasy world-building, book recs, reread worthy, sapphic, late-night chapters @veschwabfeatures
Do you pay close attention to monthly releases? 📖 Do you pay close attention to monthly releases? 📖

For several years, I would write a blog article every month that included somewhere between 20-40 new releases 🫢 While I was working my previous job, I didn’t have the opportunity to blog, let alone pay attention to new releases, and I feel like I missed SO MANY 🙈 

I’m happy to be back to blogging semi-regularly, and equally thrilled to be back in the habit of knowing which books are coming out each month! 🙌🏼 If you swipe through, you can see 24 March releases and their corresponding release dates 🗓️

Which of these titles are you most looking forward to reading? 🤎

—

#bookcommunity #bookphotography #bookaesthetic #cozyreads #readersofinstagram cozy read, new book releases, fantasy books, book recs, TBR, romance books, late-night chapters
Do you have a library card? 🪪 Ya girl is the self Do you have a library card? 🪪

Ya girl is the self-proclaimed biggest fan of the library to ever walk the earth 🌍 Okay, that could be an exaggeration, but most of the time it doesn’t feel like one. I cried with happiness over my first library card as a kid, and I won’t purchase a book until I’ve borrowed it from the library and loved it enough to own it. I have 5 library cards, swear by Libby and Hoopla for all of my audiobooks and ebooks, and at this point, I feel like an Arthur tattoo might be necessary (IYKYK) 😂

But I digress... February is National Library Lovers’ Month, and I think you should get a library card (or 5) and celebrate not only the perk of FREE BOOKS but also the countless ways public libraries are integral to our lives and communities! 🙌🏼

What was the last library book you checked out? 📖

—

#nationallibraryloversmonth #libraryloversmonth #bookcommunity #bookphotography #readersofinstagram support your public library, library lovers, bookish vibes, cozy aesthetic, book nerd
If you could only recommend one book for the rest If you could only recommend one book for the rest of your life, what would it be? 📖

This one has been an easy answer for me since 2020, when I read THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY. It completely changed my life.

Since then, I have recommended it to countless people, and have felt intense amounts of joy as I’ve seen those people recommend it to others, buy copies for friends, suggest it for their book clubs, and come back to me to tell me how it changed their life just like it changed mine 🥰

Which book would you say changed your life for the better? 🤎

—

#themidnightlibrary #magicalrealism #mentalhealthbooks #bookcommunity #bookishvibes Matt Haig, books with mental health rep, magical realism books, book recs, favorite books, escapism, book hangover, reread worthy, comfort book
  • Home
  • Books
    • Reviews
    • Monthly Wrap-Ups
    • New Releases
  • Lifestyle
    • Self Care
    • Food
    • Home
    • Blogging
  • Fashion
    • Winter
    • Spring
    • Summer
    • Fall
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Books
    • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
  • About
  • The Social Edition

The Espresso Edition

A Cozy Bookish Blog

  • Home
  • Categories
    • Books
    • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
  • About
  • The Social Edition

Books · January 6, 2025

The 12 Books I Enjoyed Reading the Most in 2024

12 Excellent Books I Read in 2024 by The Espresso Edition cozy bookish blog

While I read over 120 titles in 2024, there were 12 books that really stood out. I’m so happy to be sharing my annual favorites wrap-up!

My priority reading goals in 2024 were to read less overall and read more of what I really enjoy. I think I did a pretty good job accomplishing both of those tasks. In years past, I would read anywhere between 200-250 books, but this year I barely hit my reading challenge of 120 books in the year. I’m proud of myself for not overdoing it and pushing myself when I didn’t feel up to it.

I can’t say it was the most phenomenal reading year ever, but I did pick 12 books that truly stood out to me among the rest. These 12 books were my favorite titles from each month of the year. None of them were rereads and nearly all of them were new releases. It was fun to discover authors to add to my favorites list and start some series that I really can’t wait to continue!


looking for more monthly reading recaps?
Click here for wrap-ups archive
12 Excellent Books I Read in 2024 by The Espresso Edition cozy bookish blog

12 Excellent Books I Read in 2024

If you’re interested in more bookish content, follow my StoryGraph account for reading updates and ratings, and take a look at my bookstagram – where I share aesthetic coffee and book photos!

2024 Reading Stats

My Top 12 Books of 2024

Heartstopper Vol. 5

by Alice Oseman
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Barnes & Noble

Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh

by Rachel Lippincott
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

Funny Story

by Emily Henry
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

Where the Dark Stands Still

by A.B. Poranek
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

Five Broken Blades (The Broken Blades #1)

by Mai Corland
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

Here We Go Again

by Alison Cochrun
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

The Lovers

by Rebekah Faubion
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

The Black Bird Oracle (All Souls #5)

by Deborah Harkness
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

The Grandest Game (The Grandest Game #1)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

My Roommate is a Vampire (My Roommate is a Vampire #1)

by Jenna Levine
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

Onyx & Beyond

by Amber McBride
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble

Most Wonderful

by Georgia Clark
ADD ON STORYGRAPH

Buy the book: Amazon | Blackwell’s | Bookshop | Waterstones | Libro.fm | Barnes & Noble


Shop the post
Five Broken Blades | coconut wax bookish candle (ESPRESSO10) | single-serve French press | mug & saucer | cinnamon sticks | wooden cake tray | faux pine cones | sweater | similar hand mirror | faux cotton sprigs
12 Excellent Books I Read in 2024 by The Espresso Edition cozy bookish blog

What was your 2024 reading like? Do you have 12 favorite books from the past year?

In: Books · Tagged: 2024 books, 2024 reading wrapped, Reading Recap, yearly reading recap, yearly wrap-up

You’ll Also Love

10 Books I Read in May 2025 and Their Ratings by The Espresso Edition cozy bookish blogMay 2025 Reading Wrap-Up
8 Books I Read in April 2025 and Their Ratings by The Espresso Edition cozy bookish blogApril 2025 Reading Wrap-Up
9 Books I Read in August 2024 and Their Ratings by The Espresso Edition cozy bookish blogAugust 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Recipe Rating




Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

5 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Nathalie
1 year ago

Funny Story was in my top 10 too!

Last edited 1 year ago by Nathalie
Reply
Stephanie Whitman
1 year ago
Reply to  Nathalie

It was such a fun book that I read the ARC right before it came out and immediately listened to the audiobook after it released. Loved it! Emily Henry can do no wrong.

Reply
Raji
1 year ago

It’s always fun to see everyone’s favorite books of the year! I enjoyed The Grandest Game too, but I felt the original series was better. Five Broken Blades sounds interesting!

Reply
Stephanie Whitman
1 year ago
Reply to  Raji

I do think I enjoyed the original series the best as well, but I’m having fun learning about what’s happening in the story now. I remembered thinking I wanted to know what the games would look like and now I get to see them in action! Five Broken Blades was EXCELLENT. It’s like if The Green Bone Saga and Six of Crows had a baby somehow hahaha. I loved it and can’t wait for the sequel.

Reply
caro @ bookcheshirecat
1 year ago

I loved seeing your favorite books of 2024! 🥰 I really enjoyed Heartstopper, Funny Story and My Roommate Is a Vampire as well!

Reply
Next Post >

Why I Keep Returning to Desenio for My Art Prints

Welcome to The Espresso Edition, a cozy bookish blog (with just a pinch of lifestyle goodness). I'm Stephanie, and I'm overjoyed to welcome you to this safe space designed for book lovers old and new who are seeking everything from book recommendations to reading tips to reviews and so much more.

Archives

My Rating System

Where I’m Connected

Professional Reader
Reviews Published

80%

Resources

17th Avenue - Feminine & Stylish WordPress Themes

instagram

follow @theespressoedition

What is your favorite cozy fantasy book? 🌿 It’s b What is your favorite cozy fantasy book? 🌿

It’s been really fun to see how cozy fantasy books have become so popular over the last several years. When done well, reading one of these stories can feel like a comforting hug or sitting down with a cup of something warm and yummy 😌

The Teller of Small Fortunes was a book I read last year and enjoyed very much. I have The Keeper of Magical Things on my TBR for this year 🙌🏼

Some of my very favorite cozy fantasy books are...
🌪️ The Nature of Witches
☕️ Legends & Lattes (series)
🪴 The Spellshop (series)
🐉 The Tea Dragon Society (series)
🧹 The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches AND A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping
 🥖 A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
🪄 Selcouth (series)
🫖 The Spellbound Sisters (series)
 🗡️ This Will Be (series)
🍄 A Curious Kind of Magic
💀 The Bone Houses AND The Drowned Woods AND The Wild Huntress
🍵 Tomes and Tea (series)

Aaaaand that’s where I’ll cut that list off because otherwise we’ll be here for days 😂 

Have you read any of these books? 📚

—

#cozyfantasy #cozyreads #readingescape #fantasybooks #bookaesthetic cozy read, escapism, book hangover, fantasy world-building, book recs, reread worthy, comfort books
In honor of my first day at my new job at my favor In honor of my first day at my new job at my favorite local coffee shop (everyone say “YAY!” 🥳)… would you take the characters from your current read for a cup of coffee? ☕️

💎 I feel like it would be so fascinating to take Brynja, Ballast, and Saga from When the Light Returns to go get coffee. I’d have so many questions about their magic!

🐦‍🔥 I would give anything to take the entire group of characters from Ruin and Rising to get coffee. It would be such a dream to talk to the people from my favorite series!

📖 To sit down and have a chat with Diana and Matthew from The Book of Life over coffee would be incredible. They’re both so intelligent and I think I’d just sit there gaping at them the entire time!

♟️Honestly, I’d be thrilled to have coffee with *anyone* from The Inheritance Games universe. They’re BRILLIANT and I want to pick their brains for hours on end. 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Have you read any of the books I’m currently reading? 📚

—

#fantasyreads #fantasybooklover #bookcommunity #cozyreads #bookishvibes escapism, book hangover, fantasy world-building, book recs, reread worthy, books and coffee
Tell me about some of the media you’re obsessed wi Tell me about some of the media you’re obsessed with that’s unrelated to books! 🫢

Last summer, along with the rest of *absolutely everyone*, I watched KPop Demon Hunters... and fell head over heels in love with every single thing about it 🙈 

It was a chain reaction of epic proportions 💥 I watched it about a week after it premiered because I kept seeing it online. I liked it, watched it again a week later, LOVED it, suggested it to friends who suggested it to their friends, started deep-diving into all of the behind-the-scenes info, wound up listening to the soundtrack so much that my entire Spotify Wrapped was just songs from that album, still somehow manage to talk about it nonstop to everyone I encounter, and I can’t WAIT for the sequel. Let’s just say it kinda became my personality 😂

Along with KPDH, I spent the last year and some change obsessing over One Tree Hill (first time watching it, got to meet some of the cast last summer, have turned Wilmington into my second home, you know... normal obsessed fan things 😉) and Marielle Kraft’s music (SO FREAKING GOOD. Saw her in concert and got to meet her as well and she’s the sweetest human) 🤎

Do we have any obsessions in common? 🤝🏼

—

#kpopdemonhunters #bookphotography #bookishvibes #bookaesthetic #booknerd cozy read, weekend read, book photography, cozy aesthetic, bookish
Recommend a book that feels like a fairytale 🧚🏼‍♀️ Recommend a book that feels like a fairytale 🧚🏼‍♀️

Recently, I finished THE SUN AND THE STARMAKER by @timesnewrachel ☀️ While it was quite different from the modern, witchy fantasy books I’ve come to associate with her (otherwise known as some of my favorite books of all time), she has created a signature style of storytelling that made reading *this book* feel like coming home 🥰

I felt it instantly when I sensed her intense love for nature and the earth woven through the story, paired with such atmospheric writing that I regularly forgot I was not *in* the ethereal, whimsical world I was reading about 🌌 I felt it again in the way she writes of longing and love so powerful that there’s no doubt the characters will overcome every obstacle they face together 🤎 I felt it once more when I began to cry over supporting characters that (possibly) weren’t meant to elicit such strong emotions in the first place 🥹

THE SUN AND THE STARMAKER was everything I could possibly hope and dream a fairytale would be. It was beautiful and magical, and left me feeling so filled with joy and hope. It’s an absolute masterpiece 🙌🏼

Have you read this or any of Rachel’s other books? 📚

—

#fantasyreads #fantasybooklover #thesunandthestarmaker #rachelgriffin #fairytalebooks escapism, book hangover, fantasy books, book recs, reread worthy, favorite author
Tell me the last vampire book you read 🧛🏻‍♀️ I go Tell me the last vampire book you read 🧛🏻‍♀️

I gotta be real honest with y’all... I don’t read a ton of vampire books 😅 I was a wolf girly starting in middle school, and that really hasn’t changed much. I do love a good vampire book, but they haven’t always been my favorite supernatural creature 🙈

However, maybe due to the V.E. Schwab magic, I absolutely adored Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil 😍 It was precisely as toxic as she promised it would be, and I ATE IT UP. It was dark, seductive, sometimes bloody, and there was never a dull moment. I genuinely didn’t want it to end.

Have you read this one yet? 📖

—

#buryourbonesinthemidnightsoil #veschwab #vampirebooks #fantasyreads #fantasybooklover supernatural fantasy, book hangover, fantasy world-building, book recs, reread worthy, sapphic, late-night chapters @veschwabfeatures
Do you pay close attention to monthly releases? 📖 Do you pay close attention to monthly releases? 📖

For several years, I would write a blog article every month that included somewhere between 20-40 new releases 🫢 While I was working my previous job, I didn’t have the opportunity to blog, let alone pay attention to new releases, and I feel like I missed SO MANY 🙈 

I’m happy to be back to blogging semi-regularly, and equally thrilled to be back in the habit of knowing which books are coming out each month! 🙌🏼 If you swipe through, you can see 24 March releases and their corresponding release dates 🗓️

Which of these titles are you most looking forward to reading? 🤎

—

#bookcommunity #bookphotography #bookaesthetic #cozyreads #readersofinstagram cozy read, new book releases, fantasy books, book recs, TBR, romance books, late-night chapters
Do you have a library card? 🪪 Ya girl is the self Do you have a library card? 🪪

Ya girl is the self-proclaimed biggest fan of the library to ever walk the earth 🌍 Okay, that could be an exaggeration, but most of the time it doesn’t feel like one. I cried with happiness over my first library card as a kid, and I won’t purchase a book until I’ve borrowed it from the library and loved it enough to own it. I have 5 library cards, swear by Libby and Hoopla for all of my audiobooks and ebooks, and at this point, I feel like an Arthur tattoo might be necessary (IYKYK) 😂

But I digress... February is National Library Lovers’ Month, and I think you should get a library card (or 5) and celebrate not only the perk of FREE BOOKS but also the countless ways public libraries are integral to our lives and communities! 🙌🏼

What was the last library book you checked out? 📖

—

#nationallibraryloversmonth #libraryloversmonth #bookcommunity #bookphotography #readersofinstagram support your public library, library lovers, bookish vibes, cozy aesthetic, book nerd
If you could only recommend one book for the rest If you could only recommend one book for the rest of your life, what would it be? 📖

This one has been an easy answer for me since 2020, when I read THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY. It completely changed my life.

Since then, I have recommended it to countless people, and have felt intense amounts of joy as I’ve seen those people recommend it to others, buy copies for friends, suggest it for their book clubs, and come back to me to tell me how it changed their life just like it changed mine 🥰

Which book would you say changed your life for the better? 🤎

—

#themidnightlibrary #magicalrealism #mentalhealthbooks #bookcommunity #bookishvibes Matt Haig, books with mental health rep, magical realism books, book recs, favorite books, escapism, book hangover, reread worthy, comfort book
Would you want to have the same occupation as the Would you want to have the same occupation as the main character(s) in your last read? 💼

I recently finished Thunderhead, and I absolutely would *NOT* want to be a Scythe! 🙅🏻‍♀️ I also definitely wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the royalty in my other previous read, A Psalm of Storms and Silence 😬

Is there a book character’s “career” that you know you would love to have? 💭

—

#bookcommunity #bookphotography #bookaesthetic #cozyaesthetic #readersofinstagram current read, currently reading, cozy aesthetic, escapism, late-night chapters, what I’m reading
Is there an author who consistently writes books t Is there an author who consistently writes books that bring you to tears? 😭

I have cried while reading every single one of Amber’s books... and that’s only a small part of what keeps me coming back for more 🤎

I’m struggling with even knowing how to put in words what her books mean to me, because even thinking about it is making me tear up 🥹 So instead of trying to craft the perfect thing to say, I’m just going to urge you to read everything she’s written. You can thank me later 🙏🏼

What was the last book that made you cry? 📖

—

#theleavingroom #booklover #bookcommunity #cozyreads #bookishvibes poetry, Amber McBride, The Leaving Room, sapphic books, books that will make you cry, book hangover, book recs, reread worthy, late-night chapters

Copyright © 2026 The Espresso Edition · Theme by 17th Avenue

wpDiscuz