Five Fall Favorites: Top Books of 2024

Welcome back to the last day of the Five Fall Favorites blog party 2024. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week. It’s hard to believe it’s already Saturday, isn’t it?

Sadly, there are significantly more fruits of the Spirit than there are days in the work week. (Sadly? Actually, I take that back!) We aren’t going to have time to cover goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance in detail—although if you’re looking for a story that highlights the whole fruit collection, don’t miss out on The Christmas Fruit Bowl by Erika Mathews, originally written as part of A Homewood Christmas and now available as a standalone novella. It just happens to revolve around this very theme!

For today, however, we’re carrying on a Five Fall Favorites tradition and wrapping up the party with a list of our top five books from the past year. Looking back over my reading these last twelve months, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that’s pretty new for me. See if you can spot it in the list below.

Whose Waves These Are

By Amanda Dykes

I read this novel last winter—and I still think it should be a Hallmark film. (Which is a compliment. I love Hallmark films the way I love potato chips and cuddly pajamas!)

It’s a dual-timeline book that jumps between a 1940s setting and an early 2000s one, as reader and heroine simultaneously unravel the mysteries hidden through the intervening years. This is a well-written, engaging story with a likeable cast of characters and a charming setting. (Did I mention it should be a Hallmark movie???)

Chronic Warrior Chronicles

By Angie Thompson

This series has been more than a favourite—there’ve been days when it was an emotional lifeline for me. I relate so much to the characters’ struggles with all the weird symptoms, discouragement, and isolation that go along with chronic illness.

Angie’s characters are some of the most loveable people you’ll ever meet with. I absolutely love the dynamics between the different members of the team. And the best part is—the story isn’t finished yet. I’m so excited for Season Two to get underway next week!

The Lazy Genius Way

By Kenda Adachi

I’ve had so much fun reading—and re-reading—The Lazy Genius Way this year. In fact, when I took this book and a well-written historical novel on vacation in March, it was The Lazy Genius Way that won out and got devoured first.

Kendra’s style is so much fun and her approach to life is so freeing. Be a genius about the things that matter—and lazy about the ones that don’t. And this practical how-to book is full of valuable principles and techniques to get you there. One of the things I enjoyed most—even while it stretched me—was the reminder that my priorities need to be my priorities: the stuff that actually matters to me, not the stuff that somebody else says should matter. This is definitely a book I’m looking forward to reading many times again.

Safe People

By Henry Cloud and John Townsend

This book was required reading in my Bible school servanthood class just about exactly a year ago. I read it in less than two weeks. (It might even have been in a single week—I can’t remember now!) It made a HUGE impact on the way I look at people and relationships.

Spoiler alert: In my opinion, the last chapter was hands down the best, so if you’re tempted to get bogged down somewhere around the middle (as you’re discovering just how unsafe and toxic most of your own and other people’s relationships actually are!) then don’t give up. The conclusion is one of hope and power. We are all capable of becoming safe people—and this book is an eyeopener about how to get there.

Your First 1000 Copies

By Tim Grahl

What do you do when your booth at the biggest homeschooling convention in your province yields a tiny handful of sales—and a massive dump of email addresses into your company newsletter?

If you’re me, you go out and get a book on email marketing.

Promoting your finished product is consistently the most challenging part of the publishing process for most writers. Your First 1000 Copies lays out a practical, step-by-step program for building the marketing side of your business as an author. It’s written in a fun, easy-to-read style and it has a ton of really valuable information to offer, whether you’re preparing to release your first book or looking to boost your platform for your twentieth.

I’ve read plenty of marketing material that highlights how hard it is to succeed. Your First 1000 Copies takes the opposite approach—success in the writing world, like anything else, is the result of simple, achievable steps that all of us can master. If you’re a writer looking to build a brand, but not sure where on earth to start, this is a book that will be well worth your while.

And that’s it for the Five Fall Favorites!

Favorites, not favourites. I can’t believe it—a week later, and I’m still wanting to type that word with a “u!”

Oh well, hopefully I’ve made some fellow Commonwealth citizens feel a little less alone…

Anyway, that’s drifting off topic. As you read my list, did you spot the novel trend? Actually, maybe it would be more accurate to say the non-novel trend? That’s right, for the first time in I-can’t-tell-you-how-long nonfic has beaten fiction on my top reading list. I even had another nonfic title that almost pushed its way up from sixth place, as well!

For me, at least, that’s definitely something new.

How about for you? What were your top five titles from the past year? As always, I’d love to hear them in the comments section below.

And one more time—don’t forget to hop over to Once Upon An Ordinary to make sure you don’t miss out on the last day of Five Fall Favorites fun (including, I think, the moment everybody’s been waiting for: giveaway results!)

Thanks so much to Kate for coordinating the event. And of course, thanks to all of our readers for making Five Fall Favorites the great event that it is!

If you haven’t yet signed up for the Sheep Among Wolves newsletter, you can subscribe right below. Even though the FFF giveaway is officially closed, you’ll still receive a free first chapter from three of SAW Publishing’s most popular novels!

• ← Five Fall Favorites: Kindness