The Best Fiction and Mysteries of 2024, According to Barnes & Noble

Kaveh Akbar is just as brilliant a poet as he is a novelist, and Martyr! is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Cyrus Shams, his friend Zee, Cyrus’ parents, and his uncle each get their own distinct point-of-view chapters and feel so real. Cyrus also provides excerpts of his own work in progress, The Book of Martyrs. The idea of a meaningful death is deeply personal to Cyrus, an Iranian American writer whose mom’s plane was shot down by the US government. Martyr! directly challenges popular literary opinions, such as the idea that dream sequences don’t belong in literary fiction or that performance art is uniquely “pretentious.” I already can’t wait to reread this book and notice the character, plot, and structure details I missed. —Grace Lapointe

Award-winning author Danzy Senna is back with a biting story of ambition, middle age, and identity. Jane is an author desperate to finish her second novel while she is on sabbatical with her family in Los Angeles. Instead, she falls for the siren’s call of Hollywood and finds herself working with a hotshot producer on a comedy, what he assures her will be a huge hit. Jane has high hopes that the show will impart important views on race while delivering laughs. But nothing turns out how she expects it to go. Senna delivers a darkly funny novel about the Hollywood machine rolling over another writer who dared to stand in front of it with their dreams. (Related: today I learned that Senna is married to author Percival Everett. That is a lot of talent under one roof!) —Liberty Hardy

For Brooke, a 33-year-old Black woman fed up with her Bronx teaching job, working in the proximity of wealth proves to be life-altering. When she takes on a new job working for an 80-something-year-old billionaire, it starts to inspire new ideas in her. Mainly, that maybe she should have some of the money he’s trying to give away. She wants it for herself, yes, a little—who wouldn’t want designer clothes and bougie meals?—but she also has helping others in mind. Except that her decision-making starts to go a little off the rails. Roxane Gay said, “The way I read the last two thirds of this novel through my fingers, cringing!!!!” I love a good, messy tale of an unraveling woman. —Erica Ezeifedi

When Barbara, the 13-year-old daughter of the prominent Van Laars goes missing from their family-owned summer camp in eerily similar circumstances to another disappearance in the family years before, chaos breaks loose as the counselors, police officers, and those close to the family converge on the scene. Told through multiple female perspectives, the investigation and history reveal the way the roles of women in families and in society as a whole add another layer of interiority and tenderness to the mystery of Barbara’s disappearance. —Addison Rizer