Taking a first glance at the bestselling books of 2024, you’d be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. Colleen Hoover at No 1 with It Ends with Us, a book that came out in 2016? Richard Osman back on the podium with another cosy crime novel? And worst of all — more air fryers?
But look beneath the surface and you’ll start to see all kinds of new names and themes that have been engrossing readers this year.
Have you heard of Freida McFadden, for example? That is the pen name for the author who combines writing with a career as a doctor specialising in brain injury. Now she’s got no less than four novels in our Top 50, including The Housemaid at No 4, a domestic thriller that is set to be made into a film starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. Not bad for an author who self-published her first book in 2013.
We don’t know Freida McFadden’s real name, her age or if she has a housemaid, but the doctor-turned-thriller writer dominates 2024’s chart
MIRA WHITING
The usual crime and thriller suspects are here — Lee Child, Lisa Jewell, Harlan Coben — but a new genre made its debut too: romantasy. For the uninitiated, that’s a combination of romance and fantasy — think dragons, werewolves and elves with a side of “spicy” (read: explicit) love affairs.
On the books desk we watched, vaguely baffled, as novels about sorceresses with magical orgasmic powers topped the fiction charts again and again. The remarkable success of these books is shown in the Top 50: three of Sarah J Maas’s books about a dangerous faerie world are here, as is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, about the adventures of a young dragon rider. Expect to see even more romantasy novels in the charts in 2025.
Advertisement
But alongside the faerie porn, traditional literary fiction has been flying off the shelves too. Sally Rooney’s inclusion in our chart might not seem unusual, given the extent of the Irish author’s literary star power, but her latest novel, Intermezzo, is written partly in a stream-of-consciousness style that takes its inspiration from James Joyce’s Ulysses. That’s not usually a recipe for commercial success, but the book has made the cut at No 43. Even more impressive is Rebecca F Kuang’s Yellowface, a page-turning satire about the publishing industry, which is sitting at No 6, ahead of books by the bestseller veterans Lee Child and Jojo Moyes.
As well as writing the bestselling novels Babel and Yellowface, Rebecca F Kuang has studied at Oxford, Cambridge and Yale
CRAIG BROWN/ALAMY
Sometimes the most interesting aspect of a list is who doesn’t make the cut. Last year the bestselling book by a long way was Prince Harry’s Spare, his tell-all (yes, all — frostbitten “todger” included) memoir about his dissatisfied life as a royal. Publishers and booksellers alike suspected that the equivalent runaway success of 2024 would be Boris Johnson’s eagerly awaited memoir, Unleashed. But Johnson’s book is nowhere to be seen in our Top 50. With sales of 110,610 copies, Unleashed is about 7,000 shy of making the list, despite nine weeks at a Sunday Times bestseller. Instead, readers went for Politics on the Edge, the memoir from the Boris-phobic former MP and The Rest Is Politics presenter Rory Stewart, about his time in government, which is a very respectable No 29.
• The 19 best books of 2024 — chosen by our critics
Politics on the Edge is the only memoir on the list — there is no sign of bestselling books by Miranda Hart, Jeremy Clarkson or even Cher. Fiction makes up 42 of the 50 books, an overwhelming majority. Apart from cookbooks and manuals, the only other non-fiction was a children’s biography of Taylor Swift, Chris van Tulleken’s terrifying Ultra-Processed People, about the harms of processed food, and the perennial favourite self-help book, Atomic Habits.
So what does that say about us? In our era of perma-bad news, we didn’t turn to history books or political explainers. Instead we retreated to the world of fiction, and even within that we preferred fantasy worlds of dragons and fairies, or retirement homes full of puzzling pensioners. That and air fryers, of course.
Advertisement
The Sunday Times top 50 bestsellers of 2024
1 It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (Simon & Schuster £9.99)
A first love’s reappearance threatens a woman’s relationship. (Sales: 400,453)
Read our profile of Colleen Hoover
2 We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Viking £22)
A private security officer calls her father-in-law for help when she’s framed for murder in the first of a new series. (360,827)
Read our review of We Solve Murders
3 The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (Penguin £9.99)
The Thursday Murder Club investigate the murder of an old friend who worked in the antiques trade. (356,768)
Read our review of The Last Devil To Die
4 The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Little, Brown £9.99)
Hired as a live-in maid, a former convict finds her employers difficult to work for. (309,099)
5 A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (Bloomsbury £8.99)
After a huntress kills a wolf, a terrifying creature demands retribution. (289,919)
Advertisement
6 Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang (Borough £9.99)
A writer publishes her deceased friend’s novel as her own. (270,832)
Read our review of Yellowface
7 It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover (Simon & Schuster £9.99)
The sequel to It Ends with Us; Atlas’s side of the story.(262,487)
8 The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Penguin £9.99)
Jack Reacher looks for a link between suspicious deaths. (255,024)
Read our review of The Secret
9 The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas (Penguin £9.99)
A death occurs after sisters leading different lives swap places. (229,994)
Read our review of The Wrong Sister
10 None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (Penguin £9.99)
The lives of a true crime podcaster and her guest intertwine. (227,539)
Read our interview with Lisa Jewell
Advertisement
11 Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Piatkus £10.99)
A young woman is a candidate to become a dragon rider. (225,237)
Read our interview with Rebecca Yarros
12 The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden (Little, Brown £9.99)
A maid suspects her new employer has dark secrets. (217,068)
13 Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes (Penguin £9.99)
Two strangers’ lives collide after a bag mix-up at the gym. (214,771)
Read our review of Someone Else’s Shoes
14 Pinch of Nom Air Fryer by Kate Allinson and Kay Allinson (Bluebird £20)
Easy, calorie-counted recipes that you can make in an air fryer.(211,300)
15 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage £9.99)
The story of two friends who are brought together by a shared love of video games. (187,701)
Read our review of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Advertisement
16 Guinness World Records 2025 (Guinness World Records £22)
This 70th edition honours record-breakers across the decades. (187,045)
17 Murdle by GT Karber (Souvenir £14.99)
Murder-mystery logic puzzles for armchair detectives. (180,918)
Read our interview with GT Karber
18 Bored of Lunch Healthy Slow Cooker: Even Easier by Nathan Anthony (Ebury £20)
Low-cal slow cooker recipes. (180,684)
19 Atomic Habits by James Clear (Random House Business £17.99)
The minuscule changes that can result in life-altering outcomes. (177,094)
20 The Housemaid Is Watching by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen £8.99)
A former maid moves into her dream home, but is suspicious of her neighbours. (175,668)
21 Powerless by Lauren Roberts (Simon & Schuster £9.99)
First in a YA fantasy trilogy about Paedyn Gray. (167,602)
22 A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas (Bloomsbury £8.99)
Feyre navigates the High Lord’s dark web of political games. (165,532)
23 I Will Find You by Harlan Coben (Penguin £9.99)
A man jailed for his son’s murder finds out he may be alive. (164,752)
Read our interview with Harlan Coben
24 One Day by David Nicholls (Hodder £9.99)
The story of two friends, told on the same day over 20 years. (158,623)
Read our interview with David Nicholls
25 The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (Penguin £9.99)
Four friends in a retirement village team up to solve a murder on their doorstep.(157,089)
26 Dog Man 12: The Scarlet Shedder by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic £12.99)
An all-new villain unleashes an army of AI robots.(156,739)
27 Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken (Penguin £10.99)
Investigating the science and economics of highly processed food. (153,412)
Read our review of Ultra-Processed People
28 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (4th Estate £14.99)
A journalist and a serial killer of lonely businessmen bond over a love of food. (149,524)
Read our review of Butter
29 Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart (Vintage £10.99)
The challenges and absurdities of political life are revealed by the former MP. (148,034)
Read our review of Politics on the Edge
30 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Mess by Jeff Kinney (Puffin £14.99)
Greg Heffley endures an awkward summer with his family.(146,697)
31 A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (Electric Monkey £9.99)
A student digs into a cold case, convinced that the killer is still at large.(146,083)
32 Little People, BIG DREAMS: Taylor Swift by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara (Frances Lincoln £9.99)
An illustrated biography.(142,817)
33 Greg the Sausage Roll: Lunchbox Superhero by Mark Hoyle and Roxanne Hoyle (Puffin £1)
School-set adventure. (141,953)
34 Flawless by Elsie Silver (Piatkus £9.99)
A reckless bull rider is assigned an assistant.(140,145)
35 No One Saw a Thing by Andrea Mara (Penguin £9.99)
Two children board a train in London but only one gets off. (138,139)
36 The Pumpkin Spice Café by Laurie Gilmore (One More Chapter £9.99)
A city girl inherits a small-town café. (136,925)
37 The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella (Penguin £9.99)
Two stressed-out strangers seeking burnout cures bond at a shabby seaside hotel.(135,043)
38 Icebreaker by Hannah Grace (Simon & Schuster £9.99)
A figure skater and a hockey captain have to share a rink. (134,321)
39 Homecoming by Kate Morton (Pan £9.99)
A journalist looks into a cold case found in a true crime book. (132,786)
40 A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas (Bloomsbury £8.99)
Feyre must play a game of deceit and decide whom to trust. (131,368)
41 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney (Puffin £7.99)
Greg tries to help his brother’s band become rock legends. (130,177)
42 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Penguin £9.99)
In 1960s America a chemist becomes the star of a cooking show.(127,864)
Read our review of Lessons in Chemistry
43 Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber £20)
After their father’s death, brothers grapple with their grief. (126,714)
Read our review of Intermezzo
44 InvestiGators: High-Rise Hijinks by John Patrick Green and Christopher Hastings (Macmillan £1)
Comic-book adventure.(124,502)
45 Reckless by Lauren Roberts (Simon & Schuster £9.99)
Paedyn is on the run; sequel to Powerless.(122,938)
46 Never Lie by Freida McFadden (Poisoned Pen £8.99)
Newlyweds move into a home whose last owner vanished. (122,402)
47 The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman (Penguin £9.99)
The Thursday Murder Club look into a journalist’s death. (121,029)
Read our review of The Bullet That Missed
48 Elmer and the Patchwork Story by David McKee (Andersen £1)
A celebration of sharing stories and making them up. (120,594)
49 Heartless by Elsie Silver (Piatkus £9.99)
A grumpy single dad softens in the arms of his son’s nanny. (120,466)
50 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage £9.99)
A day in the lives of six people orbiting Earth on the International Space Station. (117,976)
Read our review of Orbital
The chart is prepared by and the data is supplied by (and copyrighted to) Nielsen BookScan, based on the bestselling books in the 49-week period ending 07/12/24. Figures shown are sales for that period
This post was originally published on here
