Best of 2025: Fiction & Literature

A seemingly unrelated string of stories tied together with unsettling drawings invites the reader into an overarching mystery about the human psyche. The further you read, the more clues you uncover, leading to the story's final reveal and conclusion.

A centuries-long tale of three women from different eras, connected by blood, immortality, and hunger. Sabine, Charlotte, and Alice are all hundreds of years apart, but Schwab gradually paints a complex narrative that brings them all together, while describing multiple fascinating periods of history in ways only she can. Also, there are vampires. Lots and lots of vampires.

A Palestinian American FBI agent teams up with a hardline Israeli cop to solve the murder of the Israeli police chief in Gaza.

Set in 16th-century France, Marguerite would have inherited the country estate she lives on had her parents not died and she become a ward of her distant cousin. Penniless and powerless, Marguerite's life is controlled by her guardian, who takes her against her will first to his home in a port city before making her join him on a ship to an expedition to New France (Canada).

A pregnant teen arrives at a home for unwed mothers and quickly forms a bond with the other girls. After a visit from a local witch, the teens start dabbling in magic—and plotting their own liberation. This book is both an atmospheric horror novel and a fiery manifesto for reproductive rights.

Nesi, a religious acolyte who can't find a god to mentor her, decides to put her fate in the hands of a trickster god called the Fox. When the Fox sends her back in time to free her ancestors from a brutal occupation, Nesi has to rely on her wits and courage to survive. This slim fantasy packs a huge emotional wallop.

In her debut novella, Hache Pueyo tells a story that is a bit Gothic Horror, a bit classic Mystery, a bit Romance, and a bit Fairy Tale, and the resulting novella is magical. Pueyo creates a striking balance between prose that is almost dreamlike while simultaneously providing sharp and, at times, frighteningly clear depictions of the characters and locations.

Brief, but wondrous and wonderful, But Not Too Bold will leave readers wondering where Pueyo will take them next.

As the friendship grows between a closeted transwoman and her out and proud student, they have to face the questions: who are you if you aren't your authentic self, and what happens if you choose to just fade into the woodwork? A deeply funny and emotional story about living your life with radical authenticity.

Katherine Addison continues her series about the Witness for the Dead, Thara Celehar, in The Tomb of Dragons. As the story opens, Celehar has lost his ability to hear the dead and is a bit lost. Circumstances get him kidnapped, and his ability returns as he encounters the unrestful spirit of a murdered dragon who wants justice for herself and for the other 191 dragons murdered by a company that wanted their mines. Celehar, of course, sets off to find that justice, navigating a complex social and political world to do so.

Vivian’s daughter, Aira, is bitten by a werewolf. Now, Vivian and her husband have a whole slate of new problems to deal with, fitting into a more magical community. Navigating the full moon. Coping with mean girls and their mothers at the new school they are attending. This doesn’t include the dark prophecy that seems to be pointing at Aria.

Sixty-three-year-old PJ Halliday learns his high school sweetheart is suddenly single at the same time he learns he's become the legal guardian of two children he's never met. Why shouldn't they join him, his estranged daughter, and a death-predicting cat named Pancakes on a cross-country road trip to woo his lost love? So many reasons! But for all his faults, PJ is an irresistible personality, and this road trip is both darkly comic and deeply moving.

What if you got to do everything in your life—twice? Twice is a stunning love story that dares to explore how our unchecked desires might mean losing what we’ve had all along. A love story that is enchanting, probing, and clairvoyant in matters of the heart, Twice will make you think, weep, and overflow with love from beginning to end.

The Salt family, Dominic and his three children, are the caretakers of a remote scientific research island. Still, their time on the island is coming to an end, as the rising ocean is making it impossible for them to survive there much longer. When a woman washes up on the shore of the island, and they nurse her back to health, their secrets are revealed. Beautifully haunting.

Does a name make the person? When Cora gives birth to her second child, a boy, she is deciding between three names. Should she name him after her abusive husband, the odd name her 9-year-old daughter suggests, or the name that she wants him to have? The novel follows the boy’s life for the next 35 years based on each of his possible names, with three different outcomes.

I love the story, and I can relate to the relationships.

Dark fantasy with unique folklore and magical creatures. Feels like a classic fairy tale for adults.

A woman trying to finish writing her book embarks on becoming a caretaker for a motel, but when a blizzard hits and she sees a dead body, she must decipher what might be in her head and what or who may be coming after her.

Stag Dance is a difficult title to describe while accurately encapsulating the range that Torrey Peters shows across three short stories and the titular novel. Spanning multiple genres, time periods, and locations, what they all have in common is illuminating elements of the transfeminine experience through a wry and brilliant lens. The novel Stag Dance is especially engrossing, set in an illegal logging camp during the dead of winter, when the head of the outfit decides to plan a dance to boost their spirits—one that several volunteers will choose to attend as women. This novel, along with the accompanying stories, is expertly crafted and reveals much about trans identities, communities, and desire.

A blend of horror and historical fiction masterfully crafted by the author. Tales of witches weave together through three multigenerational storylines to explore many timeless themes. Lose yourself in this captivating page turning supernatural story.

It's a rare thing when a book can speak to you about a specific time, place, and musical scene. If you came of age in the early aughts, you'll remember the era with a wondrous sense of nostalgia, and this book captures that spirit. This book centers around two characters who are musical soul mates and their adventures and misadventures. A tag line for this book could easily be, "Playing the soundtrack of your life."

Being a crime scene cleaner is not for the faint of heart, but what happens when a serial killer is uncovered?

Taking place in New York during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is part supernatural tale, part crime thriller.

What starts as a book club that can't agree on what to read ends up being a motley group of would-be crime fighters trying to figure out a theft, a murder and more in this fast-paced cozy mystery.

A wonderfully creepy and funny gothic romance set in an isolated English house in the early 20th Century. KJ Charles continues to be one of the best historical romance writers working today.

This book has a very interesting storyline. The idea of two types of magic and the countries going to war over the different types was different. I enjoyed the interaction with the protagonist, Toven, more than with our heroine, Briony. If the Briony character has a lot more growth, the series can be much more captivating than it is now. Overall, it was a good, refreshing read.

A fictional peek at what females in the space industry experienced/experience.

Powerful sentimental storytelling about grief and making peace with those we love and miss.

Conform is a combination of the movie Elysium, the book Selection , and Handmaid’s Tale. The main character, Emeline, is naïve about the people called major defects who dwell in the city below and the elites who dwell in the sky. Emeline’s sense of right and wrong in relation to the power struggle between the Defects and the Elites is not believable. The character is too frustrating to deal with. Some of her actions are without explanation. However, the book can become very captivating. The rules and regulations that a person must "conform" to in order to fit into their society are something to decipher.

Beth and her loving husband, Frank, live a peaceful life in the country until Beth's first love, Gabriel, moves back to town and upends their lives.

While Of Monsters & Mainframes touches on some serious issues, found family, scientific ethics, our responsibilities to ourselves and those we care about, it seems clear that Truelove was having a great deal of fun while she was writing her novel and wanted readers to have fun reading it. And she has succeeded brilliantly.

Mhairi McFarlane is a flawless writer, and you can't convince me otherwise. This is another perfect rom-com from her, this time set in the world of journalism. Newspaper reporters Bel and Connor are chasing a big story, and they have to pretend to date after one of their covers is blown. They are both in a sensitive emotional time in their lives, but will they overcome their hang-ups with the other's support? This intrinsically romantic story set in the real world will heal you.

This is THE enemies-to-lovers, fake-dating romance of the year. Australian academics Sadie and Jonah compete for the same humanities job at a university until Sadie finds a loophole that allows for partner hire and proposes marriage to Jonah, who has always been in love with her. Sparks fly as they move to a new city for this job, and their feelings reach a boiling point!

If you have to read one contemporary romance this year, make it this one. It is swoony, slow-burning, and bursting with the love of books. Ingrid follows her heart to become a bookstore owner as her crush on her librarian coworker grows increasingly serious.

90s San Francisco through a queer lens.

Contemporary Jewish fiction that takes readers from Berlin to Tel Aviv and Chicago.

A Jewish Chicago gangster saga you didn't know you needed until now.

Where the Axe is Buried explores the future of both authoritarianism and liberal technocracy in this cerebral, near-future speculative thriller from Ray Nayler, author of The Mountain in the Sea.

Charming semi-autobiographic story by Belle & Sebastian lead man, Stuart Murdoch.

Very unsettling horror that will stick with you long after you finish the last page!

Cozy Fantasy. Bookseller Ratkin, Fern, is having a midlife crisis. She gets drunk, passes out in the back of a cart, and wakes up far from home. And so her adventure begins with an infamous elf and her goblin bounty, as they travel and battle their way to self-discovery.

Those familiar with Kate's short stories will recognize her characteristic mix of the grotesque with the disarmingly sincere in Sky Daddy, which introduces us to content moderator Linda as she's romantically and carnally drawn toward airplanes (especially a particular 737). You could say it's like if Ballard's Crash took place in the sky rather than the streets, and it made you feel good instead of extremely bad—but it's even better than that!

Had Freedom not already been claimed for a zeitgeisty novel, it would've been a perfect title for this slim but addictive book. Anna and Tom are expats in Berlin, enjoying the freedom of low rent, a permissive, party-oriented social life, and freelance creative work. Told in a cuttingly sociological voice, Perfection sweeps through the 2010s like an epic, where Anna, Tom, and Berlin are transformed by the hand of the free market.

An urban fantasy set in Calgary about generational trauma, being a first-generation immigrant, first love, and figuring out what killed your aunt, the fearsome and tricky Tigress. Aunt Tigress is a fresh, queer urban fantasy that draws on diverse cultural myths and experiences.

A struggling scholar is given a shot at success (full professorship, tenure, a book deal) if he can translate an ancient book about the tragic death of his favorite hero from myth and history; Una Everlasting. Una is disillusioned and ready to give up when she meets a strange man, a mad man, under a yew tree in the woods. The Everlasting is a story of time travel, love, myth, the relentless grind of empire, and the tragedies that fuel it.

Wandering cleric Chih and their companion Almost Brilliant travel to the town Baolin, to hear stories of famine and end up entangled in a family story of hunger, ghosts, shame, and survival.

Alice and Peter are two top magic students in a 1970s/1980s version of Cambridge who travel to Hell to retrieve their advisor, who died in a magic mishap before he could write them letters of recommendation. Academia can turn students against each other in a battle to be the best, but Alice and Peter need each other if they want to succeed academically and survive Hell, in that order.

S.A. Cosby excels in another tense thriller set in his native Virginia. A son returns home to help with a family emergency and almost instantly finds himself embroiled in a deadly web of escalating violence.

Beautiful written character drama set in rural Ohio between World War II through the Vietnam era. Traces the lives of two families and the secret that grows between them.

Mesmerizing historical horror of a young woman returning to the place of her birth while fleeing the plague. There's something angry in the air, and it's up to Alba and an unlikely ally to figure out what's wrong before it's too late.

Lawyer Kriya Rajasekar considers Charles Goh her longterm, casual, work-related bad luck charm. Each time they have run into each other over the years, Kriya has had a disastrous day. But when she follows her mentor to a new law firm and finds herself sharing an office with Charles, she begins to see a new side of him.

Evander Mills, a gay Private Investigator, is back for his fourth adventure, still fighting for justice for the queer community in the 1950s. This time, he's heading to Los Angeles to dig into a case involving a gay motorcycle club and the Mattachine Society.

This gory good vampire revenge novel is steeped in the proper grit of 1970s horror, unfolding in Portland, Oregon, and its environs during that decade.

An immigration lawyer falls for his younger client, an Albanian youth claiming asylum in New York City. Interesting details about the legal process and the Credible Threat Screening. The part involving his mother is uninteresting.

The husband of a high school history teacher comes out as a Republican and decides to run for Congress. His life gets comically complicated as the plot develops.

Gorgeously written, this fairytale-inspired novella tells the story of two sisters on the edge of Faerie whose lives are entangled with the fey and their magic. The two are inseparable up until the day their bond is tested by a suitor who threatens to pull them apart for good. El-Mohtar's background in poetry shines through the beautiful language of this work.

When Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian widow with dementia, prevents 19-year-old Hai, a Vietnamese American compulsive drug user whom she tenderly calls "Labas," from jumping off a bridge, their unlikely encounter unfolds into a deeply moving story of chosen family, isolation, and the sustaining power of the stories we tell to survive. Vuong weaves the lives of several unforgettable characters in a novel that lingers long after the final page.

In his first civil lawsuit, Mickey Haller takes on a billionaire AI company whose technology, a chatbot companion named Wren, encouraged a teenage boy to "get rid of" his ex-girlfriend. Fast-paced and timely, this gripping story will leave you pondering the promises and dangers of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives.

Esperance by Adam Oyebanji takes readers on a globe-trotting, page-turning adventure as the pair of detectives in the US and the mismatched pair from the UK follow their pursuits and, inevitably, cross paths and purposes. Esperance is a masterful blend of mystery, historical, and speculative fiction that builds to a startling conclusion that is as hopeful as it is heartbreaking.

Harmattan Season is a fascinating blend of detective/mystery fiction, historical, and fantasy fiction. Bouba, the down-on-his-luck P.I., could be the love child of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and Onyebuchi involves him in a case that touches on issues of colonialism, urban development, and racial inequalities. In another nod to noir stories and films, Onyebuchi sets his story in an unnamed West African city shortly after a war. Onyebuchi is clearly both playing with and paying homage to the stories that inspired him. This is a marvelous read!

Second in this excellent series that follows an older bookie who just wants to enjoy her coffee and not get mixed up in another mystery, but fate has other plans for her.

Engrossing novel about a librarian whose best friend is murdered. The killer might be after her because of her past in Bosnia and she must stay one step ahead if she's to continue living.

Excellent page-turning thriller about a family death, bodies in the ground and a group of grown children trying to make sense of their history, their present and what awaits them in their future.