15 books I’m excited to be released in 2025

There are so many books coming out this year that I can’t wait to pick up.

The one I’m anticipating the most and plan to read immediately is Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins – the newest Hunger Games story that follows Haymitch’s games. I’m also eagerly awaiting Katabasis by R. F. Kuang after loving both Babel and Yellow Face in the last few years.

There’s a mixture of fantasy, thrillers, literary fiction, horror and romance on this list – including some debut authors.

The books are:

The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan

Blurb:

Who is Cate Kay?

Cate Kay is the most famous author on the planet. But it’s just a name. Somehow, despite her bestselling novels and the record-breaking film franchise, the writer has remained completely anonymous.

Anne Marie Callahan is the name nobody knows. Only the people she left behind. And Annie knows there’s no one there anymore who could connect the dots between the girl who ran away all those years ago and the famous novelist.

If you asked, she’d say her name was Cass Ford. That’s what her barista shouts each morning. And it’s how she introduces herself to the woman she’ll eventually call the love of her life.

Three names, three lives. But Cate Kay is finally ready to tell you who she really is.

And when the truth is out, will everyone’s favourite novelist hold on to her place in our hearts or are some betrayals impossible to forgive?

Release Date: 9 January 2025

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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Blurb:

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. There, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to keep her baby and escape to a commune. Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Every moment of their waking day is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid . . . and it’s usually paid in blood.

Release Date: 16 January 2025

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Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

Blurb:

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves – her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find – the truth.

But a storm is coming… and not everyone can survive its wrath.

Release date: 21 January 2025

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Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell

Blurb:

On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.

This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.

What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control – and what will be the cost?

Release Date: 30 January 2024

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Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

Blurb:

When Ebby Freeman travels to France to take a three-month hiatus from her complicated home life, the last person she expects to find is her ex-fiancé Henry, with his new girlfriend in tow.

Nearly twenty years earlier, the Freemans were the only African American family living in a wealthy coastal enclave in Connecticut when armed robbers invaded their home and tragedy changed their lives forever.

Then, just as Ebby thought she had a new chance at happiness, her storybook romance with Henry fell apart.

Now, this unexpected encounter with Henry will force Ebby to reckon with her past and to think on the other loss her family suffered that day – the destruction of a beloved stoneware jar crafted by an enslaved ancestor and passed down through the generations.

A piece that might hold not only her family history, but also the key to reclaiming her future.

Release Date: 6 February 2025

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Needy Little Things by Channelle Desamours

Blurb:

Sariyah is determined not to let her missing friend become just another statistic, one of many vanished Black girls. But despite her talent for ESP, Sariyah is struggling, even when the clues point surprisingly close to home.

When Sariyah’s birthday celebrations at a music festival turn sour with the disappearance of one of her friends, she knows she can’t rely on the police to find her. The authorities are no more help than they were when her friend’s twin sister, another young woman of colour, went missing five years earlier. Sariyah feels guilty that her uncanny ability to predict people’s needs didn’t help to keep her friends safe. She is determined to find out what’s happened to Deja. But the more she cracks the clues leading to her, the closer she gets to home .

Release Date: 13 February 2025

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Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Blurb:

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honour of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town.

As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Release Date: 18 March 2025

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Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez

Blurb:

There might be no such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes-all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong…

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date-possibly the best in living history-Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life-and even a love-worth remembering.

Release Date: 1 April 2025

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Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Blurb:

When Margaret Ives, the famously reclusive heiress, invites eternal optimist Alice Scott to the balmy Little Crescent Island, Alice knows this is it: her big break. And even more rare: a chance to impress her family with a Serious Publication.

The catch? Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud, Hayden Anderson, is sure of the same thing.

The proposal? A one-month trial period to unearth the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th Century, after which she’ll choose who’ll tell her story.

The problem? Margaret is only giving each of them tantalising pieces. Pieces they can’t put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story – just like the tale Margaret’s spinning – could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad … depending on who’s telling it.

Release Date: 22 April 2025

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Julie Chan is Dead: or that’s what she needs you to think by Liann Zhang

Blurb:

Julie Chan didn’t mean to steal her identical twin’s life. She meant to call the police when she found the body. She meant to dial 911. Except when she unlocked Chloe’s phone to make that call, she also gained access to her estranged sister’s sponsorship deals, her followers, her wealth, her whole life.

And Julie’s not prepared to give it back. Not yet. So goodbye Julie, love Chloe x

All she has to do is keep her head down and blend in with the beautiful Belladonnas, the tribe of influencers who had welcomed Chloe in to their inner circle before she died.

Julie’s going to breathe, detox, workout. Curate each post. Filter each picture. Spend whole days filming unboxing videos. But someone out there knows that even identical twins have their differences.

Release Date: 1 May 2025

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The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei

Blurb:

Who would you sacrifice on the altar of ambition?

Singapore, 1996. Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead.

Gen and Arin grow up as sisters in Singapore: a place where insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice in the realms of imagination and play. As the sisters struggle toward individual redemption, their story reveals the fault lines of Singaporean society, our desperate need for acceptance, and our yearning to be loved.

Release Date: 6 May 2025

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Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Blurb:

In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin; mission specialist Lydia Danes; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Release Date: 3 June 2025

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Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell

Blurb:

He’s the perfect man.
He says he loves you.
You think he might even be made for you.
Before long he’s moved into your house – and into your heart.
And then he leaves for days at a time. You don’t know where he’s gone or who he’s with.
And you realise – if you looked back – you’d say to yourself:
DON’T LET HIM IN.

Release Date: 3 July 2025

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Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson

Blurb:

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. She’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until, on the night of Halloween, Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder. She suffers a catastrophic brain injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, she’ll suffer a deadly aneurysm.

Jet never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her ex-best friend turned sister-in-law, her former boyfriend.

She only has seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.

Release Date: 17 July 2025

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Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Blurb:

Two academic rivals from Cambridge must travel to hell to rescue the soul of their advisor. Getting there was easy. Surviving it – and each other – is another thing entirely.

Release Date: 28 August 2025

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What books are you most excited for this year? Let me know in the comments.

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