In 2025 I read 69 books (I can hear your giggles from here), 50 of which were fiction. Usually I’ve tended to read more equal amounts of fiction vs non-fiction but clearly I just wanted to be told stories last year! I didn’t end up sharing my favourite books of 2024 last year and wanted to make sure I shared my 2025 faves this year. I revisited several favourites, including two re-reads of The Hunger Games main trilogy and listening to audiobooks of The Chronicles of Narnia. I haven’t included any re-reads in this list though, as they would have likely been featured before! So, here are my top 10 fiction books of 2025. I would love to hear your thoughts on these books if you’ve read them and any of your recommendations for what I should read in 2026! (Apart from numbers one and two, these are in no particular order!)
Affiliate links are marked with *. If you buy a book through this link, as well as supporting independent bookshops, I receive a 10% commission.
1. The Safekeep* by Yael van der Wouden
I have not stopped banging on about this book since I read it in May. While I don’t normally do these lists in order, The Safekeep is my favourite book of 2025. It blew me out of the water. The characters were fascinatingly created, the story engrossing and the themes so important and relevant. I was not expecting the big twist, it truly shocked me and opened up the story to new layers and complications. Set in post-war Netherlands, we follow Isabel (Isa) who lives alone in her rural family home, when her brother asks if his girlfriend Eva can move in with her over the summer. The Safekeep’s critical and commercial success is well deserved in my opinion, and I am still in awe that this is a debut novel. I can’t wait to see what Yael van der Wouden does next!
2. Black Butterflies* by Priscilla Morris
This book made me gasp out loud on the Metro. That, I feel, is enough review. Set in Sarajevo in 1992, Black Butterflies follows Zora, an artist and teacher, as the Bosnian War breaks out and her city is under siege. It is heartbreaking and beautiful. Morris does not shy away from showing the brutality of war whilst also portraying the moments of kindness, community and joy that can be found amongst the violence. It made me want to learn more about this war and the history of Sarajevo and I look forward to reading Priscilla Morris’ future work.
3. Small Things Like These* by Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These was the first book I read in 2025. I actually read it in one sitting on the evening of New Year’s Day, and wow it got my reading year off to a good start. At 116 pages, this book is a firecracker. Claire Keegan really knows how to pack a punch in a small container. A look at Ireland in the 1980s, the Magdalen laundries and mother and baby homes, this novella takes a look at the every day small acts of kindness, of empathy and understanding, and questions how harm and maltreatment become normalised in society, and how you speak out against injustice when it is so entrenched in day to day life. I am in awe of Claire Keegan and will pick up anything she has written.
4. The Rachel Incident* by Caroline O’Donoghue
I had heard so much about this book that I wasn’t sure if it would live up to the hype but I loved it. The characters were so complicated, it was so messy and dramatic, and at times quite heartbreaking. A coming of age story set in Cork, it shows questionable power dynamics, early unhealthy relationships, reproductive justice, friendships… I could go on.
5. Lover Birds* by Leon Egan
Lover Birds is a gloriously queer and Northern romcom. I listened to the audiobook on a train back from visiting friends in Leeds and couldn't turn it off as I went about the rest of my evening, so ended up finishing it in one day. It was so joyful and the characters so genuine I could easily believe they were walking around the streets of Liverpool. It was such a well written love story that celebrated and explored queerness, neurodivergence, and Scouse culture. I’m so glad that Leon Egan is writing novels and that young people have them to read.
6. Whale Fall* by Elizabeth O’Connor
You know when you hear about a book and you suddenly see it everywhere? That’s what happened with me and Whale Fall. It was following me wherever I went so I had to read it. I have been making an effort this year to read more books, fiction and non-fiction, by Welsh authors and set in or about Wales, and early on in the year this fit the bill with the setting of a remote island on the coast of Wales. Whale Fall follows 18-year-old Manod, when, in 1938, a whale is beached on the island and two English anthropologists arrive to survey the island’s small population. It is another debut that has made it to this list! This was also the first time I’d read a novel where the main character speaks Welsh as their first language, and that felt very special.
7. Drift* by Caryl Lewis
Another Welsh novel! This was Caryl Lewis’ debut English language novel, with the rest published in Welsh. Set in a remote village on the Welsh coast, Nefyn rarely leaves the isolated cottage where she lives on the cliffs with her brother Joseph, who often works away further north. Hamza, a Syrian mapmaker, is incarcerated in the nearby military base. Their lives soon become intertwined. I have seen Drift described as haunting and that feels accurate to me. All of the characters felt so thought out and well-rounded and the connection to the natural landscape and flickers of the supernatural brought together two realms into one and hint at further magic beyond our knowledge.
8. Dawn* (and the rest of the Lilith’s Brood series) by Octavia Butler
I have never read anything like the Lilith’s Brood series before. I adore Octavia Butler, she is one of my favourite authors and one of my dream dinner party guests (along with Jane Austen and Rob Reiner). This trilogy was published between 1987-1989, and follows a potential future where the Cold War heated up and half the Earth had been destroyed due to nuclear war. In this potential future (that could have been a possibility at the time), an alien species called the Oankali come to Earth and rescue the few survivors, including the protagonist, Lilith, to hold them in stasis to both heal and study them. 250 years later, they wake Lilith up to task her with a very specific mission. I loved this series and would love more people I know to read it so I can discuss - come on people!
9. Sunrise on the Reaping* by Suzanne Collins
I am a Hunger Games obsessive, and have been since I was about 13. That is not news to anyone who knows me or even anyone who follows me on Instagram! I went to the midnight launch of Sunrise on the Reading at my local Waterstones and had so much fun celebrating a series and author we love together. This prequel added so much to an already brilliant series. The Hunger Games has influenced me a lot, in terms of who I am and my politics, and Sunrise only adds to those discussions about long term organising, revolution, and propaganda. I wrote some of my thoughts down in an Instagram post but I hope to expand on those at some point soon. I am also buzzing for the film, even if I know it will break me.
10. Against the Loveless World* by Susan Abulhawa
I read Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa last year and it blew me away. Against the Loveless World blew me away in a completely different way. The method of storytelling is so different and still so compelling, and demonstrates the brutality of apartheid and displacement. One review of this book highlights that it ‘reads as a riot act against oppression, misogyny, and shame’, and honestly that pretty much sums it up. Incarcerated in solitary confinement in an unknown location, Nahr is held as a ‘terrorist’. We are told her story in flashbacks and see glimmers of her current life in ‘the Cube’. I urge you to read this book.
Honourable Mentions
I thought I would share some more books that I really enjoyed this year that didn’t make it to the main list, but that I still wanted to celebrate, either for their craft or just for bringing me some joy. Those are:
The general works of Ali Hazelwood* - I have been particularly enjoying her STEMinist romcoms.
Instructions for a Heatwave* by Maggie O’Farrell.
Boulder* by Eva Baltasar.
If Beale Street Could Talk* by James Baldwin
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past couple of years, it’s that I seem to have a particular love for Irish authors - Claire Keegan, Caroline O’Donoghue, Maggie O’Farrell, Graham Norton, Emma Dabiri and others. Clearly there’s something in the Irish waters that pleases me. Will that continue as a trend in 2026? We shall have to find out.
