8 Books I Loved in 2025 That I Still Can’t Stop Thinking About

If you’re in a reading slump and need books that will pull you back into reading, these are the best books I read in 2025. I’m excited to share this list, which includes some of my most anticipated books of 2025 They’re all easy to get into, super engaging, and the kind of stories that make you want to keep reading just one more chapter.

My Favorite Books of 2025

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Wild Dark Shore centers on Dominic Salt and his kids living on a remote island called Shearwater. Their quiet, isolated life changes when a woman named Rowan washes ashore during a storm. As Rowan recovers, things start to feel off. Secrets begin to come out, and it’s clear everyone on the island is hiding something. This was an atmospheric book. It’s not super dark, but it still has those deeper, emotional themes. You will love this : 10 Devastatingly Sad Books to Read

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A storm gathering force.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny weather-lashed island that is home to the world’s largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island’s researchers have fled, and only the Salts remain.

Until, during the worst storm in living memory, a stranger washes ashore. The family nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, but it seems she isn’t telling the whole truth about why she’s there. And when Rowan stumbles upon sabotaged radios and a recently dug grave, she realises that she’s not the only one on the island with a secret.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love.

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The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent follows Sybil Van Antwerp, a 73-year-old woman who spends her days writing letters to people in her life—and even some she’ll never send. When someone from her past reaches out, Sybil is forced to face things she’s been avoiding for years. This one is more quiet and reflective, but still really engaging because of Sybil’s voice and personality. It’s also one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to.

Every morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters – to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.

Because at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence – witty and wise – to make sense of the world. But beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms’ length… Until letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life.

Now, Sybil must send the letter she has been writing for all these years – and find forgiveness within herself in order to move on.

Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might not be an extraordinary one, but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.

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The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan

The Three Lives of Cate Kay is about Cate Kay, a famous author who has always hidden her real identity. No one knows who she really is until she decides to finally tell her story.Through her past, we meet her younger self and her best friend Amanda, and what went wrong before everything changed. I liked how this one blends mystery with drama, it keeps you curious the whole time

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past.

Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.

As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.

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Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson

Not Quite Dea d Yet follows Jet Mason, who finds out she’s going to die in seven days after a violent attack. Instead of giving up, she decides to figure out who did it. With help from her friend Billy, Jet starts looking at everyone around her in a new way. It’s fast, tense, and super easy to binge because of that countdown feeling. If you are looking for best thriler with great twists, this is for you. Also check out : 5 Must-Read Nominees from the Goodreads Choice Awards

A twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

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. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

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

She has at most 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.

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We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter

We Are All Guilty Here follows Officer Emmy Clifton after two teenage girls disappear in her small town. The case becomes personal, especially because she feels like she missed something earlier. This is also one of the engaging thriller audiobooks of 2025

The first thrilling mystery in the new North Falls series from Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and the Will Trent series.

Welcome to North Falls—a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think.

Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites.

For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend’s daughter needed help—and now she must bring her home.

But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did.

Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?

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Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Atmosphere follows Joan Goodwin, a physics professor. When NASA admits women into their program in 1980, she earns a coveted spot. Training pushes her further than she expects, but she finds purpose, friendship, and unexpected love. During a mission in 1984, one event shifts the course of her entire future. I loved the pace of the book. It was an emotional historical fiction with a fabulous plot. Also read 33 gripping Historical Fiction books that will transport you through time.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

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

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love—this time among the stars.

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Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Broken Country tells the story of Beth, who is married to Frank but still carries feelings from her past. When her old love Gabriel Wolfe comes back into her life, everything starts to shift.As tensions grow in the village, secrets come out and things get messy fast. This one feels emotional but also a bit tense, which makes it really easy to keep reading. This is one of the most loved picks from Reese Witherspoon book club too.

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.

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My Friends by Fredrik Backman

My Friends follows Louisa, a young artist who becomes obsessed with a famous painting that shows three tiny figures sitting on a pier. She wants to know who they are and what their story is. The story goes back to a group of teenagers, who spend their summers on that pier, escaping tough home lives and building a strong friendship. It’s about how those friendships shape them, and how one summer ends up changing Louisa’s life years later. I loved how emotional but still easy it was to read. You will love this post : 12 insanely good books that will leave you with the best book hangover.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

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