It’s that time of the year again – the time I look back and reflect on what I’ve read. So let’s get started.
I exceeded my reading goal last year by getting through 351 books. I’m hoping to read similar this year, but am also hoping that my freelance work picks up and so I set my challenge at 300. In the end I managed 443!
📚264 Advanced Reader Copies, 16 Gifted, and I already owned 163.
📚317 Adult Fiction, 75 Children or Young Adult Fiction, 49 Non-Fiction, and 2 Poetry Books.
📚185 with page counts of 300 or less, 247 with page counts of 301-500, and 11 with page counts of over 501.
📚87 were debuts – which is an increase of 17 since last year.
📚15 book tours – which was an decrease of 8 since last year.
📚319 female authors, 109 male authors, 4 non-binary authors, and 11 books that were written or edited by more than one author.
📚My most read authors of 2025 were Bex Hogan and Laura Pearson with 5 books read, with Anna James, Jessica Redland, M.G Leonard, and Sarah J Mass with 3 books each.
📚My most read publishers were Bantam and Boldwood with 15 books, Penguin with 13, Faber with 12, Hodder & Stoughton and Michael Joseph with 11, and HarperCollins with 10.
📚I also read 10 self-published titles, which is the same as last year.
📚My most read genre is Thriller with 80 books read.
📚An impressive 144 were five star reads, with another 133 at four star.
So, without further ado, I present to you, my reading list of 2025. As always, please send me your thoughts via the comment section below or on my socials.
January (35)
– Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls
– She Speaks by Honor Cargill-Martin
– The Many Futures of Maddy Hart by Laura Pearson
– One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
– Jayben and the Dragon Stone by Thomas Leeds
– The Boy From the Sea by Garrett Carr
– The Mulligan Curse by Diane Barnes
– The Boy Who Lived by David Holmes
– Love Lay Down Beside Me and We Wept by Helen Murray Taylor
– While My Baby Sleeps by Natali Simmonds
– Life Hacks For a Little Alien by Alice Franklin
– The First Girl by Claire McGowan
– A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi
– The Re-Write by Lizzie Damilola-Blackburn
– The Antique Hunter’s: Death on the Red Sea by C.L Miller
– The Bones Beneath My Skin by T.J Klune
– That’ll Teach Her by Maz Evans
– The Daughter by T.M Logan
– Sycorax by Nydia Hetherington
– The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke
– Obsessed by Johnny Sexton
– The Woman in the Wallpaper by Lora Jones
– White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
– The Green Kingdom by Cornelia Funke and Tammi Hartung
– Always On My Mind by Carys Green
– Greedy Guts by Gina Tonic
– Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
– Enduring Wisdom of Queen Elizabeth II
– A Fortune Most Fatal by Jessica Bull
– The Houdini Inheritance by Emma Carroll
– This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal Eh-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
– The Strange Case of Jane O by Karen Thompson Walker
– Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James
– Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
– Who Wants to Live Forever by Hanna Thomas Uosa
March (32)
– The Secret Collector by Abigail Johnson
– After the Storm by G.D Wright
– The Second Chance Book Club by Stephanie Butland
– The Eights by Joanna Miller
– The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
– The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani
– Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw
– The Margaret Code by Richard Hooton
– Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
– Some Body Like Me by Lucy Lapinska
– Death and Other Occupational Hazards by Veronika Dapont
– The Death Of Us by Abigail Dean
– The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn
– The Best Of by The Hairy Bikers
– Burying Jericho by William Hussey
– Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
– The Maid’s Secret by Nita Prose
– The Darkening Globe by Naomi Kelsey
– The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
– Land of the Last Wildcat by Lui Sit
– Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
– Other People’s Houses by Clare Mackintosh
– My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende
– The Defectives by Jim Bates
– The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster
– PIG by Matilde Pratesi
– Birding by Rose Ruane
– Cat Fight by Kit Conway
– The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule
– At Home In a Book by Lauren O’Hara
– The Show Woman by Emma Cowing
– The Sister Switch by Charlotte Butterfield
May (41)
– A Novel Murder by E.C Nevin
– Untitled (new book due 2025) by Laura Pearson
– Hive by D.L Orton
– A Murder For Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant
– Wish You Were Her by Elle McNicoll
– Air by John Boyne
– Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches
– Actually I’m a Murderer by Terry Deary
– Take Care by Lindsay Burrow
– A Year in Story and Song by Lia Leendertz
– Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski
– Tidemagic by Clare Harlow
– Can You Solve the Murder by Antony Johnston
– Skandar and the Phantom Rider by A,F Steadman
– Some Of Us Are Liars by Fiona Cummins
– The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
– My Next Breath by Jeremy Renner
– The Treasures by Harriet Evans
– Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
– Nettle by Bex Hogan
– The Break-In by Katherine Faulkner
– Octopussy and the Living Daylights by Ian Fleming
– Small Boat by Vincent Delacroix
– The Tarot Reader of Versailles by Anya Bergman
– Awakened by Laura Elliott
– Runner 13 by Amy McCulloch
– Julie Tudor Is Not a Psychopath by Jennifer Holdich
– The Names by Florence Knapp
– Giant by Judith McQuoid
– Love, Sex and Frankenstein by Caroline Lea
– The Stranger in Room Six by Jane Corry
– Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain
– The Women at Ocean’s End by Faith Hogan
– Maggie; or a Man and Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee
– Fulvia by Kaarina Parker
– The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
– See the Stars by Eleanor Ray
– Ember Spark and the Thunder of Dragons by Abi Elphinstone
– No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah
– The Tomorrow Project by H Critchlow
– An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten
July (32)
– The Dagger and the Flame by Catherine Doyle
– The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar
– The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine
– Little Ruins by Manni Coe
– The Baby Dragon Cafe by A.T Qureshi
– Feast of Ashes by Victoria Williamson
– Bronte Tempestra and the Weather Witch by Bex Hogan
– It Should Have Been You by Andrea Mara
– 13 Cornish Ghost Stories by Various Authors
– Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan
– Will You Stay Another Day by Samantha Tonge
– Odd Spirits by S.T Gibson
– Body Count by Julie Mae Cohen
– Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
– Twitch by M.G Leonard
– The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Beth Moran
– Watching You by Helen Fields
– Six Little Words by Sally Page
– Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley
– Tell It to the Bees by Zoe Richards
– The Storytellers by Sue Heath
– Murder By Narwhal by Alex T Smith
– The Picasso Heist by James Patterson
– Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R Weaver
– Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake by Various Authors
– The Healing Power of Korean Letter Writing by Juhee Mun
– Exiles by Mason Coile
– Greenwild: The Forest in the Sky by Pari Thomson
– The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
– The Odyssey of Phoebe Quilliam by Annelise Gray
– The Elixir by Lindsay Galvin
– Revolting by Terry Deary
September (41)
– Rugby Was F***ing Better When by Paul Williams
– Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee Hye
– One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
– Picture Imperfect by Jacqueline Wilson
– Magic at the Grand Dragonfly Theatre by Brandie June
– Jellybean by Eve Ainsworth
– Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith
– Katabasis by R.F Kuang
– I Shop Therefore I Am by Mary Portas
– The Murder at Worlds End by Ross Montgomery
– Christmas at Hollybush Farm by Jo Thomas
– Love Forms by Claire Adam
– The Book Lovers Journal 2026
– Twice by Mitch Albom
– The Killer Question by Janice Hallett
– The Infirmary by Carly Reagan
– The Little Book of Miriam by Miriam Margolyes
– The Ordeals by Rachel Greenlaw
– Secrets of the Deadly Dozen by Peter Berry
– The Last Witch by CJ Cooke
– Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan
– The Merry Christmas Murders by Alexandra Benedict
– All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu
– The Twelve Days of Christmas by Susan Stokes-Chapman
– The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell
– The South by Tash Aw
– The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
– Utterly British Maps by Helen McKenzie
– The Miracle on Ebenezer Street by Catherine Doyle
– Ghost by Finbar Hawkins
– Christmas Magpie by Mark Edwards
– Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
– Ancient Egypt by Dr Campbell Price
– One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson
– The Great Phoenix of London by Lindsay Galvin
– Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy
– The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson
– The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson
– The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
– The Dragon in the Bookshop by Ewa Jozefkowicz
– The Dinner Party by Viola van de Sandt
November (40)
– Best Woman by Rose Dommu
– Mattering by Jennifer Breheny Wallace
– The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
– Medusa by Rosie Hewlett
– The House With Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson
– Grace by Chika Unigwe
– The Lone Husky by Hannah Gold
– Floating Solo by Shelley Wilson
– The Yamanaka Factors by Jed Henson
– Esther Is Now Following You by Tanya Sweeney
– What Happened That Summer by Laura Pearson
– The Christmas Tree That Loved to Dance by Miranda Hart
– Bronte Tempestra and the Vanishing Kingdom by Bex Hogan
– Amy Elman Doesn’t Feel Sexy by Mary Newnham
– Wreck by Catherine Newman
– The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan
– Let the Bells Ring Out by Milly Johnson
– A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
– Godstorm by Solitaire Townsend
– Ants Waking by R.J Huneke
– Very Slowly All At Once by Lauren Schott
– Owl King by Bex Hogan
– Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray
– The Clockwork Conspiracy by Sam Sedgman
– Belgrave Road by Manish Chauhan
– Just One Look at You by Jill Mansell
– Troublemaker by Lesley Kara
– Charles and the Christmas Factory by Various Authors
– Rom 706 by Ellie Levenson
– The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts by Robert Thorogood
– This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page
– Vivian Dies Again by C.E Hulse
– Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven
– Dangerous by Essie Fox
– A Killer in Paradise by Tom Hindle
– Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston
– Welcome to the Neighbourhood by Jane Fallon
– Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber
– So I Met This Guy by Alexandra Potter
– Tomorrow Starts Today by Jessica Redland
February (30)
– A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
– Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
– Hidden Treasures by Jessie Burton
– In Writing by Hattie Crisell
– Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
– One Hundred Flowers by Genki Kawamura
– The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow
– Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd
– A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas
– Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall
– Nephthys by Rachel Louise Driscoll
– A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J Maas
– The Lamplighter’s Bookshop by Sophie Austin
– Alive: An Alternative Anatomy by Gabriel Weston
– Magic by Sarah Pinborough
– The Boy Who Fell From the Sky by Benjamin Dean
– The Fisherman’s Gift by Julia Kelly
– The Book Lover’s Journal 2025 by Various Authors
– The CIA Book Club by Charlie English
– The New Neighbours by Claire Douglas
– The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijeskara
– Scenes From a Tragedy by Carole Hailey
– The Sirens by Emilia Hart
– The Time Traveling Healer by Jim Bates
– Pocket Shakespeare by Michael Rosen
– One Level Down by Mary Thompson
– The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa
– Fair Play by Louise Hegarty
– I Wanted You to Know by Laura Pearson
– Snails of the Unexpected by Terrie Chilvers
April (40)
– Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A.F Steadman
– They Had It Coming by Nikki Smith
– The Woman Who Met Herself by Laura Pearson
– Human Remains by Jo Callaghan
– The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
– Divine Dicks and Mortal Pricks by Walburga Appleseed
– Shrapnel Boys by Jenny Pearson
– Sunshine After the Rain by Jessica Redland
– The Chemist by A.A Dhand
– I Who Have Never Known Me by Jacqueline Harpman
– All Fours by Miranda July
– The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
– The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
– Be Patient by Tilly Rose
– Dragonborn by Struan Murray
– The Everyday and Far Away by Jacqueline Jones
– Good Girl by Aria Aber
– Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons
– Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell
– The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
– Be Mine by Lizzy Barber
– French Windows by Antoine Laurain
– The Dark Maestro by Brendan Slocumb
– Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings
– A Beautiful Way to Die by Eleni Kyriacou
– The Girl in Cell A by Vaseem Khan
– You Are More Than Your Body by Jennifer Caspari
– The Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa
– Into the Fire by G.D Wright
– Bronte Tempestra and the Ice Warriors by Bex Hogan
– The World’s Worst Alien by Alice Primmer
– Alice With a Why by Anna James
– A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike
– When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow by Dan Rhodes
– The Wizard’s Bakery by Gu Byeong-mo
– Murder in Harrogate by Various Authors
– The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill
– Amma by Saraid de Silva
– The Gentleman From Peru by Andre Aciman
June (36)
– Artezans: The Forgotten Magic by LD Lapinski
– Revenge of the Deadly Dozen by Peter Berry
– Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
– Grumpfort by Jamie Hammond
– William by Mason Coile
– Universality by Natasha Brown
– Matchmaking For Psychopaths by Tasha Coryell
– The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown
– The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke
– Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop by Kiley Dunbar
– A Box Full of Murders by Janice Hallett
– Thunderpaws and the Tower of London by Ben Housden
– A Neighbour’s Guide to Murder by Louise Candlish
– A Murder in Paris by Matthew Blake
– Starminster by Megan Hopkins
– Dead To Me by Gytha Lodge
– Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
– She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena
– Havoc by Rebecca Wait
– Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle
– Maisie vs the Himalayas
– Starminster: The Month of Birthdays by Megan Hopkins
– Six Weeks By the Sea by Paula Byrne
– The Last Gifts of the Universe by Riley August
– The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
– The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park by Michiko Aoyama
– The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai
– Last Stop on the Winter Wonderland Express by Rebecca Raisin
– Dave and Me by Lili Myers
– The Cut by Richard Armitage
– Bookish by Lucy Mangan
– The Transcendent Tide by Doug Johnstone
– The Library of Second Chances by Molly Reid
– Small Wonder by Ross Montgomery
– How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin
– The House at Devil’s Neck by Tom Mead
August (26)
– Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada
– The Writer’s Room by Katie da Cunha Lewin
– Snowy Surprises in the Highlands by Lisa Hobman
– Witchborne by Rachel Grosvenor
– The Forever Bear by Lu Fraser and Pippa Curnick
– The Legend of Viking Thunder by MG Leonard
– Art Work by Sally Mann
– Mayowa and the Sea of Words by Chibundu Onuzo
– Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
– A Single Rose by Muriel Barbery
– The Poisoned King by Katherine Rundell
– The Predicament by William Boyd
– Dracula and Daughters by Emma Carroll
– The Last Bard by Maz Evans
– A Poet Can Survive Everything But a Misprint by Oscar Wilde
– Breasts by Jean Hannah Edelstein
– The Wish by Heather Morris
– The Girl Who Raced the World by Nat Harrison
– A Beautiful Evil by Bea Fitzgerald
– The Time Hop Coffee Shop by Phaedra Patrick
– The Santa Hat by Rebecca L Marsh
– No Friend To This House by Natalie Haynes
– It’s Always the Husband by C.L Taylor
– Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop by Jessica Redland
– Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
– The Ex I Buried by Natali Simmonds
– The Waterfall by Gareth Rubin
– Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
– A Scrooge Mystery by Andreina Cordani
– Cinder House by Freya Marske
– The Samurai Detectives by Shotaro Ikenami
– Audition by Katie Kitamura
– Costumes For Time Travellers by A.R Capetta
– Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment by Anna James
– The Porcelain Menagerie by Jillian Forsberg
– The Surgeon by John Nicholl
October (44)
– Flesh by David Szalay
– Introducing Mrs Collins by Rachel Parris
– The Austen Christmas Murders by Jessica Bull
– Estella’s Fury by Barbara Havelocke
– Endling by Maria Reva
– Kringle’s Emporium by Jemma Hatt
– The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
– Flashlight by Susan Choi
– This Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne
– The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
– Always Remember by Charlie Mackesy
– The Midnight Book Club by Emily W Anderson
– Mary 90 by Mary Berry
– The Land In Winter by Andrew Miller
– Christmas Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
– The Woman From Book club by Carrie Hughes
– My Book of Treasures by Joanna Lumley
– The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
– Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
– Mending Lost Dreams at the Highland Repair Shop by Kiley Dunnbar
– When Gavin Met Stacey by Ruth Jones and James Corden
– I, Medusa by Ayana Gray
– The Very Last Christmas Present by Adam Baron
– The Return of Moriarty by Jack Anderson
– All We Want For Christmas by Phillipa Ashley
– New Beginnings For Christmas by Sally Page
– The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie
– Christmas is Coming by Auriol Bishop
– The Christmas Cracker Killer by Alexandra Benedict
– A Year Of Nothing by Emma Gannon
– Pig Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman
– The Wardrobe Department by Elaine Garvey
– The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
– The German Christmas Cookbook by Jurgen Krauss
– Emotion Hacks by Dr Ryan Martin
– Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession
– The Gardener’s Wife’s Mistress by Cassondra Windwalker
– The Christmas Spirit by Susan Buchanan
– Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
– Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef
– Quill and the Last Generation by CM Lewis
– To the Women by Donna Ashworth
– The Barbecue at No 9 by Jennie Godfrey
– The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore
December (36)
– Dasher and the Polar Bear by Matt Tavares
– Messenger Cat Café by Nagi Shimeno
– The Impossible Gladiator by M.G Leonard
– Female, Nude by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
– Winter by Val McDermid
– The Selfish Giant and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
– The Unfragile Mind by Gavin Francis
– The Other Couple by Claire McGowan
– Your Life Without Me by James Meek
– We’ll Always Have Paris by Kate Penney
– This is the Door by Darcey Steinke
– The Baby Dragon Bakery by A.T Qureshi
– Laws of Love and Logic by Debra Curtis
– The Exes by Leodora Darlington
– The Christmas Retreat by Trisha Ashley
– In Her Defence by Philippa Malicka
– The Silent Ones by Anna McPartlin
– A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by M.K Oliver
– A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford
– The Storyteller’s Secret by Sophie Austin
– The Astral Library by Kate Quinn
– The House of Fallen Sisters by Louise Hare
– Books and Bewitchment by Isla Jewell
– The Wanderdays by Clare Povey
– Adrift by Will Dean
– Motherfaker by Anna Brooke-Mitchell
– A Heart For Christmas by Sophie Jomain
– Greedy by Callie Kazumi
– The Weekend by T.M Logan
– Over and Over by Becky Hunter
– The Blitz Sisters by Judith Eagle
– Librorum Ridiculorum by Brian Lake
– The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
– Body of Lies by Jo Callaghan
– A Long Winter by Colm Tóibín
– Under the Hammer by Samantha Dooey-Miles