With only a few days of 2025 remaining, I think it’s safe to post my books of the year list now. I’ve enjoyed putting this post together, going back over the last twelve months and picking out some favourites. This year’s list ended up being longer than I expected and includes a mixture of old and new books from a variety of genres. In no particular order, here they are:

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Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

From my review: “Almost as soon as I started to read I was reminded of Ann Patchett and I’m not suprised to see that other reviewers have made the same comparison…but Patrick Ryan has his own style and a real talent for creating strong, engaging characters…Buckeye is a long book, but family sagas usually are, and although the pace moves slowly at times it’s hard to know what could have been left out.”

Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton

From my review: “At times, Bruton returns to a theme he also touched on in Blue Postcards: the idea that a painting offers something different to each individual who views it and that the viewers themselves can almost ‘become’ part of the painting…For a short book – a novella at 144 pages – there’s so much packed into it that I’ve probably only scratched the surface in this review. I would recommend Woman in Blue to anyone who loves art, but even if you don’t, there’s still a lot here to enjoy.”

The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn

From my review: “Frances Quinn’s That Bonesetter Woman was one of my books of the year in 2022 and I didn’t really expect her new one, The Lost Passenger, to live up to it. Well, I’m pleased to say that I thought it was even better…Frances Quinn has a real gift for creating characters the reader can get behind and root for…It’s both fascinating and inspirational to see how Elinor is able to create a whole new life out of the ruins of her old one.”

Strange Pictures by Uketsu

From my review: “Strange Pictures is a strange novel, but it’s also a completely fascinating one…Each of the three stories involves some ‘strange pictures’…I loved the interactive feel, with not just the main drawings but also other sketches, maps and diagrams helping to clarify what’s happening and lead us to the solution.”

The Rush by Beth Lewis

From my review: “I loved this! I’ve never read anything by Beth Lewis before, or even come across her, but this is one of my favourite books of the year so far. It’s set in Canada during the Gold Rush and follows the stories of three very different women whose paths cross in Dawson City in the Klondike…This really is a fascinating book, in so many different ways, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas

From my review: “On the front cover, the author Karl Ove Knausgaard describes it as ‘the best Norwegian novel ever’…The Birds is a sad, poignant novel but also has some moments of hope and inspiration and is beautifully written, in a simple, gentle way. I loved it.”

The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn

From my review: “I loved The Midnight Carousel from the beginning; it’s such an original, unusual story that I was completely captivated by it…The mystery element of the book is not so much a whodunit as a howdunit. How can people be disappearing into thin air while riding the wooden jumping horses?…what I found particularly unsettling is that all through the book I never really knew whether I was reading magical realism or something with a more human explanation.”

Sinners by Elizabeth Fremantle

From my review: “I’ve enjoyed all of her novels, to varying degrees, but I think her latest one, Sinners, is the best so far. It’s the story of the Italian noblewoman, Beatrice Cenci, and is a very dark and powerful read…I love the way Fremantle recreates the feel of late-16th century Italy.”

Four Days’ Wonder by A.A. Milne

From my review: “Four Days’ Wonder is not a book you can take too seriously and Milne clearly didn’t intend it to be. It’s a comic novel, with a similar kind of humour to P.G. Wodehouse or Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence series, where the characters keep getting themselves into ridiculous, farcical situations. The book was published in 1933 and you can see that Milne is parodying various tropes of the Golden Age crime novels that were so popular at that time… Four Days’ Wonder is a lot of fun!”

The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap

From my review: “I loved this book! As a debut novel it’s very impressive and I’ll certainly be looking out for more by A. Rae Dunlap. From the very first page she captures the formal feel of the 19th century novel and manages to avoid using the sort of inappropriately modern language that could have so easily pulled me out of the historical setting…There are lots of suitably Gothic descriptions of lonely cemeteries, dark alleys and disreputable inns, all forming the backdrop to the trade of body snatching.”

The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer

From my review: “When this one caught my eye, I decided to give it a try and I’m very pleased that I did. The plot is completely different from any other crime novel I’ve read…This is definitely the first book I’ve read about egg trafficking! It’s an unusual subject for a crime novel, but Bauer builds a story around it that I found completely fascinating and unexpectedly exciting.”

The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth

From my review: “I was impressed by how cleverly Wentworth leads us to suspect first one, then the other, so that I found myself changing my mind several times throughout the book!…I thoroughly enjoyed The Black Cabinet, my only problem being that I couldn’t understand why Chloe didn’t just go straight to the police…I suppose the answer is that there would have been no story otherwise!”

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

From my review: “Maggie Dickson was a real person and the story of her survival is a true one…In The Mourning Necklace, Kate Foster builds a fictional story around this amazing woman and her near-death experience, using her imagination to fill in the gaps around the historical facts…This is a fascinating novel, with some great descriptions of 18th century Musselburgh, Edinburgh and Kelso…I loved it.”

Mother Naked by Glen James Brown

From my review: “The whole novel is written in the form of a monologue delivered by Mother Naked in front of an audience of some of Durham’s most powerful men…Brown also writes in a sort of pseudo-medieval language and I thought this would be distracting at first, but it actually works very well. The combination of the language, the setting and the level of research makes the book feel very authentic and believable. I could easily imagine I was sitting in the hall at Durham Cathedral listening to Mother Naked’s story!”

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

From my review: “Seascraper is a beautifully written novella and the coastal setting, with fog hanging over the sea and treacherous sinkpits in the sand, is vividly described…This is a quiet, simple story but also a powerful and atmospheric one…I’m so impressed by this book overall, particularly as it’s not one I was planning to read and I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.”

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Have you read any of these? What are the best books you’ve read in 2025?