Happy (slightly belated) New Year! The past year was at least a great one for reading and book-related projects. I discovered two new favorite books ever (which means I also have a new favorite series), started doing quarterly virtual book recommendation events with the Ashland Public Library, and spent the later part of the year working on an interesting piece with some cool people that I’ll tell you more about later this month.

As usual, I took the opportunity to cover some highlights of the year and discuss my favorite books from last year, including both those published in 2025 and new-to-me books from previous years.

Blog Highlights in 2025

As always, April’s Women in SF&F Month was a big highlight of the year. This was the fourteenth annual Women in SF&F Month, and it contained wonderful essays by speculative fiction authors discussing their thoughts related to reading and writing, experiences, influences, and work (along with the occasional book giveaway). Featured guest posts, which are eligible for nonfiction/related work awards, are as follows:

• Ayinde, M. H. — “The Allure of Lost Civilisations in SFF”
• Byrd, Lindsey— The “not like other girls” trope
• Cole, Kamilah — “Let Your Stories Age Like a Fine Wine, Ladies”
• Damisa, Lucia — “Yes, Nigerian Girls Read And Write Fiction. No, It’s Not A Waste Of Time.”
• Elliott, Kate — “If This Can’t Make Me Cry Anymore: Thoughts on Writing and Quitting”
• Evans, J. D. — “In Defense of the Kind Character”
• Frohock, T. — “The Women of Miserere“
• Hashem, Sara — “Along for the Ride: A Head Worth Inhabiting”
• Hodgson, Antonia — Acquiring Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten
• Lau, Roanne — “Crayon Trails: On Friendship, Grief, and an Unlikely Book Deal”
• Lowachee, Karin — “Character and Worldbuilding in The Crowns of Ishia“
• Miller, Linsey — “A Descent into Kindness”
• Murphy, Pat — “The Power of Community”
• Slatter, A. G. — “The Long and the Short of It”
• Tsai, Mia — “Conflict and Discrimination in Secondary Worlds”

There were also some additional guest posts throughout the year:

• Fagan, Deva: “Real History for Fantasy Worlds”
• Goss, Theodora: “Writing as Witchcraft”

In addition to featuring/discussing a bunch of books, I reviewed some of last year’s new speculative fiction releases, such as The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami and The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig. If you enjoy lists, I also shared about my Favorite Books & Media of 2024.

 Favorite Books of 2025

Once again, I reflected on the books I read over the last year and came up with a list of the ones that stood out the most to me, which ended up being five new releases and three books published before this year. Of all the new-to-me books I read, two books became new overall favorites, making that series one of the best I’ve read.

I did a lot of rereading since I wanted to refresh my memory on some books I loved so I could discuss them as part of the virtual book recommendation events I started doing with the Ashland Public Library this year (May, August, November). Since I liked these books enough to revisit them, they were of course some of the better reads of the year, but I’m limiting this list to new-to-me books although books like Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip, and The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh were certainly among the best I read this year!

Baldur’s Gate 3 was a highlight of my year for the third year in a row, but I don’t feel like I have much more to say about it except that I still played it a lot last year and have more plans for games, so I’m skipping the favorite media part this year and sticking to books.

Favorite Books Released in 2025

Although I didn’t love a lot of the books that appeared on my Anticipated 2025 Speculative Fiction Releases List that I read/tried to read this year as much as I’d hoped (and bounced completely off a couple of those I did get to this year, including one of the ones I was most excited for), two of those books were among my highlights of the year. Neither my Book of the Year nor my Book of the Year runner-up were on my list, so these were both lovely surprises! Interestingly, both of these books are standalone novels, although they are followed by a couple of series openers.

For a lot of the year, I wasn’t sure what I’d end up picking as Book of the Year since I had two clear favorites, one of which was more of a compulsive page turner and one of which was more unique and interesting. I had decided to go with the book I thought did something more innovative but then ended up making it my runner-up since one of the books I got for Christmas—the very last book I read this year—ended up being my favorite 2025 release.

Cover images link to Bookshop. As an affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Book of the Year
1. The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
Read an Excerpt

“You know that history is mostly happenstance. Accidents piled on top of mistakes, a series of dice rolled in dim rooms by careless hands. It is not a lesson, until we learn it. It is not a story, until we tell it. And every story serves someone.”

Like my 2019 Book of the Year, Alix E. Harrow’s debut novel The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Everlasting is a beautifully written story that is difficult to describe because it is so much in the very best of ways. Also like that book, I don’t think anything I write will fully do it justice, as it’s a novel that needs to be experienced firsthand to see all the ways in which it works.

At its heart, this standalone novel is a love story between a war veteran/historian named Owen and the woman whose tales of valor inspired him: his nation’s greatest hero, the legendary knight Una Everlasting, who died about 1,000 years before he was born. Owen found strength in the stories of Sir Una performing mighty deeds, like drawing her sword from the yew tree to defend her queen and finding the grail that cured her monarch from disease. But when he’s sent back in time to chronicle Sir Una’s final quest, Owen discovers that not everything is as he expected and finds the revered saint is a woman who—like himself—is both physically and emotionally scarred because of her service to their nation. As he comes to admire her for more than just the stories he’s heard, he’s forced to choose: remain loyal to his country by leading Sir Una to the tragic death that ensures she’ll be remembered as an inspiration or try to find a way to change her story.

In paring it down to its essence without giving too much away, The Everlasting probably sounds trite. I actually hadn’t planned to read it when it first came out, mainly because its description didn’t sound compelling to me and time travel is not an element I particularly like. Then I heard enough good things about it that I decided to read a sample and ended up adding it to my wish list—and I was so glad I did, because this was masterfully executed. The prose is gorgeous with lines that made me pause and savor its writing, and I loved the style of the main characters telling their stories to each other. It doesn’t spend time rehashing the same specifics from different timelines so it doesn’t get stale, and the various details are revealed at just the right time. It’s largely serious but also has a sense of humor, and I enjoyed how it wove a lot of different things into the story about how there are no reliable narrators and how the stories told about history serve a purpose. (I also loved the ornery horse. And I kind of want a story about the villain because she may be evil, but what she did took some dedication.)

Book of the Year Runner-Up
2. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Read an Excerpt

Death of the Author is one of the more interesting books I’ve read this year, given its unique structure and how it tied everything together. This standalone novel alternates between a story set in a barely-alternate/very-near-technological-future version of our world focusing on an author’s life and the story that made her successful, a science fiction novel set in the distant future titled Rusted Robots. I loved the parallels between both stories and how they explored a lot of different subjects and provided a lot to speculate on before drawing to a satisfying conclusion.

The human’s story follows Zelu, a Nigerian American creative writing professor and aspiring published author who feels like she’s hit rock bottom after she’s fired and receives yet another rejection for her literary novel. She then writes a novel unlike anything she’s ever written, and it becomes a huge hit. Her story shows her struggles with her sudden rise to fame, from being more recognizable and scrutinized to seeing the removal of so many parts of what made her book hers when it becomes a movie, and it’s also about what it is to be someone who doesn’t fit in: as a person belonging to multiple cultures, as a person very different from the rest of her family, and as a person with paralysis from the waist down.

Zelu’s novel is set in Nigeria during a time when humanity has basically gone extinct and robots modeled to look humanoid (Humes) are in constant conflict with AIs who do not have a physical form (NoBodies). It follows a Hume who collects stories and learns of a great catastrophe headed their way, leading her to try to convince the different AI groups that they need to face this looming disaster together if they want to survive.

Death of the Author is a novel that explores a lot of different subjects, but ultimately, it is a wonderful book about the power of stories.

Most Fun Book of the Year
3. The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path #1) by Antonia Hodgson
Read an Excerpt

The Raven Scholar is the most fun book I read in 2025. The first book in an epic fantasy trilogy set in a world with eight monasteries dedicated to eight animal guardians, it (mostly) focuses on a member of the scholarly Raven sect named Neema. As High Scholar, Neema has been planning the opening ceremony for the upcoming competition to choose the next emperor, but shortly after this inaugural event, the Raven contender’s corpse is discovered. The current emperor makes Neema the new competitor for her corvid guardian and tasks her with solving the murder, a crime that many suspect she did given the infamous rivalry between her and the deceased Raven—and one she needs to prove to herself she didn’t commit since she was drugged and does not remember part of that night.

Although The Raven Scholar is a thick book, it is so well paced that it didn’t feel like a huge novel, and both the trials and the murder mystery are compelling. I always appreciate tournaments that aren’t just about who can win a physical fight, and though that was part of this one, there were also a variety of different trials: each of the monastic sects had a test based on their core tenets, and these ranged from the Ravens’ straightforward evaluation of knowledge to more convoluted situations that forced its participants to put some thought and effort into what they were supposed to do. The murder mystery was one of those that was about more than just who did it, as it kept bringing up questions that required delving into the empire’s history and various characters’ pasts.

The Raven Scholar is one of those books that’s a really entertaining, effective page-turner, and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.

Best Debut Novel of the Year
Best Secondary World of the Year
4. A Song of Legends Lost (Invoker Trilogy #1) by M. H. Ayinde
Read an Excerpt

A Song of Legends Lost is my favorite debut novel of 2025 as well as the new release I read with the most fascinating world and mysteries related to its workings and past.

The first book in an epic fantasy trilogy, this novel follows five main characters from a variety of backgrounds ranging in age from barely out of childhood to well into adulthood, though some are not introduced immediately. The first of those characters met is a young woman living in the poor part of a major city whose family finds themselves in trouble for using tech—whose use is forbidden to all but monks—to purify drinking water for themselves and their neighbors. The other character introduced in the early part of the novel is a nobleman who feels like a failure as the only person in his family who cannot fight the way nobles often do, by summoning the spirit of their ancestors to aid them in battle. Others include an older monk serving one of the noble families, a middle-aged woman who belongs to the quartet dedicated to protecting her husband when he summons his ancestor, and a young woman living in the poor part of her city whose father gifted her a mysterious pendant that may be the key to saving her younger brother’s life.

Each viewpoint shows a different piece of this setting and starts unraveling some of its many mysteries through the different situations these individuals find themselves in. There’s far more to the ancient tech and ancestor summoning than the characters have been led to believe, and I love that sort of thing when it’s done well, which this is. I was riveted by all these characters’ stories and eager to learn more about their world along with them, and I’m excited for the second book in the series (coming June 2026).

5. The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
My Review
Read an Excerpt

The River Has Roots is a beautifully written standalone fairy tale that retells the seventeenth-century murder ballad “The Two Sisters” and some of its variants, making it into a story about the strength of the bond between the two eponymous characters. It’s an enchanting story not just due its content but its lovely prose, and I especially loved the earlier passages describing the setting and grammar as magic.

Given that this is short, even for a novella, it’s a difficult book to describe without giving too much away about how it unfolds. The two sisters of The River Has Roots live near the edge of Faerie, where their family has tended to and harvested the enchanted willow trees that absorb the magic that seeps into the river for generations. When a man in possession of land neighboring theirs decides he would like to unite their estates and pursues the elder sister’s hand in marriage, his relentlessness and refusal to accept that she does not want to wed him puts both sisters in jeopardy.

It’s a story about love, transformation, and a difficult choice, and its carefully crafted writing is a perfect fit for the tale it tells.

Favorite Books Published Before 2025

1. Kushiel’s Legacy #2 and #3 by Jacqueline Carey
(Kushiel’s Chosen and Kushiel’s Avatar)
Read an Excerpt from Kushiel’s Dart (Kushiel’s Legacy #1)

The absolute best book decision I made this year was reading the rest of the first Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy after rereading Kushiel’s Dart from the end of 2024 into the beginning of 2025. Kushiel’s Chosen and Kushiel’s Avatar are easily my favorite books I read this year, and the progression of this series made me appreciate both the first book and Cassiel’s Servant, a companion novel to Kushiel’s Dart told from a different perspective and my 2023 Book of the Year, even more. I think I love the third book in the series the most, but all of these books work together to create one of the best series I’ve read.

These books are epic fantasy set in an alternate version of our past in which a group of people descended from angels follow the message of the one their ancestors came from heaven to protect: “Love as thou wilt.” Phèdre nó Delaunay, the protagonist of this trilogy, is dedicated to one angel as a courtesan and bears the mark of the punisher angel known as Kushiel’s dart. Trained to use her gifts as a spy, she becomes involved in political machinations and big events, and the gods push her to her limits throughout the course of the series (especially in book 3).

I love everything about these books, but most of all, I love the main characters and their journeys. Phèdre is an iconic heroine with her rich voice that captures her intelligence and thirst for knowledge, her deep compassion, and her remarkable inner strength, but though admirable, she’s imperfect and has struggles. I was particularly struck by Carey’s masterful handling of voice throughout these three books and Cassiel’s Servant, not just due to the differences between individuals but the subtle adjustments that showed personal growth from book to book. By the end of the series, Phèdre’s narrative feels more mature, but she still feels like the same person: just an older, more experienced version of herself.

2. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Read/Listen to an Excerpt

Written in part to shed light on the horrific practice of reform schools and to honor the memory of the author’s great-uncle, who died in one as a teenager, The Reformatory is a chilling standalone historical/horror novel with paranormal elements. Set in 1950s Florida, it follows two Black siblings dealing with the younger being sentenced to six months in a reform school for boys after trying to defend his sister from the unwanted advances of the son of a powerful white man. Robbie’s story focuses on his time in the reform school and what he learns through his ability to see haints, and his sister Gloria’s story follows her efforts to get her brother released.

Though Robbie’s story was faster-paced and had more plot, I appreciated Gloria’s parts just as much. She had so much on her teenage shoulders, dealing with guilt over what happened and striving to free her brother in the absence of her parents (though she did have some help from friends, so she wasn’t completely on her own).

The Reformatory is a compelling story with an ending that kept me on the edge of my seat, and it’s no surprise that it won multiple prestigious awards.