I read so many good books in 2025, it has taken me a few days to narrow down my absolute favourites. While, as I mentioned the other day, I’m hoping to read fewer books in 2026 and spend more time with each story, I definitely can’t complain about the quality of the work I read last year.
I tallied it up and I wrote about 40,000 words worth of book reviews on Goodreads in 2025, so if you want my full rundown on everything I read and loved (or didn’t love!) last year you should follow me there (for now… I’m trialling some non-amazon-owned alternatives to see if I can find a new bookish home in 2026), but here’s an overview of my 2025 fiction (non horror — they’ll get their own post!) faves:
The leaves are falling, the pumpkin men are dancing and it’s currently the most socially acceptable season to read as much horror as you can get your hands on. Obviously, I’m a year-round horror kind of gal, but for those who save their scares for spooky season, I have some recommendations of horror novels, new and old, that will get you in to the Samhain spirit.
Just to keep it simple, I’ve stuck to books published in the last five years, and I’ve left out the obvious heavy hitters like Stephen King because I figure if you’re interested in the horror classics you can probably find them yourselves. But if you do want some recommendations by the masters and from the back catalogue, give me a shout.
What to read if… you’re new to horror
I was thrilled that my book club allowed me to suggest a horror novel recently, and The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas was a big hit. This lush, atmospheric novel is as much romance as it is horror, and the beautiful writing will draw you in even if you’re hesitant about the scares.
There are no jump scares in The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister, only a sense of melancholy and decay that is potentially as scary as any ghost or demon. For those who love folk tales, family drama, and climate anxiety (maybe “love” is the wrong word), this book is the one.
What to read if… you’re all about the vibes
If you know me, I’ve probably already told you to read Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. But in case I haven’t, please read Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. Weird, watery, beautiful and devastating.
Lee Mandelo is a master of the modern southern gothic, and Summer Sons is my favorite of his books. It’s visceral and compelling, and the sweat practically drips off the page.
What to read if… you’re in your “good for her” era
The pregnant teenage characters in Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix are due a win as they’re sent to a miserable mother and baby home in 1970s Florida to be hidden away until they give birth. And if that win is getting tangled up in some seriously shady witch business? So be it.
If you’d rather your heroines just to be deranged for no reason, then Victoria Feito’s cheerful murderess Winifred Notty is your girl. Victorian Psycho, indeed. This book is wild and gory and so much fun.
What to read if… you want a recent book that’ll be remembered as a classic
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones have a lot in common. They’re both deeply inspired by true historical evils (abusive reformatory schools in the Jim Crow era Deep South for the former, the Marias massacre of Blackfeet peoples in the latter), they both bring supernatural elements to these real-life horrors, and they’re both written by authors who I’m confident will be regarded as integral parts of the literary canon for the genre in years and decades to come. Two powerful, frightening, incredible books.
What to read if… you like your stories short and sweet scary
Spanning a variety of genres and drawing inspiration from folklore and myth, Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap is a short story collection that will appeal to horror and non-horror fans alike. A strong debut and I hope we’ll see more from Yap soon.
One for the weird girls, She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark reminds us that there’s nothing better than a really fucked up short story. A must-read for “The Shadow Over Little Chitaly” alone, which is formatted as a series of meal delivery app reviews.
What to read if… forever sounds like a scarily long time
Nobody does immortality quite like a vampire, and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab follows three vampiric women across their long, long lives, from 1500s Spain to 1800s London to 2000s Boston. Schwab’s story has all the timeless elements while also bringing something new to the classic tropes.
There’s an old myth that someone taking your photo can steal your soul, and a similar horrifying concept serves as the conceit of Old Soul by Susan Barker. As much as I love horror, I rarely feel genuinely shaken when reading, but this book definitely did it.
What to read if… you think fact is scarier than fiction
I think that, maybe more than in any other genre, most people who love horror can pinpoint exactly when they became fans. Why Horror Has a Hold on Us by Anna Bogutskaya explores those moments, as well as why the horror genre gets so many of us in its grips.
For a more academic take on the topic, Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond provides an exhaustive but fascinating look at similar themes, with a focus on the way horror has held up a mirror to American society and history.
Bonus: what I’m reading this October (and beyond)
2025 has been a ridiculously good year for horror, with new books from big names, fresh faces, and scary stories across every sub-genre. I already wrote about my favorite horror books published in January-June of this year, and since then I’ve read plenty more that I’ll share about later.
Naturally, late-September through October is peak publishing season for horror, and some of the new and upcoming releases I’ve got on the tbr this month are Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, Good Boy by Neil McRobert and King Sorrow by Joe Hill.
I’ve also been eager to read The End of the World As We Know It, an anthology of short stories set in the world of Stephen King’s epic The Stand, but I realized it’s been at least 16 years since I read the novel so I want to revisit it first. Anyway, what’s October without some Stephen King?
On the nonfiction side I’m looking forward to reading Somebody is Walking on Your Grave by Mariana Enriquez and Ghosted by Alice Vernon.
When I read Julia Armfield’s debut novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, I wanted to immediately call her one of my favorite authors, but it seemed silly to do so after only reading one of her books. When I read Salt Slow, the short story collection that preceded it, the feeling only grew. After reading Private Rites I’m completely confident in adding her to my list of favorites.
Did you ever, she once said to Isla, apropos of goodness knows what, read any of the weird shit that actually goes on in Revelations? In the Book of Revelations, I mean. People think it’s just hellfire and brimstone four horsemen and out, but actually the end times go on and on and on.
This is the way the world ends under capitalism, not with a bang but with a routine. When the seas rise so much that most of the population is forced to move to dilapidated urban centres in order to live in the high rises that are the only safe havens (unless you are rich enough to build your home high above the flood waters, of course). When the rain so rarely ceases that workers go about their days in a constant, sodden gloom (but they still go to work).
In the background, there is the creeping growth of uncanniness — strange practices, odd interactions, doomsday cults gaining membership — but for most people there is only the wet rot of monotony and misery as the world decays.
It is in this world— maybe, probably, a future vision of our world— that Private Rites takes place. It’s a serious slow-burner of a book, but with an explosive ending. This is the wrong genre Agnes thinks, but it’s only the wrong genre if you haven’t been paying attention. Like a river rushing up against a dam, the intensity builds and builds, and when the dam breaks, boy does it break.
Drawing inspiration from King Lear, the novel follows three sisters, held together and torn apart by the death of their wealthy but abusive father, as they struggle to find some sort of balance in their relationships and themselves in this world set adrift.
Isla, Irene, and Agnes are my favorite type of character — difficult to like but easy to love. At times, each one is frustrating, infuriating, endearing, enchanting. They live in this world of external and internal trauma that shapes them in some ways so differently and in some ways the same. I think Irene was my favorite of the three, but I loved each of them in their own way. I could have spent a lifetime with them.
The prose is exquisite, rich yet intimate, encompassing the overwhelmingness of the climate crisis as well as as the deeply personal moments between the sisters, their lovers, and the now-deceased patriarch of their family. The story crosses genres from family drama to speculative fiction to outright horror and creates a gradient that offers a full spectrum of everything in between. A truly fantastic novel that just further cements the fact that I’ll be waiting with bated breath on everything that Julia Armfield writes (and in the meantime, recommending her work to everyone who will listen).
thebestpossibletime 