Words by Kaili Cochran
Calling all bookworms! Whether you’re into fantasy & romance, historical fiction, mystery & thriller, sci-fi or self-help books: here is a list of book recommendations based on some of the most anticipated books of 2025. These books were picked based on GoodReads statistics, Barnes and Noble’s Most Anticipated List, “The New York Times” best sellers and Amazon’s Trending Books.
So without further ado: open your GoodReads app and let’s add more books to your “to be read” list.
Fantasy & Romance Books
“Great Big Beautiful Life” by Emily Henry
Release date: April 22, 2025
Alice Scott is a writer waiting to get her big break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer prize-winning writer. When this story takes place, they both find themselves on Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write about a long-lost former princess, Margaret. Well, someone who claims to be her, anyhow. Margaret comes from one of the most storied and scandalous families of the 20th century. This story could be career-changing for Alice or Hayden, whoever gets to publish it. Once they meet Margaret on the island, they’re both given different pieces of her story to work with. They know they can’t exchange information with the enemy: each other. But every time they’re in the same room it seems as if there’s an invisible string that is pulling at them.
“Great Beautiful Big Life” won’t be published for two, almost three, months from now but still received a lot of attention during the beginning of 2025. It made the GoodReads “Most Anticipated Releases” list and was shelved by over a thousand GoodRead readers as “want to read.” Also, on January 10, the New York Times released a podcast with Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatibon discussing the most anticipated books of 2025. In this podcast, they featured “Great Beautiful Big Life” as one of them.
“Onyx Storm” by Rebecca Yarros
On shelves now
I haven’t read a fantasy book since middle school when I binge-read the entire “The Land Of Stories” series. Now that I’m older, I’m more of a mystery & thriller reader. But let me tell you, The Empyrean series is pulling me back into reading more of the fantasy genre. Long story short, after researching this series for this write-up, I now have the first two books in my Amazon cart.
Onyx Storm is a follow-up book to “Fourth Wing” and “Iron Flame” from the series: The Empyrean. This series continues the journey of Violet Sorrengail at the Basgiath War College. At the beginning of the series, she gets thrown into being trained as one of the next dragon riders. Which seemed like an impossible challenge given Violet’s smaller physique (not to mention that at this college you either graduate or die trying.) Fast forward to “Onyx Storm,” Violet has to take all the skills she’s learned and fight against a war that could destroy everything — her dragons, her family, her home and him. And frankly, not everything is going to survive that storm.
As of this writing, “Onyx Storm” is No. 2 on Amazon’s “Best Seller” and No.1 on Barnes and Noble’s Most Anticipated Fiction. Sidenote: the first book in this series, “Fourth Wing,” won the GoodReads Choice Award for Readers’ Favorite Romantasy of 2023.
Historic Fiction Books

“The Stolen Queen” by Fiona Davis
On shelves now
A “New York Times” best-selling author tells a story that travels back and forth between 1930s Egypt with Charlotte, a former archaeologist and 1970s New York City with Annie, an assistant for a “Vogue” fashion editor. When they’re lives are at the most chaotic they’ve been, they both end up at a Met Gala where a valuable artifact goes missing and signs of an awakening curse begin to form. Charlotte and Annie cross paths and have to search for the missing antique facing many challenges of their pasts along the way.
“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” by Grady Hendrix
Release date: January 14, 2025
This book hits almost every genre: horror, fantasy, historical fiction and thriller. At that point, you may be wondering how I chose which genre to include it under. Well, on GoodReads, it took the #1 spot for Historic Fiction to Look Forward to in 2025, so I decided to let that speak for itself. It also received No. 5 across the board on Barnes and Noble’s MMost Anticipated Books of 2025, which accounted for all genres.
No one knows of the Wayward girls. You’re not supposed to. Wayward girls are young pregnant teens who are sent by their families to the Wellwood House to be hidden away while they carry to term and have their child. Then they are forced to put their newborn up for adoption and come home like the pregnancy had never happened. This story takes place in 1970, when 15-year-old Fern is sent to the Wellwood House all alone to be one of the next Wayward girls to carry a pregnancy that never happened. But not everything goes to plan when she eventually meets a librarian who gives her a book about witchcraft. As she dives into the powerful pages of this book, she is finally in control of her fate for the first time. But power can destroy as easily as it can create.
Mystery & Thriller Books
“Beautiful Ugly” by Alice Feeney
Release date: January 14, 2025
Grady Green is a writer and has some exciting news to share with his wife, Abby. He calls her as she’s driving home from work one day but during their conversation, he hears the sound of screeching brakes, then her car door opening and then silence. He finds her car by the edge of a cliff with its driver door still open. But everything else was in place as if his wife vanished into thin air. A year later, no one knows what happened to Abby and it’s all Grady can think about. His whole life has been flipped upside down. He can’t sleep or write so he decides to take time to travel and get his life back together. It’s time for a new start. But once he arrives at his new destination he runs into someone who looks exactly like his missing wife and now his life has done another 180.
“Bonded in Death” by J.D. RobbRelease date: February 4, 2025
Giovanni Rossi was part of a secret organization called The Twelve. He responded to an urgent request but when got in the waiting car he died within minutes. Lt. Eve Dallas finds this cold case aggravating as everything leads her to a dead end. But just as all seems lost, she learns that a man named Summerset was himself one of The Twelve and is still alive. When asked to share what he knows, Summerset doesn’t want to revisit that part of his past. That’s when he gets word from a cryptic message from Giovanni’s killer that says that others from The Twelve have also been killed off and Summerset is one of the last ones alive.
Science-Fiction Books

“All the Water in the World” by Eiren Caffall
Release date: January 7, 2025
Nonie is the main character in this book who finds that her family and a group of researchers are all that’s left in almost a fully abandoned New York City. All the glaciers have melted and they’re surrounded by water. They have a settlement on top of the American Museum of Natural History and that’s what they call home in a world that’s been turned upside down. During this story, a superstorm hits their settlement and they have to flee to survive. In their journey of finding a new place to settle they encounter other civilizations who have approached surviving in different forms. Throughout this book you will be taken on a dystopian world-like journey of those who survive. All Nonie has ever known is being surrounded by water.
‘The Memory Collectors’ by Dete Meserve
Release date: May 20, 2025
Elizabeth, Andy, Logan and Brooke are all given an opportunity to revisit any part of their past. But only for an hour. When 60 minutes are up they are left stranded in the past. They’ve all experienced traumas and want to go into the past to revisit the times before now. Elizabeth wants to see her son again who had died in an accident. Andy wants to find his first love who seamlessly disappeared. Logan wants to be able to feel the emotions of riding a wave in the ocean since a tragic accident had landed him in a wheelchair. Brooke wants an hour of relief from a grave mistake. As they all go back into the past they find that it’s not everything that it seems. Someone else is there too, planting harmful seeds.
Self-Help Books
“The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins
On shelves now
This book was released at the end of 2024 and I added it in the 2025 most anticipated because this book was sold out immediately upon hitting the bookstores — and even now in 2025 people are still searching for copies of this book.
“The Let Them Theory” focuses on the importance of your own opinion above anyone else’s when it comes to your life. Are people judging you? Let them. Are people causing drama around you? Let them. There’s a party that your friend group is going to and you weren’t invited? Let them. The Let Them Theory is letting go of pleasing everyone around you and putting yourself first again.
“The Book of Alchemy” by Suleika Jaouad
Release date: April 22, 2025
This book is a guide to journaling and meditation. Suleika explains how the art of journaling can help tap into your inner creativity. She accompanies her personal experience with firsthand research from writers, artists and thinkers who share how journaling has proved to help them as well.
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