I’ve been thinking I should start doing little book roundups each year — mostly because I forget everything the second I close a cover. I’ll swear I loved a book, but if you ask me why, suddenly I’m blinking like someone asked me to recite the tax code. So here we are: the 13 reads from 2025 that actually stuck with me.
Next year, I might even try doing mini reviews as I go. You know… grown-up reader behavior.
So here we go. These are the books that stuck to my ribs this year — the stories I kept thinking about while brushing my teeth or waiting for my toast to pop.
1. The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune
This one is tender, strange, and kind of beautiful in that “I wasn’t expecting feelings today” sort of way. It follows a burned-out ex-soldier who ends up protecting a young girl with extraordinary abilities. Their road trip turns into this unusual, makeshift family story full of emotional cracks, healing, and the kind of sci-fi glow that sneaks up on you. I ended up reading half of it with my hand on my chest like I was in a dramatic Victorian play.
2. Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
Cam, a new mom whose life is already operating in scrambled-egg mode, wakes up to discover her husband hasn’t come home — and left behind a very unsettling note. Within hours she learns he’s at the center of a hostage situation, not as a victim but as the guy holding the gun. The story flips between that terrifying day and the messy years afterward as Cam tries to figure out who she actually married. It’s tense, emotional, and full of those “oh no” moments where you question everyone.
3. Middletide by Sarah Crouch
A body is found hanging from a tree on Elijah Leith’s property — and the scene looks eerily like something pulled straight from his own failed novel. Cue instant suspicion. Elijah has slunk back to his hometown after blowing up his big writing dreams, and now he’s stuck dealing with old heartbreak, a fractured community, and a police investigation that keeps pointing its flashlight directly at him. The book hops between past and present, full of secrets, regrets, and Pacific Northwest moodiness.
4. The Last Conclave by Glen Cooper
This scratches that itch for Vatican intrigue, political maneuvering, and centuries-old secrets bubbling to the surface. After the Pope dies, a small group of insiders discovers a hidden plot to push a dangerously extremist candidate into power. Cue a desperate scramble across Europe to uncover truths the Church has buried for ages. It’s fast, brain-twitchy, and has that “should I be reading this in a dark room?” energy.
5. Unhinged by Onley James
This is pure chaotic delight: a morally questionable man with a soft spot the size of a dinner plate meets a sunshine-y cinnamon roll who really shouldn’t be anywhere near him… and yet keeps ending up in his orbit anyway. There’s romance, murder, banter, and emotional healing tucked between the knives. It’s messy in the best, most addictive way.
6. The Ghost Writer by A.R. Torre
Helena Ross, a bestselling author with more walls than windows, is dying — and determined to write one final book, not a romance but a confession. To get it done, she hires a ghostwriter and forces him into her controlled little world. As he digs into her past, the truth she’s been hoarding turns darker and darker. The whole thing reads like someone slowly peeling off old wallpaper and revealing something terrible underneath.
7. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Part architectural marvel, part true-crime horror show. On one side: the creation of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. On the other: H. H. Holmes building his infamous “murder castle.” The back-and-forth makes the whole era feel alive, and I kept pausing to Google details like a nerd who loves historical rabbit holes. Chicago shines, and Holmes chills.
8. The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
Cate Kay — bestselling author, Hollywood darling, literary powerhouse — doesn’t actually exist. She’s the latest identity of a woman who has already lived as Annie Callahan and Cass Ford. Now she’s finally ready to tell the truth about her life, the friends she loved, the tragedy that reshaped everything, and the years spent reinventing herself to outrun the past. It’s structured like the memoir she’s writing, full of raw honesty, old wounds, and a relationship that shaped every version of her.
9. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
A mysterious woman walks down the aisle of a commercial flight and calmly tells passengers the dates of their deaths. Most people shrug it off… until one of the predictions happens exactly as stated. The book follows several of those passengers as they try to live with that knowledge—some obsess, some rebel, some deny, all of them unravel in fascinating ways. It’s eerie, funny, sad, and deeply human in that Moriarty way I adore.
10. Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young
A young woman returns home to her island community after a deeply personal loss, only to find old secrets, tangled relationships, and buried truths waiting for her. The ocean is practically a character — salty, moody, and full of memory. The whole book has this soft ache to it, the kind that makes you stare off into space for a minute after finishing a chapter.
11. Run Away With Me by Brian Selznick
Set in Rome in 1986, this story follows sixteen-year-old Danny as he spends the summer wandering the city’s sun-soaked streets while his mother works. Then he meets Angelo, a boy who feels carved from the same longing Danny’s been carrying inside himself. Their connection grows into a tender, fleeting first love wrapped in art, history, and the bittersweet feeling of knowing summer can’t last. The illustrations add that dreamy Selznick charm.
12. Ghost of Lies: Medium Trouble by Alice Winters
A sarcastic medium who can’t stop attracting trouble teams up with a grumpy detective who has no patience for ghosts… or for him. There’s a murder to solve, spirits popping up at the worst times, and enough banter to power a small city. It’s funny, flirty, and just spooky enough to keep things interesting.
13. Mystery Magnet by Gregory Ashe
Dashiell Dane (writer, mess, charming disaster) moves to a seaside town to work with his literary idol… who promptly turns up dead in her own home. And thanks to an extremely ill-timed secret passage attached to his bedroom, Dash becomes suspect number one. To clear his name, he teams up with a handsome local who might be too good to be true. Expect small-town secrets, queer romance, and that signature Ashe flavor of emotional landmines.
Anyway, if you’ve read any of these, let me know so I don’t feel like I’m reading into the void.
A murdered songbird. A haunted ballroom. A detective with secrets of his own.
When Evelyn Sinclair’s body is found backstage at the Savoy, everyone calls it an overdose. Everyone but Clara Beaumont. She hires newcomer Lucien Knight, an English detective with a checkered past and a knack for finding trouble. From Harlem’s jazz clubs to Manhattan’s shadowed alleys, Lucien hunts a killer—and faces the ghosts that followed him across the Atlantic. Grab your copy HERE.