11 New Books To Put On Your 2025 Reading List
Main Character
By Lizzie Frainier
In her first book, writer Lizzie Frainier is asking whether romcoms prepare us for the good, the bad and the disconcerting of dating? When Lizzie was offered the chance to take part in a The Holiday-style festive house swap for a travel feature on The Telegraph, she knew she had to do it for the plot. But in reality, things don’t always end with a happily ever after. Or at least the one you might have expected. From falling for the emotionally unavailable ‘cool boy’ at school to receiving hideous dating app messages, and succumbing to the magnetic pull of a situationship to riding the incomparable high of an instant connection, Lizzie shares her experiences of the intensity of falling in love, the heartbreak of falling out of it and the friendships that have seen her through it all. Charting a decade of electric first dates, meaningful encounters and lessons learned along the way, Main Character is an open-hearted celebration of romcoms and the many ways in which love can show up in our lives.
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Homeseeking
By Karissa Chen
Haiwen is buying bananas in LA when he looks up and sees Suchi for the first time in 60 years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighbourhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me. Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the streets of New York and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present.
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Disappoint Me
By Nicola Dinan
Nicola Dinan’s Bellies won the Polari First Book Prize, and was shortlisted for many more. Disappoint Me is her follow-up. Max is 30, a published poet and overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. But years of dysphoria and failed relationships rattle around in her head. When she falls down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party and wakes up in hospital alone, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Enter Vincent, corporate lawyer and baker. His traditional friendship group may as well speak a different language to Max, and his Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman. It’s uncertain terrain, but Vincent cares for Max in a way she’d long given up on. Yet Vincent is carrying his own baggage. On his gap year in Thailand a decade prior, he vies for the attention of a gorgeous traveller, Alex, with secrets of her own. Is Vincent really the new face of the ‘Enlightened Man’, or will the ghosts of his past sabotage his and Max’s happiness?
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Show Don’t Tell
By Curtis Sittenfeld
From the bestselling author of Romantic Comedy and American Wife, Show Don’t Tell is the latest release from Curtis Sittenfeld. In this compulsive collection of 12 witty stories, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as loved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In ‘The Patron Saints of Middle Age,’ a woman visits two friends she hasn’t seen since her divorce. In ‘A for Alone,’ a married artist embarks on a project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule, which suggests that women and men can’t spend time alone together without lusting after each other. And in ‘Lost But Not Forgotten,’ Sittenfeld gives readers of her novel Prep a new window into the world of her beloved character Lee Fiora, decades later, when Lee attends an awkward school reunion. Witty, confronting and full of tenderness, Sittenfeld peels back the layers of our inner lives, all with her distinctive voice.
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The City Changes Its Face
By Eimear McBride
Eimear McBride is the author of four novels: A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing, The Lesser Bohemians, Strange Hotel and forthcoming book The City Changes Its Face. It’s 1995. Outside their grimy window, the city rushes by. But in the flat there is only Stephen and Eily and the total obsession of new love. Eighteen months later, the flat feels different. Love is merging with reality. Stephen’s teenage daughter has re-appeared, while Eily has made a choice, the consequences of which she cannot outrun. Now they face a reckoning for all that’s been left unspoken – emotions, secrets and ambitions. Tonight, if they are to find one another again, what must be said aloud?
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The Lamb
By Lucy Rose
It’s the perfect time of year to settle in with a folk-horror book. The Lamb iz the debut novel by Lucy Rose. Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn’t at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom. With this gothic coming-of-age tale, Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts – and explores the relationships between mother and daughter.
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Onyx Storm
By Rebecca Yarros
The end of this month sees the release of the third book in Rebecca Yarros’s global phenomena Fourth Wing and Iron Flame series. After nearly 18 months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there's no more time for lessons. The battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it's impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves – her dragons, her family, her home and Xaden. Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.
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Dream Count
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A publishing event ten years in the making, Dream Count is the new novel by the award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until – betrayed and broken hearted – she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In Dream Count, Adichie trains her eye on these women in a novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves to love and to be loved?
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Three Days In June
By Anne Tyler
This is one of the loveliest books we’ve read in a while. A funny, touching, hopeful gem about love, marriage and second chances, Anne Tyler’s latest begins on the day before Gail’s daughter’s wedding – and things are not going well. First, she loses her job. Then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door expecting to stay for the festivities. He doesn’t even have a suit. Instead, he’s brought a cat looking for a new home. Just as Gail is wondering what’s next, their daughter Debbie discovers her groom has been keeping a secret… As the big day dawns, the exes can’t agree on what’s best for Debbie. The day after the wedding, Gail and Max prepare to go their separate ways again. But more trouble looms, as all the questions about the future of the happy couple have stirred up the past for Gail…
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So Thrilled For You
By Holly Bourne
Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university. Now in their 30s, life is pulling them in different directions. But when Charlotte organises a baby shower for Nicki, the girls are reunited. Under a sweltering hot summer day, tensions rise – and by the end of the day, nothing will ever be the same. Someone started a fire at the house – and everyone's a suspect... Is it Steffi, happily child free but feeling judged by her friends? Is it Charlotte, desperate to conceive and jealous of those who have? Is it Lauren, who is finding motherhood far, far harder than she imagined? Or is it Nicki herself, who never wanted a baby shower anyway? In the aftermath, the police put together the facts. But the truth will shock everyone.
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We Do Not Part
By Han Kang
Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature and winner of the International Booker Prize, Han Kang’s powerful book The Vegetarian was translated into English by Deborah Smith last year. Now, we have her latest to enjoy. Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalised following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to rush to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die. Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives. Beset by icy wind and snow, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold herself. As night falls, she struggles up to Inseon’s house, unaware of the descent into darkness which awaits her. For there, the long-buried story of Inseon’s family suddenly comes to the fore…
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