Happy Tuesday, y’all! And Happy New Year! Am I the only one surprised that 2026 is here? As this is the first Top Ten Tuesday of the year, Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl is asking us to share our favorite books of 2025. This year, I’m doing something different: listing my favorite reads for each month. So, instead of my ten favorite reads, you’re getting my 12 favorite reads of 2025.
In my monthly wrap-ups, I listed my favorite read for that month, which made writing this post easier. Some months, I read multiple books that I’d consider my favorites, so I’ve included honorable mentions for each month. I read over 100 books, and many were really good.
All titles are linked to Goodreads.
Now, let’s look at my 12 favorite reads of 2025!
January Favorite Read: Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin
- Genre: Contemporary
- Release Date: April 2021
- My Rating: 4.5 Stars
- What It’s About: This lovely story showcases a young woman’s journey to find her voice and her place within her family, community, and city.
- Honorable Mentions: Holmes is Missing by James Patterson and Brian Sitts; The Borrowed Life of Fredrick Fife by Anna Johnston
February Favorite Read: Punished by Ann-Helén Laestadius
- Genre: Historical Fiction, Indigenous, Translated
- Release Date: January 2023 (in Swedish); February 2025 (in English
- My Rating: 5 Stars
- What It’s About: Punished is a look at an Indigenous culture that many people outside of Europe may not even know about. What happens when your culture is stripped from you as a child?
- Honorable Mentions: The Day I Left You by Caroline Bishop; The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger
March Favorite Read: Finding Flora by Elinor Florence
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Release Date: April 2025
- My Rating: 4.5 Stars
- What It’s About: Fresh from Scotland, Flora finds herself alone in a new country with a powerful desire to survive and thrive. She also has a secret. Can she succeed when she’s looking over her shoulder?
- Honorable Mentions: And So I Roar by Abi Daré; The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
April Favorite Read: One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman
- Genre: Mystery
- Release Date: April 2025
- My Rating: 4.5 Stars
- What It’s About: Julia is a former actress who has spent time in prison for murder. What happens when she finds a dead body in her swimming pool? How did it get there? She doesn’t remember.
- Honorable Mentions: Is She Really Going Out with Him? by Sophie Cousens, A Fashionably French Murder by Colleen Cambridge
May Favorite Read: Death on the Island by Eliza Reid
- Genre: Mystery, Thriller
- Release Date: April 2025
- My Rating: 4.5 Stars
- What It’s About: An international group was heading to an island off the coast of Iceland for a diplomatic event. Before the trip is over, one of them will be dead. Why? And how?
- Honorable Mentions: You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh, Everything’s Coming Up Rosie by Courtney Walsh
June Favorite Read: The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann
- Genre: Nonfiction
- Release Date: April 2024
- My Rating: 5 Stars
- What It’s About: It’s a collection of stories from booksellers and librarians from around North America. Most of the stories were compiled during the pandemic.
- Honorable Mentions: A Most Puzzling Murder by Bianca Marais, The Ripple Effect by Maggie North, Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley, and A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones
July Favorite Read: March Vol 1-3 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, & Nate Powell
- Genre: Graphic Novel, Memoir
- Release Date: August 2013
- My Rating: 5-Stars
- What It’s About: This three-volume collection is the memoir of Congressman John Lewis, detailing his work in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
- Honorable Mentions: The Fort by Christy K. Lee, Icing on the Murder by Valerie Burns, and Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen
August Favorite Read: SON by Johana Gustawsson & Thomas Enger
- Genre: Mystery
- Release Date: August 2025 (in North America)
- My Rating: 4.75
- What It’s About: Two teens are brutally murdered in a small town. A friend of theirs is charged with the crime. But did he do it? Why were they murdered?
- Honorable Mentions: Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez, Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, and The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer by Ragnar Jonasson.
September Favorite Read: Kitty St. Clair’s Last Dance by Kate Robb
- Genre: Romance, Magical Realism
- Release Date: September 2025
- My Rating: 5 stars
- What It’s About: Jules grew up on the shores of Lake Huron, and she’s always wanted to help her community. Reeve is a big city guy who wants more from life than he has. Could they possibly help each other?
- Honorable Mentions: Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn, You Make It Feel Like Christmas by Sophie Sullivan, and The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
October Favorite Read: Final Orbit by Chris Hadfield
- Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery
- Release Date: October 2025
- My Rating: 4.75 stars
- What It’s About: It’s July 1975, and Kaz is back at Johnson Space Center working on the final Apollo mission. Only this time, it’s a joint mission with the Russians. A launch was recorded from China. What does this mean for the Apollo crew?
- Honorable Mentions: A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna and The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee by Saki Kawashiro.
November Favorite Read: The Living and the Dead by Christoffer Carlsson
- Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Translated
- Release Date: April 2023 (in Swedish), December 2025 (in English)
- My Rating: 4.75 Stars
- What It’s About: Readers are taken to a small town, where everyone seems to have secrets, and no one wants to share them. But what happens when a body is discovered in the trunk of a car after a night of partying?
- Honorable Mentions: The Cafe by the Sea by Jenny Colgan, and Secret Nights and Northern Lights by Megan Oliver
December Favorite Read: Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
- Genre: Mystery
- Release Date: March 2024
- My Rating: 4.75
- What It’s About: Lucy finds herself drawn back to the town she left five years ago, after her best friend, Savvy, was murdered and Lucy was found covered in her blood. Ben has a true crime podcast focused on Savvy’s murder. Can they work together to find the truth about what happened five years ago?
- Honorable Mentions: When in Rome by Sarah Adams, The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer, Yours for the Season by Uzma Jalaluddin, and Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
There you have it, my 12 favorite reads of 2025. Have you read any of these? What were some of your favorite reads of 2025?
Are you looking for some more books to read? Check out my other bookish lists, book reviews, and monthly reading wrap-ups.
Discover more from Read! Bake! Create!
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Punished sounds really good.
It was interesting reading about Indigenous culture and experiences that wasn’t North American centric.
Oh, I love that you have organized it as one favorite per month. I’ve heard very good things about the audiobook for Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera, will definitely try that!
Patterson wrote a book on libraries and booksellers? May have to look for it..
It’s a collection of essays that he compiled and put together in a book. It was an interesting look at that side of the bookish life.
Death on the Island looks good!
I enjoyed it quite a bit. It has Agatha Christie vibes.
2026 totally snuck up on me!
These are all new to me. Death on the Island sounds interesting. I spent 30 minutes in Iceland last year, although my niece loves it and I’d love to go back. That’s the record for the least time I’ve ever spent in a country!
That’s 30 minutes more than I have spent there. It’s a bucket list place for me. Fingers crossed I get to go in the next year or so.
What a clever way of doing your best books list. I remember doing this one time, a best of the last 12 months list and I got to a month where I didn’t like any of the books that well. Ha!
I like the idea of listing favorites per month!
All of these sound so good, especially Patterson’s book. Thanks for sharing.
https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2026/01/top-ten-tuesday-top-ten-best-books-i.html
I love anything Uzma Jalaluddin writes and did indeed love Hana Khan Carries On as well. I just finished her Christmas one and loved it as well.
The Christmas book was a complete surprise when I found it too.
I haven’t read any of these. They sound really good.
I hope you enjoy them if and when you get the chance to read any of them.
I have read and enjoyed several of your honourable mentions, but none of your main choices!
Some months it was hard to choose a favorite. I think that’s why I added the honorable mentions this year.
I feel I turned around and it was 2026. We won’t talk about my grandchildren all of a sudden becoming adults.
I didn’t know that Paterson book existed but I feel like I need to read it! Looks like a great reading year for you!
I still have to read Part of Your World, whoops.
I liked the March books quite a lot too. Punished sounds like a difficult but important read. Your synopsis of Death on the Island sounds like it’s vaguely reminiscent of something Agatha Christie would write. Several others sound really good too. I hope you read even better books in 2026!
Punished was a chance for me to learn about Indigenous experiences outside of North America. Death on the Island has lots of twists and turns, and I think Christie would have enjoyed the story.
I like how you organized your list! I enjoy historical fiction and mysteries, so several of these sound good to me. Here is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thank you!
What a great idea to list a favorite book of each month instead! I should have done that too, I had such a hard time choosing my ten. I’ve been interested in Chris Hadfield’s The Apollo Murders, I didn’t know it was a series!
Haze
https://thebookhaze.com/
I’ve read all three books in the series, and enjoyed them all. I must say that The Defector (the second one) isn’t quite as good as the first and third ones.
I really should try to remember this for next year! I had a very difficult time narrowing mine down. Happy New year!
I actually started this post in February, that way all I had to do was add the books as each month passed.
I love this idea! I focused on five-star reads specifically, so I did Top Nine Tuesday 🙂 https://thissideofstoryland.blogspot.com/2026/01/top-ten-tuesday-five-star-reads-from.html
Nice! And all are new-to-me! Enjoy your reading this year!
I really enjoyed Hana Khan Carries On as well. Hope you have lots of great reads in 2026!
I meant to get to Listen For the Lie but you know how it goes! Thanks for the reminder. I like your idea of picking a favorite for each month!
If possible, I would recommend the audiobook for Listen For the Lie. There are chapters that are episodes of the podcast at the center of the story.
I loved Listen for the Lie as well, and my husband is loving Final Orbit!
I love that you broke it into months! Listen for the Lie sounds really intriguing.
If you’re read Sadie, I think you’ll enjoy this too. And I highly recommend the audiobook for the immersive feel.
These look good. I want to read Listen For The Lie at some point. I also do a favourite book of the month which makes it easier to do this prompt!
Have a great week!
Great list! I haven’t read any of these, but Finding Flora looks good, and I love historical fiction.
Finding Flora is one of the top books of 2025 in Canada. And it makes me so happy that so many others are enjoying it. It’s nice to read a historical fiction that’s not centered on a war, and gives you a glimpse at a time period that you may not know about.
I read a book by Uzma Jalaluddin years ago and I really liked it but I haven’t read anything more by her. Going to have to do that!
I haven’t read any of these. I hope you have a lot of great reading in 2026.
I’m hoping to read Amy Tintera soon, so I hope I like it!
Finding Flora looks amazing! I hope 2026 is an even better reader year for you 😊.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
Finding Flora was such a great read, especially once I realized it was set in a real place and featured some real people
Punished sounds really interesting. I’ll have to look for that one.
It was interesting reading about Indigenous experiences outside of North America.
It looks like you read a lot of great ones last year! I’m really curious about Listen for the Lie.
I highly recommend the audiobook if you do read it. It’s a fantastic book.
I’ve not heard of these before so it’s nice to discover new books! Glad you had a good reading year, here’s to hoping it continues in 2026 🙂
Here’s the link to my TTT – https://justreadjessie.blog/2026/01/06/top-ten-tuesday-best-books-i-read-in-2025/
I haven’t heard of any of these, but Kitty St. Clair’s Last Dance sounds like one I would enjoy. 🙂
I just recently added Finding Flora to my list for the Great Canadian Reading Challenge and hope to read it soon.
Thanks for sharing your #TTT favourites
I’m really curious about some of these including Abbi’s and Elinor’s! May have some new ones to add to my possible TBR. 😉 Thanks so much for visiting my list this past week!
That’s a great list! You have a lot of variety on here. Happy reading!
Punished looks intense and interesting! I’ll have to check it out. Looks like a great year of reading. My ttt 2025 list is here 🙂 https://thepart.reviews/25-favs
I really need to read The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians! As a librarian, I’m a teensy bit ashamed to not have read it yet. xD Glad it made your top list for the year, though!
There are so many good books on this list, Pam.