Captivating books from 2025 you might not have read yet

A sun-drenched novel by one of the most gifted British writers working today, Ripeness is the perfect antidote to the winter chill. Two phone calls made decades apart, define the lives of two best friends. The first sends Edith to rural Italy in the 1960s to help her sister Lydia through a clandestine birth; the second brings a stranger from America into Maebh’s life, claiming a sibling bond. A powerful story about the secrets families keep, and the journeys we take to find home.

You might be hibernating right now, but the pull of big nights out may not have disappeared entirely. Gráinne O’Hare’s debut novel, Thirst Trap, documents the messy shift from your twenties into the more daunting territory of your thirties. Raucous, alcohol-soaked and unexpectedly tender, this novel explores female friendship in the aftermath of tragedy. Set in a crumbling Belfast houseshare, it follows Maggie, Harley and Róise as they edge towards their thirtieth birthdays, struggling to work out what growing up really means. As the stairs in their rented house begin to collapse, so too do the fault lines in their friendship, raising the question of whether bonds forged in youth can survive what comes next.

If you’re in the mood for sharp satire, look no further than Mariel Franklin’s standout debut, a smart pharma-thriller that takes aim at the corporate hijacking of human emotion. Mary, a woman in her early thirties living in London, takes an impulsive trip to Ibiza after losing her job. There, she meets Tom, a charming chemist on the brink of launching a revolutionary drug marketed as a cure for modern anxiety, though it comes with the unsettling side effect of chemically engineered 'bonding'. Praising the novel, Zadie Smith has described Franklin’s work as essential reading for anyone interested in “the relationship between tech, our bodies, and our minds.” This timely story asks whether intimacy and digital connectivity are truly as liberating as we are led to believe.

Hal Ebbott’s slow-burning debut drama marked him out as one of the freshest voices in American fiction. Set over the course of a single weekend in an upstate New York country house, two wealthy families, whose lives have been entwined for more than thirty years, gather for a birthday celebration. What begins as a languid weekend of fine wine and polished conversation soon darkens as old rivalries and buried resentments rise to the surface, leading to a shocking turn of events. A treat for readers who enjoy The Great Gatsby and other Great American Novels, this sharply observed, character-driven tragedy explores societal class, wealth and marriage, making it an ideal read for long winter nights.

If you’re looking for something to energise you, Sarah Manguso’s Liars offers a bracing, polarising take on marriage that's written with cool, clinical precision. A visceral, one-sided portrait of a collapsing marriage, the novel follows Jane, a gifted writer, and John, an aspiring filmmaker, over a decade of financial instability and emotional manipulation until the relationship finally burns itself out. Liars has sparked heated conversations about unreliable narrators and the politics of motherhood with Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, describing it as “a white-hot dissection of the power imbalances in a marriage… as gripping as you want fiction to be.”  Not to be missed.

After a two-decade absence from the novel, the three-time Booker Prize finalist and towering figure of postcolonial literature returned last year with a shimmering story that will appeal to readers who enjoy lyrical prose paired with psychological depth. Set among the sun-bleached plazas of San Miguel de Allende, a young Indian woman studying Spanish seeks peace and anonymity, until an eccentric stranger claims she resembles her mother, a gifted artist who once lived in Mexico. This emotionally rich novella gently encourages readers to reflect on family history and identity, making it a thoughtful way to ease back into reading in the new year.

Named after a song by The National, this drug-fuelled but hauntingly tender debut novel explores the all-encompassing nature of first love. Lonely fifteen-year-old Theron David Alden meets the cool, confident and devastatingly handsome Jake one unforgettable summer in New England. From that moment and over the course of two decades, Theron and Jake's lives drift apart and are brought back together, until a final collision tears them apart forever. A deeply moving exploration of queer love and unrequited longing, this heartbreaking story will leave you in tears and eager to share its poignant beauty with others.

As we embrace new beginnings at the start of the year, find solace in 'healing fiction' (or the iyashikei trend) with the latest installment in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series; a gentle, tear-jerking masterclass in regret and reconciliation. Returning to the mysterious Café Funiculi Funicula in Tokyo, four new visitors must follow the established rules of Kawaguchi’s universe in order to travel back in time. Most of the action unfolds in a single room, giving Kawaguchi’s writing an intimate, stage-like feel that leans on dialogue and emotional atmosphere rather than expansive settings. Quietly comforting, the novel speaks to anyone who believes in the urgency of saying what matters before it’s too late.  Don't miss the sixth book in the series, Before I Knew I Loved You - coming this May!