The Biggest Books Coming In 2025

2024 was a pretty solid year in the literary world. Authors like Miranda July returned to form with works like "All Fours," relative newcomers like Rufi Thorpe released irreverent hits like "Margo's Got Money Troubles," and "Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar probably inspired many wild book club discussions. So what's on the docket for 2025? Turns out there are a whole bunch of big releases set to hit shelves in the new year, from major debuts to highly anticipated books from popular authors to at least one major prequel in a huge dystopian franchise.

Get your TBRs ready — there are plenty of great books coming out in 2025, so whether your list Is overflowing or you need to get out of a reading slump, go ahead and preorder these picks. Here are the best books dropping in 2025, arranged chronologically by their release dates.

If you're on a very specific corner of TikTok known as "BookTok," you know that fantasy franchises are having a major literary moment, and that certainly includes Rebecca Yarros' series known as "The Empyrean Series." "Fourth Wing," Yarros' first book about Violet Sorrengail — a young erudite woman who hopes to spend her life reading and researching until she's forced into a path training as a dragon-taming warrior instead — came out in May of 2023, and its sequel, "Iron Flame," released in the fall of that same year; now, "Onyx Storm," the third book in the series, is scheduled to hit shelves early in 2025.

"Onyx Storm" catches up with Violet after she's spent nearly two years at Basgiath War College, but at this point, the lessons are over and the real war is about to begin as enemies surround Violet and her classmates. With plenty of Violet's friends and loved ones injured after the events of "Iron Flame," "Onyx Storm" will probably be a pretty wild ride — so preorder your copy before it hits shelves on January 21 if you're a fan of "Fourth Wing" and "Iron Flame."

Author Lucy Rose is quite new to the literary scene — she participated in a short story collection called "Of the Flesh: 18 Stories of Modern Horror" that released in late 2024 — so anyone interested in a creepy and captivating read should definitely add her forthcoming debut novel "The Lamb" to their reading list. Referred to as a "contemporary queer folktale," "The Lamb" tells the story of a mother and daughter called Mama and Margot who live simply and quietly by a large forest, avoiding others even though Margot does attend school every day. They have a secret, though ... which is that they take in "strays."

What's a "stray" in the world of "The Lamb?" According to the book's description, when lost people wander by Margot and Mama's cottage, Mama feeds them food and wine — and then feasts on the unsuspecting travelers herself. As Mama's appetite grows, a beautiful "stray," Eden, appears at the house ... and meeting her pushes Margot to confront the dynamic between her and her mother after years of quiet acquiescence. "The Lamb" comes out on February 4, so preorder it if you dare.

If you're a fan of huge recent novels like "The God of the Woods" (by Liz Moore) and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (by Gabrielle Zevin) — which, specifically, are books that follow the same characters across multiple decades — you'll definitely want to check out "Deep Cuts" by Holly Brickley. In Brickley's exciting literary debut, we begin in Berkeley in the year 2000, where a young girl named Percy Marks is analyzing a Hall & Oates song playing on a bar's jukebox for the benefit of anybody who will listen. Usually, nobody particularly wants to hear Percy's musings, but on one fateful night, she ends up delivering her tangent to Joe Morrow, a fellow student who happens to be a songwriter, and a professional — and personal — relationship is born.

After Joe asks Percy — who doesn't play music herself but is an able critic — to check out some of his music, the two are off to the races, and a partnership begins that brings them from New York to California as years pass by. "Deep Cuts" promises to be a rich, emotional, and thorough explanation of the way music can bring people together, and it'll hit shelves on February 25.

You probably know Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from her novels "Purple Hibiscus," "Half of a Yellow Sun," the massive hit "Americanah," or her book of essays "We Should All Be Feminists" — or you recognize her sample on Beyoncé's 2013 song "Flawless," which uses part of a speech Adichie gave on the concept of feminism itself. Now, she's back with a new novel, "Dream Count," and based on Adichie's track record, fiction fans can expect yet another beautifully considered and emotionally gripping novel from the award-winning novelist.

In "Dream Count," Adichie focuses on four women — all born in Nigeria — and their various struggles, beginning with travel writer Chiamaka, who lives in America and finds herself hopelessly lonely during the COVID-19 pandemic (and to whom everyone else is connected). Chiamaka's best friend Zikora, a high-powered lawyer, finds herself completely heartbroken and forced to change her life. Then there's Chiamaka's cousin Omelogor, who works in finance in Nigeria but is undergoing an identity crisis, and finally, Chiamaka's housekeeper Kadiatou, who struggles raising her daughter in America. Adichie is particularly good at writing about culture shock, what it's like to live as a Black woman in both America and the world, and delving into the smallest details of everyday life to make them dramatic ... and "Dream Count" will likely be another hit for the author.

There's no question that the second big "Hunger Games" prequel is one of the biggest books coming in 2025. After Suzanne Collins released her original "Hunger Games" trilogy (which came out from 2008 to 2010), she wrote one prequel, 2020's "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes," which takes a look back at the 10th annual Hunger Games (the trilogy, which centers around Katniss Everdeen, begins with the 74th Games). Now, "Sunrise on the Reaping" is coming on 2025 — and it focuses on the 50th Games and a fan-favorite character.

"Sunrise on the Reaping" will finally tell the story of the 50th Games, also known as the "Second Quarter Quell," where the Capitol devised a particularly nasty punishment for the districts forced to send their children to near-certain death in the Games. Usually, 24 children — a boy and a girl from each of Panem's twelve districts — enter the arena, but in the 50th Games, the number is doubled. When we first meet Haymitch Abernathy in the original trilogy (played on-screen as an adult by Woody Harrelson), he's tormented by his memories of the Second Quarter Quell, where he defeated 47 other tributes to win the entire competition for District 12; now, we're going to learn exactly what happened. "Sunrise on the Reaping" is already set to become a movie, so you'll definitely want to preorder this for its March 18 release and read the book before you see the movie.

Over the past few years, author Ashley Winstead has earned accolades, cemented herself as a BookTok mainstay, and earned spots on bestseller lists thanks to her thrillers, including "Midnight is the Darkest Hour," "In My Dreams I Hold a Knife," and the particularly unsettling 2022 novel "The Last Housewife." (Without getting into specifics, readers should check trigger warnings before picking up any of Winstead's previous books.) Now, Winstead is back with "This Book Will Bury Me," and there's every reason to believe that it will be just as juicy, creepy, and gripping as her other novels.

"This Book Will Bury Me" centers around college student Jane Sharp, who, grappling with the death of her father, ends up obsessed with true crime and sleuthing online. That's why, when three young women are murdered in small-town Idaho, Jane longs to solve the case — but she and her fellow amateur detectives definitely ends up dealing with way more than she bargained for, as Jane recounts one year after the "Delphine Massacres" take place. Winstead is an excellent storyteller, and knowing her, "This Book Will Bury Me" will probably be an extremely messed up, readable book full of crazy twists and turns — so definitely preorder it for March 25 if you're a fan of intense thrillers.

No, it's not an April Fool's joke: romance writer Abby Jimenez has a new book coming out in 2025, and the title definitely feels like a Taylor Swift reference if that interests you (it appears to be pulled from Swift's song "Wildest Dreams," one of the many hits from the singer-songwriter's album "1989"). The author of "Just For the Summer," "The Friend Zone," "Part of Your World," and "Yours Truly" is back with a new book that asks if two people can let a connection go after having a perfect fling.

When Samantha first meets Xavier, he seems perfect — he's a hot veterinarian, for crying out loud — but as soon as he starts talking, she realizes you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. It doesn't matter, though, because Samantha is dealing with a complicated family situation that she says prevents her from ever having a real and fulfilling relationship, so she asks Xavier if he can let her go after one date and forget about her. (It definitely feels like that won't happen, based on the vibe of Jimenez's previous books.) "Say You'll Remember Me" will probably take over beaches and BookTok in 2025, so definitely preorder your copy for April 1.

After "A Separation" came out in 2017 and immediately placed on several of that year's "best-of" lists, Katie Kitamura became a major writer to watch — and in 2021, she followed up her debut with "Intimacies," which earned a spot on Barack Obama's favorite books of that year and cracked the top 10 on the New York Times' list to boot. The fact that she has a new book coming in 2025, "Audition," is definitely cause for celebration — so what can readers expect from the next novel from this brilliant writer?

Details about "Audition" are sparse ahead of the book's release, but what we do know sounds appropriately intriguing. When a famous actress, rehearsing for a new project, meets a much younger man for lunch in a New York restaurant, the reader is left to wonder how the two are connected, and it's safe to assume that whatever narrative Kitamura weaves here will be a perfect cross between highbrow literary fiction and pulpy thrillers. "Audition" releases on April 8, and you won't want to miss this one; it'll definitely make waves when it hits shelves.

A new Emily Henry book is definitely going to get readers around the world excited, and as Henry told Us Weekly in May of this year, it'll be a little different from her previous works. "What I can tell you about the book is it feels like a spiritual heir to [Henry's previous novel] 'Beach Read' but it's different. It feels like my first real departure, but it is still both a love story and a romance." So what does the new book from the "Funny Story," "Beach Read," and "People We Meet On Vacation," titled "Great Big Beautiful Life," about?

When two very different writers — aspiring writer Alice Scott and award-winning author Hayden Anderson — both find themselves on Little Crescent Island, they realize they're both trying to talk the island's most notorious resident, heiress and socialite Margaret Ives, now an elderly woman. Ultimately, Margaret asks both Alice and Hayden to spend a month with her, at which point she'll choose one of them to write the story of her life — putting Alice and Hayden in a fraught (and potentially steamy) situation. Here's another bonus for Swifties: Henry revealed in her newsletter (via Us Weekly) that the book was inspired by Taylor Swift's song "the last great american dynasty," which can be found on her Grammy-winning album "folklore" and which tells the real story of Rhode Island socialite Rebekah Harkness (whose house Swift now owns). You won't want to miss "Great Big Beautiful Life" when it drops on April 22.

If you've somehow missed Taylor Jenkins Reid's ascent to literary stardom, you're frankly just missing out on some great books, from "Daisy Jones & the Six" (which became an Amazon Prime original) to "The Seven Lives of Evelyn Hugo" to "Carrie Soto is Back" to "Malibu Rising." Reid is releasing yet another book in 2025, so those unfamiliar with her work will definitely want to catch up before "Atmosphere" — which bears the subtitle "A Love Story" — hits shelves in early summer.

For "Atmosphere," Reid is aiming for the stars ... literally. The book centers around Joan Goodwin, a physics and astronomy professor who is (appropriately) obsessed with the cosmos; then, in 1980, she answers an ad looking for female scientists to work with NASA and their space shuttle program. Hoping to become one of the first women to make it to space, Joan starts training alongside an eclectic group of fellow scientists and aspiring astronauts, and though Joan finds love along the way, everything changes when the mission arrives. Reid is a master at building worlds and characters, and with "Atmosphere," she'll take that skill to new heights when the book comes out on June 3.

Fans of gritty, realistic thrillers know that S.A. Cosby is one of the best mystery writers in the business — and his books "Razorblade Tears," "All the Sinners Bleed," and "Blacktop Wasteland" have become enormous hits for the writer and staples of the crime genre. Inspired by "The Godfather" but set in the American South, Cosby's new book "King of Ashes" centers around Roman Carruthers, the eldest son of a dangerous family whose father ends up in a coma after a devastating car accident. Summoned home to Jefferson Run, Virginia — where the Carruthers run the local crematorium — Roman realizes that his entire family is on the brink of certain destruction, from his brother Dante (who owes money to several formidable criminals) to his sister Neveah (who's desperately trying to hold the Carruthers clan together).

Roman eventually realizes he's in over his head, and his financial acumen isn't what people in Jefferson Run want from him; they want a different set of his skills. "King of Ashes," if it's anything like the rest of Cosby's work, will be both an in-depth character study and a stunning thriller, so you'll want to get your order in before it hits shelves on June 10.

A new thriller from the author of "None of This is True," "The Family Upstairs," and "Then She Was Gone" is coming in 2025, and based on everything Lisa Jewell has written so far, her new book "Don't Let Him In" will end up being the biggest books of the year. Jewell has a unique talent for crafting unsettling, seriously messed-up, and twisted situations that keep readers guessing, and in "Don't Let Him In," she creates an entirely new story that'll leave audiences shaken up (in the best way possible).

In the aftermath of restaurant owner Paddy Swann's death, his wife Nina and daughter Ash are left shocked and grieving, particularly when you consider that Paddy is gone after an unknown assailant pushed him in front of a train. Nina and Ash are soothed (somewhat) when they receive a package containing some of Paddy's old belongings from his friend Nick, but there's more to the story. Elsewhere, a woman named Martha happily lives with her husband Al, their new baby, and two sons from a previous relationship, and when she has an emergency, the story connects Nick, Al, and the three women looking for answers. Fans of Jewell's work will be lining up for her next project, which hits shelves on June 24 ... and you won't want to miss it either.