We’ve had some incredible books come out this year.
And we’re already looking forward to 2025 and all of the books we can’t wait to get our teeth into next year.
Here’s just a quick overview of what you should be reading next year.
The Favourites – Layne Fargo
This is an epic love story that reimagines the tempestuous romance of Wuthering Heights in the sparkling, savage world of elite figure skating.
Perfect for lovers of Daisy Jones and The Six, we follow Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha.
She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice.
Out January
Confessions – Catherine Airey
It is late September in 2001 and the walls of New York are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady’s father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges.
Her mother died long ago and now, orphaned on the cusp of adulthood, Cora is adrift and alone. Soon, a letter will arrive with the offer of a new life: far out on the ragged edge of Ireland, in the town where her parents were young, an estranged aunt can provide a home and fulfil a long-forgotten promise.
There the story of Cora’s family is hidden, and in her presence will begin to unspool…
Out January
Three Days in June – Anne Tyler
It’s the day before her daughter’s wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. First thing, she loses her job – or quits, depending who you ask.
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 memories, a shared sense of humour – and 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…
Out February
We All Live Here – Jojo Moyes
Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A recently broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in.
Not to mention a once promising writing career that is now in freefall. So when her real dad – a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago – suddenly appears on her doorstep wanting to make amends, it feels like the final straw.
But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, friendship, and what it actually means to be family.
Out February
I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There – Róisín Lanigan
Áine should be feeling happy with her life. She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden.
And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can’t shake the sense that there’s something not quite right about the place…
The longer Áine spends inside the flat – pretending to work from home; dissecting messages from the friends whose lives seem to have moved on without her – the less it feels like home. And as Áine fixates on the cracks in the ceiling, it becomes harder to ignore the cracks in her relationship with Elliott…
Out March
Great Big Beautiful Life – Emily Henry
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives.
Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
Out April
Long Story – Vicki Notaro
Tara is a famous movie star, known for her leading roles in beloved rom-coms. When her husband shows up on set one day to tell her he’s leaving her for his much younger action co-star, her life is turned upside down.
Alex is a powerhouse podcast host and writer, covering all things celebrity and pop culture. But she’s less of a girlboss when it comes to her love life, which has never quite recovered after an old flame left her heartbroken.
As youngsters as the same stage school, Tara and Alex swore off a boy for life, promising to always put their friendship first. But now the two BFF’s friendship is tested when rockstar Sean Sweeney’s memoir is published, revealing his past relationships with them both, unveiling secrets from the past and plunging their friendship into crisis.
Out June
So Thrilled For You – Holly Bourne
A terrible heatwave. A very tense baby shower. It will all end in tears…Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university. Now in their thirties, life is pulling them in different directions – but when Charlotte organises the baby shower of hell for pregnant Nicki, the girls are reunited.
Under a sweltering hot summer day, tensions rise – and by the end of the evening, 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 worse than she imagined? Or is it Nicki herself, who never wanted a baby shower anyway?
Out January
Hero – Katie Buckley
She’s a waitress. He’s a chef. They used to be best friends, but now, they’re in love and living together in a studio apartment. She’s also a selkie, Odysseus, and a cowgirl called Quick Fingers. He’s a really good man.
When he asks her to marry him, Hero panics. She is lots of things but one thing she doesn’t want to be is anybody’s wife. Drawing on a rich history of myth and legend, Hero is a story about what it means for women to be supporting characters in a world written by men.
How can you be yourself when you are a product of other people’s imaginations? How can you love another person and be free?
Out January
Moving On – Roisin Meaney
Three great loves. Two very different countries. One step closer to finding her way home…As a new decade begins, hopeless romantic and big dreamer Ellen is finally moving on from her hometown.
In Galway she takes a job in a bookshop, and somewhere between the dusty bookshelves and the quiet afternoons, a bookseller called Ben finds a place in her heart. Fast forward, and the bright lights (and cosy flats) of London are calling Ellen’s name.
There she meets Leo, a charming, attentive City banker who’s everything she’s ever wanted. And wherever she goes, her heart beats in time with her childhood friend, Danny – though they never seem to be in the right place at the right time. If home is where the heart is, where will Ellen’s lead her?
Out February
Fundamentally – Nussaibah Younis
When academic Nadia is disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, she decides to make a getaway – accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.
But then Nadia meets Sara, a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen, and she is struck by how similar their stories are.
Both from a Muslim background, both feisty and opinionated, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines, Sara and Nadia immediately connect and a powerful friendship forms. When Sara confesses a secret, Nadia is forced to make a difficult choice.
Out February
There Came A-Tapping – Andrea Carter
Since losing her parents in a car crash as a teen, Allie has struggled to cope. Meeting Rory finally made things easier. She’s come to rely on him for almost everything, so when he disappears while filming a documentary in the West of Ireland, she fears she’ll come undone. Again.
When a couple arrive at the Dublin apartment she and Rory share, claiming to be the new tenants, Allie is distraught. Why did Rory let out their home without telling her? And – where is he? She seeks refuge at the run-down and reputedly haunted Raven Cottage in the Slieve Bloom mountains, where she and Rory were planning to move one day.
Allie slowly starts to build a life for herself – and begins to believe that she might manage to make it alone. But then Rory’s car is found submerged at the end of a pier, nowhere near where he was supposed to be — and the body in the driver’s seat isn’t his. Alison starts to revisit her memories of their time together, and begins to question if she can trust them…
Out March
Show Me Where It Hurts – Claire Gleeson
How do you survive the unsurvivable? Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it’s the comfortable family life she always thought she’d have.
All of that changes in an instant – when one action by Tom destroys the life they’ve built, leaving Rachel to pore over the wreckage to try and understand what happened, to try and find a way to go on living afterwards.
What emerges is a snapshot of what it’s like to live alongside someone who is suffering, how you keep yourself afloat when the person you love is drowning – and how you survive irreparable loss.
Out April
Swept Away – Beth O’Leary
Lexi is looking for no-strings-attached fun with a stranger. She deserves one night for herself, doesn’t she? Zeke is looking for love. But for one night with a woman like Lexi, he’ll break his rules . . .
Sparks fly at the pub, one passionate kiss leads to another and they end up stumbling home to the marina together. The next morning, hungover and shaken by an amazing night together, Lexi is more than ready for Zeke to leave.
There’s just one small problem . . . the houseboat they stayed on has been swept out to sea. As their supplies start to run dangerously low, and the waves pick up, Zeke and Lexi soon realise there’s much more on the line than their new relationship. How long can they really survive on a drifting houseboat in the North Sea? Will search and rescue find them? And who will they be if they both make it back to dry land?
Out April
Oracle – Moira Fowley
In a lighthouse on a crumbling coastline, two greying wives keep the fires lit, reading futures in fish scales and sending signals into the dark, while a monster with an almost human face circles their garden, sly and hungry.
Further up the coast, a woman experiencing strange cravings after an intense heartbreak feels herself pulled to the light at the cliff’s edge, where she might finally be able to satisfy her hunger.
A wild take on the goriness of romantic hunger.
Out June
Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances.
That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle Program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.
Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.
Out June
The Hounding – Xenobe Purvis
Even before the rumours about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die.
But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.
The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—they’ve always had plenty to say about them.
Out August
Dream Count – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent 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 in order to love, and to be loved?
A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power.
It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.
Out March
Homesick – Silvia Saunders
Mara becomes an ‘heiress’ overnight after her father’s death. She wants to buy a flat to escape the awful London rental market and her equally awful childhood-friend-turned-housemate, Lewis (who refuses to wash up cutlery because it makes him feel weird).
And she wants her boyfriend, Tom, to move into the new flat with her. Slightly more difficult now that he has decided to leave London – and Mara.
As Mara and Tom navigate their break-up/non-break-up, Mara becomes fixated on the perfect couple living in the flat above her. While her best friend accuses her of being self-involved and her already overfamiliar boss keeps getting her drunker and drunker, the Happy Couple become a symbol for everything Mara and Tom could have been – but, crucially, are not.
Out January