book lists

Here we are again with another yearly edition of “as the spinner turns”. Well, not really as those spinning paperback racks are no longer much of a thing, and I mostly read ebooks these days.

But the idea is still there, that 2024 is done and dusted, the tallies have all been tallied and all the “Best Books of the Year” lists have been published, including my own, and that it is time to look ahead to all the wonderful books coming in 2025 with eager anticipation.

Not, however, without taking a look back at last year’s list, if only to see whether or not my anticipation was met. Last year’s list held 24 books that I expected would grab and hold my attention in 2024. Of those 24 titles, one I can be excused for not having read as it was not released after all. Gryphon’s Valor by Mercedes Lackey has thus become part of this 2025 list. There were four books I just did not get to this year, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett, Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby, House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky and The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons. I still want to read every single one of them, so they may turn up among this year’s reads even though they are now last year’s books. We’ll see.

(I’ve decided to cap the list at 20 from now on, making that another score we’ll see if I kept this time next year.)

Without further ado, and definitely without looking in the rearview mirror at the year that has just closed, here are the books that I’m most looking forward to reading in 2025 that I have expectations will be released this year. Whether each of the titles listed here will turn out to be good, great, terrible or terribly great is something that we’ll all get to discover in the year ahead.

I hope at least some of the books on this list will spark anticipation for your reading year to come as well!

alchemy and a cup of tea by rebecca thorne

kills well with others by deanna raybourn

drop of corruption by robert jackson bennett

witchs guide to magical innkeeping by sangu mandanna

adventures of mary darling by pat murphy

potency of ungovernable impulses by malka older

everybody wants to rule the world except me by django wexler

fashionably french murder by colleen cambridge

shadow of the solstice by anne hillerman

The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy
Alchemy and a Cup of Tea (Tomes & Tea #4) by Rebecca Thorne
Dead in the Frame (Pentecost and Parker #5) by Stephen Spotswood
Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
Down in the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong
A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviation #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me (Dark Lord Davi #2) by Django Wexler
A Fashionably French Murder (American in Paris Mystery #3) by Colleen Cambridge
Gryphon’s Valor (Kelvren’s Saga #2) by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon
Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
Kills Well With Others (Killers of a Certain Age #2) by Deanna Raybourn
Pearl City (Phoenix Hoard #3) by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle
The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses (Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #3) by Malka Older
The Sea Eternal (Empire Without End #2) by Emery Robin
Shadow of the Solstice (Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito #28) by Anne Hillerman
Slayers of Old by Jim C. Hines
Tea You At the Altar (Tomes & Tea #3) by Rebecca Thorne
The Tomb of Dragons (Cemeteries of Amalo #3) by Katherine Addison
What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier #3) by T. Kingfisher
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

While we’re all still reeling that 2023 is in the rearview mirror, it’s time to take a look at what’s coming up in this new year of 2024. Or at least the books I think I’m planning to read in 2024 – as no plan survives contact, etc., etc., etc.

Which is why I also take this post as a chance to look back at what I thought I was looking forward to this time last year and see if I got to them, or, for that matter, whether they got to me. Sometimes books don’t arrive when it was intended that they would, and some books don’t grab me when or the way I thought they would.

So, since I AM keeping score, sorta/kinda, I read 21 of the 23 books I was looking forward to this time last year. The two that I didn’t manage this year were Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey and The Ghosts of Trappist by K.B. Wagers. I’m still intending to get to both of them – I even have audiobooks for both titles. But they’re both long and the ’round tuit’ slipped out of my hands when I got to them.

And, unlike the Best Books List which I try to keep down at least NEAR to 10, this is a list that grows each year. At least so far, as it has the potential to get rather unwieldy if it keeps on going. Still, at the end of the year looking back on what actually happened, it’s not unreasonable to keep the list to a reasonable number. Or that’s the theory.

From the perspective of looking forward upon the year that’s just barely begun, considering that I generally read about 300 books in a year, I’m predicting less than 10% of the books I will likely read this year. I’m not in a position (mostly) to say whether these books will be good, GREAT or terrible – just that I’m eager to find out.

Hopefully, some of these books – or at least their covers – will set your reading senses a-tingling as well!