Best Books of 2025
Another year, another best-of book list. In the interest of fairness I have included books from last December that I read after my annual round up.
I seem to have gone heavier on the romance than I’d realised but it has been a year for needing emotional relief.
This year we will be breaking down into some highly specific mini-categories.
Romance
Blood Sweat Glitter by Iona Datt Sharma
Opposites attract f/f novella about two women on a roller derby team. And about loneliness, and female anger, and the brutal trauma healthcare workers suffered under Covid. About finding ways forward, and getting it wrong and starting all over again. A book where the happy moments are the ones that make you cry. And all this in a novella about clattering people on roller skates. Moving, funny, beautifully descriptive, and cracklingly intelligent.
Behind Frenemy Lines by Zen Cho
A modern m/f romance starring two corporate lawyers, but you don't hate either of them. The romance is slow burn, immensely sweet once the initial difficulties have passed, closed door and very charming. That works extremely well with the quite gritty background of corporate misconduct, corruption, and sexual harassment to make for a really satisfying read. Hugely likeable and, of course, very well written.
A Bloomy Head by J Winifred Butterworth
Family, romance (trans m/f), skulduggery and murder, set in rural Regency England. There's a lot of hard stuff here so check the content warnings, but also tons of entertainment--an enjoyable combination of cartoon violence and comeuppances with real pain and trauma that gets soothed with real kindness and consideration. A very fun oddball of a book.
Romance: Pride and Prejudice retellings
I don’t even like Jane Austen but these are fabulous.
Mr Collins in Love by Lee Welch
Delightful m/m reimagining. Mr. Collins is here painfully repressed, awkward, seriously neurodivergent, horrendously socially inept and entirely failing to understand subtext, but fundamentally a good-hearted man doing his best in a world he doesn't understand very well, and who responds wonderfully to tolerance and kindness. His romance with his old childhood friend turned gardener is terrifically depicted, with little being stated aloud but everything there, and we really root for this poor man to win the safe, comfortable home and love he deserves. I loved the warmth, the wisdom, and the way it offers a realistic but profound happy-ever-after to people who rarely get such a thing in romance.
What Will People Think? by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma
An absolute cracker. It's set in 1970s Mahathastra, where dowry is still expected, four daughters is a disaster, marriage is a necessity and a misbehaving daughter can ruin a family, so the Austen plot machinery has serious weight here and works brilliantly. The writing is clever and extremely funny, with a lot of sarcasm, but the story (m/f)is told with real heart. This is what a retold classic should be: it uses the original but brings something entirely new to the table. Unreserved recommend even if you hate Austen.
Romance: Zombie apocalypse
Yes, two zombie apocalypse romances, I could go for more.
The Last Woman on Earth by Bex Benjamin
Awkward journalist, amoral mercenary. A drug gone wrong has created a zombie apocalypse. In a survivor community, Nicky is writing about chickens for the community news sheet, and then Meredith rolls into town with high heels, a large company of mercenaries, and a bad attitude. It's marvellous f/f fun, with shagging, adventures, jump scares, scheming villains, some good twists, and a lot of very funny lines. Book 1 of a trilogy, so no HEA yet.
Kick at the Darkness by Suleikha Snyder
Brilliantly concise m/f novella in the zombie apocalypse, with the sense of loss and devastation and an ending world, cut with a desperate need for love and forgiveness and human contact. It feels not so much like a novella as like reading a full length romance novel by strobe light: we get a series of vignettes that the mind adds up to make a whole. Very visual, very effective, a whole mood of concentrated feels. Smashing.
Not exactly ‘romance novel’ but you will love the vibes
Small Joys by Elvin James Mensah
An absolutely lovely book. The story of Harley, a struggling young gay black Brit, and a summer that changes things after he drops out of university, with friendships and a burgeoning super slow burn romance with Muddy, a Mancunian lad. It's more bildungsroman than romance but no romance reader will be disappointed; it's also the best depiction of the Archbisop of Banterbury kind of masculinity I've ever read. A really great portrayal of kinds of friendship, kinds of people, kinds of love. Actually uplifting. Please read it.
Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror
Penric and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold
I’m just going to say that I read all fifteen Penric and Desdemona novellas in a row over little more than a week, downloading the next one immediately I reached The End of the last, and if that isn’t enough for you I don’t know what will be.
Royal Gambit by Daniel O’Malley
I loved the first two Chequy books and have been dying for the new ones to come out in the UK. This is a worthy successor (albeit with a couple of slippage in the British setting but hey). Funny, exciting. female-focused and wildly inventive in the peculiar magic; it also never loses sight of the humans caught up in this frankly insane world. Absolutely delightful and hugely enjoyable.
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Strongly satirical in quite an 18th century way (highly episodic and structured, plus the Allegory Klaxon is going off non stop), but it also manages to have real, genuine heart and to make us care deeply about a robot, which is, ironically, one of the problems that the satire is targeting. Hugely readable and very funny, with some absolutely cracking lines and actual hope amid the wreckage.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Immensely enjoyable cosmic horror. Lots of dreadful things happen, but it's told with a thoroughly breezy style, making it a fun ride rather than a plunge into the abyss. At the same time, there's enough real feeling that you care for the characters and commit to what's going on. And it's completely bananas, so just my sort of horror, basically.
SFFH: Incredibly thinky
You’ll be chewing these over for a while. File with Arkady Martine.
Of the Emperor's Kindness by Chaz Brenchley
Fantasy of politics/manners. On one level it’s how a party girl in the Empire’s capital is forced by default to become her far-away country’s ambassador when it’s invaded and obliterated, and how she and her girlfriend pull together to survive and resist. On another level, it’s a truly disturbing and startling account of the things we don’t confront for our own survival, and those things are not spelled out: you have to make your own choices. Fascinating, highly readable, immersive, clever, and very unsettling.
The Sentence by Gautam Bhatia
A legal-ethical SF thriller/mystery, absolutely cracking. It's tense and twisty and engaging, with a mystery wrapped inside an enigma, and we're compulsively drawn along the path of breadcrumbs. It also has a LOT to think about, largely the question of what is justice, what is solidarity, what happens when rights and freedoms clash, and the concept of being morally unlucky. Far more exciting than a book about legal ethics has any right to be.
SFFH: Sapphic horror
I love that there is so much sapphic horror it needed its own category. More pls.
A Night to Slay For by Petra Pine
A terrific modern slasher-feeling horror set in the Croatian countryside. Irma and friends have booked a remote house to get plastered for New Year's. But the snow is thick and the forest is scary, and everyone is taking too many drugs, and then another carful of girls arrive...and people start vanishing. Thoroughly enjoyable sapphic horror, highly recommended for your scary-holiday reading.
Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements, Onjuli Datta
Horror romance set in a shithole town in the mountains. Angelina lives with her beloved brother Patrick, who is still best friends with his ex, Jagvi, with whom Angelina has UST out the wazoo. It feels like a cracking romance set up until the Thing from the Pit gets inside Angelina's mind. The romance is passionate, highly sexed and highly emotional; the horror is genuinely horrific. Scary, sexy, and with just enough hope to cut the fear.
But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo
A sapphic Gothic romance, where the monstrous mistress of the isolated house is in fact an eldritch spider god. as you do. It's immensely creepy and warped with lots of murder and amorality and body weirdness. Lush writing and thoroughly entertaining, with a delightful line at the end. I don't know if I was convinced by the romance per se but the weirdness carried me along very effectively.
Murder Mystery
The Hilary Tamar mysteries by Sarah Caudwell
Sarah Caudwell’s three Hilary Tamar mysteries are bonkers and delightful fun, combining Wodehousian comic nonsense with a sharp and mordant wit and some genuinely brilliant plotting and clue-laying. Terrific stuff, and great rereads as novels rather than puzzles. (The fourth, written as she was dying, is a sadder affair and I regretted seeking it out.)
A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith
Terrific murder mystery set in the Inner Temple (law land) with a wonderful period setting, a delightful lawyer lead and policeman sidekick, entertaining supporting cast and--despite the lawyerly detachment of the MC and narrative--a great deal of heart. Beautifully constructed, well written, deeply involving. Straight into my Comfort Reads folder.
Helle's Hound by Oskar Jensen
Danish art historian Torben Helle on his second outing. Entertainingly nuts, with ridiculous leads and secondaries, a crazed plot, lots of fun references, clever mystery, a spot of fourth-wall-breaking that approaches Edgar Cantero levels, and the most spectacularly gratuitous final line I can remember. Props.
Pagans by James Alistair Henry
Oh my GOD I enjoyed this book. Alt history murder mystery where modern England is divided between the Saxon Central/East, and Tribal (Celtic) Wales/South west. The mystery is super rooted in the imagined world, with its racial and cultural issues, and there are lots of delightful little tweaks and flourishes in the language. The relationship between Mercian Aedith and Tribal Drustan is fantastic, as is the sense of immanent gods. All done with great verve and nicely paced.
Murder without mystery
OK but you find a category for it, then.
Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse
A mobster's put-upon lawyer with a failing marriage goes on a mindfulness course, and uses his learnings to go on a quite remarkable spree of horrific violence, but in a radically accepting way. Satirical, extremely funny and well observed. The second book is more of the same, perhaps less enjoyable, but does have a sex scene written as an arson scene, or vice versa, that is worth the price of admission on its own.
The Grimy 1920s In London
It wouln’t be a KJC Best Of list without historical hyperspecificity.
Songs of Seven Dials by Matt Houlbrook
Social history with incredible sense of place and time underpinned with deep, wide diverse research. This plunges you into 1920s/30s London with cross sections of class, wealth, race, origins, professions. It’s the story of one small area, the people who lived there and built communities, the people who passed through. Essential reading if you’re into London or social history or indeed the real 1920s.
Green Ink by Stephen May
A novelistic imagining of the last day of Victor Grayson's life (journalist, politician, socialist, spy, bisexual, alcoholic). His mess is mercilessly laid out on the page along with all the forces converging on him. It's a terrific picture of the 1920s: the miserable London setting is well drawn, and the chaotic politics and social upheaval of the time are well to the forefront along with a great mood of moral bankruptcy. It doesn't have a massive amount of plot, but you want to know what happens. Strong writing, fabulous atmosphere.
Dope Girls by Marek Kohn
Very readable social history covering drug use in the UK, the overreaching powers of DORA and criminalisation, and some of the key scandals that shaped opinion. Pleasantly concise, snappily written, interesting stuff.
The worst thing I read in 2025
With an option on ‘the worst thing I have ever read’.
Moonchild by Aleister Crowley
This book is so monstrously bad (overblown, terrible, malevolent, baffling) that there is a scene where a woman who is being magically impregnated has a dream of being pursued by giant one-eyed white tadpole-like things, and despite this being exactly as bad as it sounds, it didn’t even merit a mention in my review because I had so much else to say. The link takes you directly to my review; enjoy. (Can I here give a quiet but heartfelt round of applause to the person on Bluesky who told me off for posting it because I was being unsupportive of fellow authors’ work.)
If you need more (you always need more), here’s what I wrote this year!
A stroppy graphologist meets a repressed policeman in the course of a murder investigation and things go super smoothly with no trouble at all.
My take on the Gothic romance (mostly the 1970s iteration but underpinned by the Georgian original). Just look at the cover, that tells you everything.