2025 is going to be a wild year for books. So many anticipated releases have dropped already in January alone, and we’re only eighteen days into the year. My calendar is packed full of release dates for the next six-to-eight months, primarily from authors that I know and love. The list I’ve compiled below is comprised of auto-buy authors and series continuations that I’ve been jonesing to get my hands on for weeks, months, and even years in some cases.
Let’s talk my most anticipated new releases of 2025!
Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli (February 18th) – “In Kristen Ciccarelli’s Rebel Witch, the exciting conclusion to The Crimson Moth duology, love has never been so deadly.”
Happy birthday to ME! Seriously, the sequel to Heartless Hunter drops the day before my birthday, and I’ve blocked out the entire day to consume it as a birthday gift to myself. I’ve been dying for February to roll around so I can know what happens to Rune and Gideon. Counting down the days!!
Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake (April 1st) – “the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.”
Full disclosure, I was not a fan of The Atlas Six series (a potentially hot take that we will discuss at a later date). That being said, I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with every other book she’s ever written, so I hope this release makes me feel the way that Masters of Death and One for My Enemy did.
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (April 22nd) – “Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.”
My parents gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for Christmas, and you best believe the first thing I did with it was preorder Emily Henry’s upcoming new release. I’ve blocked out a section of my April TBR already to do a reread of her entire backlog.
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig (May 20th) – “A gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a prophetess who is forced beyond the safety of her cloister on an impossible quest to defeat the gods with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight.”
If this new series is anything like Gillig’s One Dark Window duology, I’m afraid I will not be able to think about anything else for the next six months.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (June 3rd) – “Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.”
Okay, a TJR book about ASTRONAUTS. This one may be about different stars than she normally writes about (a little Hollywood celebrity pun there, oops), but it’s sure to be a banger either way.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (June 10th) – “Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 1532. London, 1837, Boston, 2019. Three young women, their bones planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots. One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild. And all of them grow teeth.”
How could you not want to read that the second it falls into your hands?!
Scorched Earth by Danielle L. Jensen (August 5th) – “With the blight consuming everything in its path and the Empire crushing everyone who stands before it, Reath is falling beneath the tide of evil. Secrets will be revealed that break hearts even as they forge new alliances, but only the greatest sacrifices of all will turn the tide in the battle for the liberty of every nation on Reath.”
I have been waiting YEARS for the final book in the Dark Shores series. I’m not even being dramatic, I read #3, Gilded Serpent, in April ‘22. I am SO excited to get back into this world of pirates and legionnaires!
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (August 28th) – “Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R.F. Kuang…in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.”
Everything that R.F. Kuang writes makes me question the world around me. Her prose is lyrical and her points hidden with her chapters are hard-hitting. Every novel of hers will make you think about history and society. Normally, I read to disassociate, but Kuang’s upcoming release is going to be worth the mental gymnastics on which I’m sure it’s going to send me.
Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber (September 30) – “[Holland] has no idea that this quest will lead her into a deadly world of century-old secrets and unimaginable lies and onto the path of two very dangerous men, both of whom are willing to do whatever it takes to find a magic that will either forever alter Holland’s life or completely destroy it.”
This book looks like it’s going to be a huge departure from Garber’s usual lighthearted fantasy novels, but I just know she’s going to do a wonderful job. Old Hollywood. Deals with the devil. Dark academia. You can’t go wrong with that!!
The Strength of the Few by James Islington (September?) – There’s no word on an official release date, but the author has shared that he’s deep in the editing trenches at the moment and believes we’re looking at a late 2025 release date. This could mean September, this could mean December, or any time in between. Either way, I am SAT because I need the sequel to The Will of the Many in my hands ASAP.
There are a lot more new releases that I’m eagerly awaiting, but these are easily my top ten. Let me know which books (new releases or backlog!) that you’re looking forward to reading the most this year! Cheers, and happy reading!
Sequels and Scribbles 