New book releases for 2025: These 12 novels span genres and time periods

It’s never too early to start planning which books you’ll be buying over the next year. Across fantasy , literary fiction, historical fiction , romance and more, here are The National’s picks for the novels you should look out for in 2025. Release date: January 21 Listed as on the bestseller charts by August 2024 due to pre-order sales, the third instalment of the popular Empyrean series is one year’s most anticipated releases. Following the action in the first two novels Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, the romantasy story will continue to follow Violet Sorrengail. She attended Basgiath War College, where she become a dragon rider and worked with her friends to fight evil magic-wielders. But things are different now. They aren’t students any more. There is a dangerous and very real war happening and Violet must protect the things she cherishes the most – her dragons, her family, her home, and him. Release date: February 4 Ali Hazelwood is known for her romance novels, such as the popular The Love Hypothesis and Not in Love . Her next release delves into love in the world of competitive sports. Scarlett Vandermeer is a dedicated junior at Stanford University trying to get into medical school and a student-athlete specialising in platform diving. She has no time for relationships. Lukas Blomqvist the golden boy, a swim captain and world champion who thrives on discipline. They seem to have nothing in common until a well-guarded secret slips out and changes everything. So Scarlett and Lukas make an arrangement, a temporary fling. But when Olympics pressure builds up, their relationship takes a turn and Scarlett realises that staying away from Lukas is impossible changing what she knows about herself and her future. Release date: February 4 This novel is based on a true story from the 16th century. Marguerite is a young woman destined for a life of prosperity as the heir to a chateau with its own village and land. But everything changes when she is orphaned and her guardian, Jean Francois de la Rocque de Roberval – a volatile older man she has never met – takes control of her assets and future. Alone and afraid, Marguerite begins a relationship with De Roberval’s servant. The two start meeting secretly when they are discovered by De Roberval who, as punishment, maroons them on a small island. Marguerite is now at the mercy of nature and must learn to survive in the wilderness on her own. Release date: February 25 Hollywood is preparing for the biggest night of the year and five actresses hope to win the prize of the night. Adria is the grand dame of the movie industry; Bitty is attempting to control a nervous breakdown; Contessa, a former child star wants the world to take her seriously; Davina wants to make a name for herself in Los Angeles after leaving the London stage; and Jenny, who has always come second to Adria. This debut novel from Variety chief correspondent Daniel D'Addario is set to be a delicious look into the build up towards the awards season and how the women who are in the business of being perceived and revered are forced to confront truths about themselves. Release date: March 4 Nigerian writer and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has several literary accolades under her belt, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, this year she is set to release her first novel since Americanah in 2013 . The novel follows the lives of four Nigerian women – Chiamaka, Zikora, Omelogor and Kadiatou – and explores themes of love, longing, and self-discovery. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer who, in the midst of the pandemic, recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices. Zikora, her best friend, is a successful lawyer in the midst of heartbreak turns to the last person she thought she needed. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who is now unsure how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is raising her daughter in America is facing a hardship that will threaten all she has worked to achieve. Release date: March 4 From the renowned Arab-American novelist Laila Lalami comes a novel set in a dystopian future where even our dreams are being watched. Sara has just landed at LAX when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration (RAA) inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at risk of harming her husband and she must be kept under observation for 21 days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention centre, where she is held with other inmates, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from crimes they are yet to supposedly commit. Then a new resident arrives, leading Sara down a path that sees her face the companies that are taking away her freedom. Release date: March 11 Exploring motherhood, parenting challenges and the pressures of fitting in, Harman’s darkly comedic novel follows the story of Florence Grimes, a 31-year-old single mother and former pop star. Florence is attempting to clear her 10-year-old son Dylan's name when he becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his classmate, Alfie Risby a bully and heir to a frozen food empire, during a school trip. Despite her lack of any investigative skills and her disdain of the other mothers from Dylan’s private school, Florence decides to investigate the case herself and prove her son's innocence. Release date: March 11 Part feminist satire, part thriller, this novels touches on themes of fertility and reproduction as a marker for identity. Sanjana Satyananda is a 39-year-old woman trying to recover her life after leaving her husband, Killian, at a commune in India when they disagree about having children. She is determined to resurrect her career and get her divorce finalised, but then gets the news that Killian has gone missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she is faced with the choices she didn’t take in life and begins to wonder what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. Release date: May 6 This story is told in dual timelines and spans three generations. It begins with the death of actress Vivian Yin, who rose to fame in the 1980s and then disappeared from the spotlight at the height of her career, living out the rest of her life as a recluse. Now that she has died, her daughters expect to inherit her Southern California garden estate but, in a last-minute change to the will, the house has passed on to another family instead. In hopes of staking their claim, both families move into the mansion and now Vivian’s daughters must find out what happened to their mother during the last weeks of her life. Release date: May 13 Set in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, this is a story of an unlikely friendship. Hai is a 19-year-old who is contemplating suicide on a bridge during a rainy evening when he is stopped by Grazina, an elderly widow with dementia. This life-changing encounter pushes Hai to become her caretaker. Over the course of the following a year, they develop a profound bond that transforms both their lives. Hai starts to change his relationship with his family, his community and himself. Release date: June 3 Taylor Jenkins Reid has made a name for herself with a run of best-selling novels, including The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six. This year she's taken her writing back to the setting of the 1980s Space Shuttle programme, with a love story set within it's high-pressure confines. Physics and astronomy professor Joan Goodwin has long been fascinated by stars, which prompts her to apply to be one of the first women scientists to join Nasa’s Space Shuttle programme. She is selected, and joins a crop of fellow candidates on the programme, where they strike up life-changing relationships as they prepare to take on their first flight. Release date: August 26 After her hugely popular The Poppy War fantasy trilogy and the bestselling thriller Yellowface , RF Kuang is releasing a dark academia fantasy novel. Alice Law is a determined student who has sacrificed almost everything to achieve her dream: to be one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick and to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. But then her plans come to a halt when he dies in a magical accident that is possibly her fault. The professor may be dead, but that’s not going to stop Alice from getting her recommendation and secure the future of their academic careers. And that’s exactly the same conclusion her academic rival Peter Murdoch has come to. Now they have to work together to rescue the soul of their adviser.

New book releases for 2025: These 12 novels span genres and time periods

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