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Top Book Club Picks for 2025

Updated: Jan 06, 2025

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Author

Zoe Epstein

New year, new reading list! If you're looking for book club book recommendations, check out our definitive list of the best book club picks for 2025. These books, all scheduled for release in 2025, will thrill your club and get the discussion rolling. You’ll see some familiar names along with fresh and exciting debuts. Be sure to bookmark this page and check back again as we add additional titles releasing later in the year.

If you're looking for book club inspiration that's already been published, you can check out our book club predictions from 2024 and what ended up being 2024's most popular book club books.  From our Top Books page, you can also check out what books are trending with book clubs on our website each month.

If you have a Bookclubs account, click on the book images below to add the books to your Books I Want to Read shelf, or to recommend them to one of your clubs. (If you don’t have a Bookclubs account yet, it’s easy and free to get started here)

 

The Most Anticipated Book Club Books of 2025

The following titles are listed in order of publication date.

Beautiful Ugly

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

Publication date: January 14, 2025

The Queen of Twists (Rock, Paper, Scissors; Daisy Darker) is back with another heart-pounding thriller.  An author's wife goes missing.  A year later, he thinks he sees her again on a remote Scottish island where nothing is as it seems. 

 Buy Now - Beautiful Ugly

 

Onyx Storm

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

Publication date: January 21, 2025

The highly anticipated third installment of Yarros' Empyrean series arrives in January.  Following up on the events of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, Onyx Storm finds Violet Sorrengail leaving her education behind and journeying to unfamiliar lands on a quest to save her homeland. 

 Buy Now - Onyx Storm

 


We Do Not Part

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

Publication date: January 25, 2025

The winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature was lauded by the prize committee for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."  We Do Not Part -- which explores both female friendship and a hidden chapter in Korean history -- was published before she was awarded the prize, but the English translation comes out this year.

 Buy Now - We Do Not Part

 


Good Dirt

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

Publication date: January 28, 2025

This new novel from the author of Black Cake is a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs the present.  After a high-profile romance falls apart, Ebby flees to France.  But her past follows her -- including the unsolved crime of her brother's death, and the legacy of a handcrafted jar that shattered when he was shot.

 Buy Now - Good Dirt

 

A Forty Year Kiss
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A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler

Publication date: February 4, 2025

"A story that captures the hope, grace, and joy of new love—but also the mistakes, scar tissue, and regret of past love. It’s a wonder to behold, a novel capable of such breadth. This is the kind of book that makes me a better human." —Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness

From the critically acclaimed author of Shotgun Lovesongs comes an exquisitely written, small-town story about one couple's hard-won second chance at love, forty years after their divorce.

 Buy Now

 

Mutual Interest
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Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith

Publication date: February 4, 2025

For fans of TV's Succession and Hernan Diaz’s Trust, this is a mesmerizing novel about marriage and ambition, sexuality and secrecy, and the costs of building an empire.

At the turn of the 20th century, Vivian is trying to make her way in New York City, and a lavender marriage to Oscar Schmidt might be just the ticket. When Vivian's business ambitions require capital, the two pair up with Squire Clancey, scion of an old American fortune. Oscar and Squire fall in love while Vivian takes their business to new heights, but when exposure threatens, all three realize just how much they have to lose.

 Buy Now

 

Broken Country
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Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Publication date: March 4, 2025


A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads SingBroken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.

 Buy Now - Broken Country

 

Dream Count

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Publication date: March 4, 2025

The first novel in 10 years from the acclaimed author of Americanah tells the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

 Buy Now

 

The Hymn to Dionysus
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The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley

Publication date: March 18, 2025

A timely reimagining of the story of Dionysus-Greek god of ecstasy, revelry, and ruin-and a captivating queer love story for readers of The Song of Achilles and Elektra.

 Buy Now

 

Great Big Beautiful Life

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Publication date: April 22, 2025

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 sweeping new novel from Emily Henry (Funny Story, Happy Place).

 Buy Now

 

The Missing Half

The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers

Publication date: May 6, 2025

In this follow-up novel from the host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie and author of All Good People Here, two women haunted by their sisters' unsolved disappearances band together to find them.

 Buy Now - The Missing Half

 

The Original Daughter

The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei

Publication date: May 6, 2025

This buzzy debut explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

 Buy Now - The Original Daughter

 

One Golden Summer

One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

Publication date: May 6, 2025

An escapist beach read following up on the success of Every Summer After and This Summer Will Be Different, Carley Fortune returns us to the lake as she spins the love story of Alice and Charlie.

 Buy Now - One Golden Summer

 


Aftertaste
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Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle

Publication date: May 20, 2025

What if you could have one last meal with someone you've loved, someone you've lost? Combining the magic of Under the Whispering Door with the high-stakes culinary world of Sweetbitter, Aftertaste is an epic love story, a dark comedy, and a synesthetic adventure through food and grief.

A food story to binge. A ghost story to devour. A love story to savor.

 Buy Now - Aftertaste

 


Atmosphere

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Publication date: June 3, 2025

The book-club-beloved author (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn HugoDaisy Jones & The Six) is back with a new love story set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program.

 Buy Now

 


The Girls Who Grew Big

The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley

Publication date: June 24, 2025

From the author of Oprah's Book Club pick Nightcrawling, comes this new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida Panhandle.

 Buy Now - The Girls Who Grew Big

 

These book selections comprise titles chosen by the Bookclubs editorial staff, as well as the top titles recommended for book clubs by some of our publishing sponsors, such as Bloomsbury, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks. If you purchase books through the links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.

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COMMENTS

Glenn Benson

Jan 03, 2025 - 15 days

Great for fiction. Our club, however, being men, reads a lot of non-fiction and so a list of those books would be helpful. However, I use NPR and the NY times myself for many of the ones I find. Here is a good list from B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/most-anticipated-nonfiction-of-2025/

Dawn

Jan 03, 2025 - 15 days

Absolutely CANNOT WAIT for Onyx Storm!! Thanks for some interesting titles to kick off 2025!

Brittaney Netter-Woods

Dec 12, 2024 - 1 month

Interesting lineup. I'm most looking forward to Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Thanks for the post!