“I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being.”
Looking for the best book club books of 2025? Whether you’re hosting your group for the first time or searching for fresh book club recommendations, we’ve got you covered. This year’s book club picks range from thought-provoking literary fiction to addictive thrillers and heartfelt historical sagas – stories guaranteed to spark lively discussions long after the last page. The most successful book club books aren’t just entertaining; they’re conversation starters. They ask big questions, introduce unforgettable characters, and offer perspectives worth debating. That’s why we’ve rounded up the most talked-about book club picks of 2025, shining the spotlight on titles already generating buzz among readers, critics, and book clubs everywhere. So, if your group is wondering what to read next, this list of the top book club books for 2025 will give you plenty of choices that are not only engaging but perfect for meaningful conversations.
Dream Count – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Kicking off our list of the best book club books of 2025 is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who finds herself turning to the person she thought she needed the least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins questioning how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Dream Count radiates emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power.
Check Out The Best Historical Fiction Books From Spring 2025
Boleyn Traitor – Philippa Gregory
Jane Boleyn watches from the shadows of the Tudor court, where secrets are currency, every decision is dangerous, and even the faintest whisper can seal the fate of queens. For Jane, survival demands playing every role required of her: a loving wife who conceals her doubts, a devoted sister to Anne Boleyn, and an obedient spy who carefully wields her words. But in a court ruled by ambition and a tyrant’s sword, Jane needs to depend on her sharp wit and skilful manoeuvring to outthink those around her, aware that the one wrong move may cost her everything.
Philippa Gregory masterfully shines a spotlight on the untold story of Jane Boleyn, peeling back the myths to reveal a complex portrait of a woman who dared to survive at any cost. Boleyn Traitor is one of the best 2025 book club books for fans of thrilling historical drama and readers hooked by the intrigue of the Tudor era.
Onyx Storm (The Empyrean #3) – Rebecca Yarros
After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who you can trust. Now, Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre.
The trip will test every ounce of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves – her dragons, her family, her home, and him. Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find – the truth. But a storm is coming… and not everyone will survive its fury in Rebecca Yarros’ thrilling newest entry in The Empyrean series, Onyx Storm.
The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8) – Robert Galbraith
A dismembered corpse is discovered in the vault of a silver shop. The police initially believe it to be that of a convicted armed robber, but not everyone agrees with that theory. One of them is Decima Mullins, who calls on the help of private detective Cormoran Strike as she’s adamant the body in the silver vault was that of her boyfriend, who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.
The more Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott delve into the case, the more labyrinthine it becomes. As things become ever more complicated and dangerous, Strike faces another quandary. Robin seems increasingly committed to her boyfriend, policeman Ryan Murphy, but the impulse to declare his own feelings for her is becoming stronger than ever. A gripping, wonderfully complex novel which takes Strike and Robin’s story to a new level, The Hallmarked Man is the perfect pick for any book club with serious crime thriller fans.
Good Dirt – Charmaine Wilkerson
When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. The crime itself was never solved – and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England, the case had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing they needed was another media frenzy splashing across the papers. Yet, when Ebby’s high-profile romance falls apart without explanation, that’s precisely what they get.
So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what’s happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family’s history – it may also hold the key to unlocking her future. In this new sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life an epic multi-generational saga that examines how the past informs our present.
Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Always a favourite with reading groups, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s newest novel, Atmosphere, opens with Joan Goodwin and her fascination with the stars. She happens upon an advertisement looking for the first woman scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates.
As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan starts to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere transports readers to iconic times and places, weaving a passionate story about the transformative power of love, helping to make this one of the best book club books of 2025.
Check Out The Best Books Like Atmosphere
The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club #5) – Richard Osman
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving, Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy for his favourite criminal.
But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnapping and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time? Richard Osman once again shows himself to be one of the best cosy crime writers in the world with his newest Thursday Murder Club book, 2025’s The Impossible Fortune.
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Broken Country – Clare Leslie Hall
Beth and her gentle, kind husband, Frank, are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realise that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. The dog belongs to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager – the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son, Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.
As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise, and dangerous secrets and jealousies resurface from the past, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was and the woman she has become. One of the best book club picks from 2025, Broken Country is a sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, brimming with passion, impossible decisions, and explosive consequences.
Check Out The Best Books Like Broken Country
Buckeye – Patrick Ryan
In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked by the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not by the war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving in the Navy, out of harm’s way – that is, until a telegram suggests the unthinkable may have happened.
Later, as the country rebuilds in the postwar boom, a secret grows in Bonohomie – but nothing stays buried in a small town. Against the backdrop of some of the most transformative decades in American history, the consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold in Patrick Ryan’s new 2025 book, Buckeye, perfect for reading groups.
Katabasis – R.F. Kuang
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality – her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work for Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world – that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death itself is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.
Check Out These Summer 2025 Books You Need To Read
Beautiful Ugly – Alice Feeney
Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life. Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff, the headlights are on, the door is open, her phone is still there… but his wife has vanished.
A year on, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write. So he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try and get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.
Say You’ll Remember Me – Abby Jimenez
There may not be such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving serious Greek god vibes – all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is, until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolutely wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha likes more than proving an asshole wrong…
… Unless, of course, he can admit that he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date – possibly the best in living memory – Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any sort of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that might be. No amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And in Abby Jimenez’s new 2025 romance novel, the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life – and even a love – worth remembering.
Aftertaste – Daria Lavelle
Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around Kostya ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favourite foods. Flavours of meals he has never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.
Kostya learns that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones – at least for the length of time it takes for them to eat a dish he’s prepared. Yet as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him. Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is one of the best book club books of 2025, a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger.
The Girls Who Grew Big – Leila Mottley
Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Pauda Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate no matter the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young mothers who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.
The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood. Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and presents a new perspective on what it means to be a young woman, perfect for a reading group discussion.
Not Quite Dead Yet – Holly Jackson
In seven days, Jet Mason will be dead. Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. Until Halloween night, when an unseen intruder violently assaults Jet.
She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that, within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm. Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend. She has at most seven days, and as her condition worsens, she has only her childhood friend, Billy, for help. Nevertheless, she is determined to solve her own murder. With a gripping premise and plenty of twists and turns, Holly Jackson’s Not Quite Dead Yet promises to be one of the best thriller book club books from 2025.
Homeseeking – Karissa Chen
Haiwen is buying bananas in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen, it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. Suchi was just seven when she met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighbourhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.
In one of the best new historical fiction novels and 2025 book club books, Karissa Chen weaves a story of separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them through the song halls of Hong Kong, the encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York through to sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past, and Suchi’s from her childhood to the present. Epic and intimate, Homeseeking is a story of family, sacrifice, and the power of love to endure beyond both distance and time.
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
