Boy! We have not done one of these in a LONG TIME, have we? I tried to pick shorter books this month as I do have The Will of the Many on the docket.

Books That Came out in 2025

Plot: True-crime-obsessed Lara Oyinlola is heading to Lagos for her favourite cousin, Dérin’s, wedding. It’s going to be a holiday filled with glitzy dress-fittings, glamorous parties and, of course, the star-studded event of the year. But everything isn’t perfect in Dérin’s world. She’s been receiving anonymous threats telling her to cancel the wedding . . . or face dire consequences. This is the moment Lara’s been waiting for: put her sleuthing knowledge to work and solve a real-life mystery. As Lara investigates, what she doesn’t expect to uncover is a web of secrets, malicious crimes, and near‑death encounters which promise to tear the family apart for good . . .

This was highly recommended by my booktokker mutuals!

Synopsis: Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure? Rarely do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and of our relationship to the joy of reading. In each of the essays in Every Day I Read, Hwang Bo-reum contemplates what living a life immersed in reading means. She goes beyond the usual questions of what to read and how often, exploring the relationship between reading and writing, when to turn to a bestseller vs. browse the corners of a bookstore, the value of reading outside of your favorite genre, falling in love with book characters, and more. Every Day I Read provides many quiet moments for introspection and reflection, encouraging book-lovers to explore what reading means to each of us. While this is a book about books, at its heart is an attitude to life, one outside capitalism and climbing the corporate ladder. Lifelong and new readers will take away something from it, including a treasure trove of book recommendations blended seamlessly within.

Massive fan of this author’s first book Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop. I am looking forward to her non-fiction.

Plot: Christmas Eve, 1943. Anthony and Elva Pratt arrive in a snowy English village to run a murder mystery game – and instead discover a real murder. The Pratts had planned for festive cheer, despite the wartime with Elva’s map of the hotel and Anthony’s prop weapons to use as clues, the guests in their parlour game would move through the rooms to figure out whodunnit. But when Anthony discovers the cook’s sister Miss Silver beaten to death, they instead find themselves investigating a shockingly real crime. The hotel manager Mr Browning is trying to keep the peace but the guests are agitated, Colonel Colman is about to take over the hotel for the war effort – and the mysterious Mrs Threadgold hasn’t been seen at all. In games, there’s only one victim – but this is real life. Can the Pratts puzzle out this Christmas mystery before it’s too late?

Yes it’s weird that I am reading a Christmas book in November but I have to read it for work 🙂

Plot: A collection of fifty-two short stories and pieces of flash fiction, The Woman Dies takes as its impetus the various forms of discrimination entrenched within Japanese society, particularly the long, stubborn roots of sexism.   Matsuda approaches often-thorny subjects such as the normalizing effect of violence against women on screen, or the aesthetics associated with technology, with an inventiveness and quirky humor that keep the narrative on the cusp between seriousness and levity.    Wordplay evolves into something much more complex, inanimate objects are endowed with their own point of view, and hard-hitting feminist stances are conveyed with a dry, detached humor that makes them all the more uncompromising.   Not so much a rollercoaster ride, rather an entire theme park, The Woman Dies is an out-of-the ordinary space readers will step into with feelings of wonder and discombobulation in equal parts.  

Plot: When a professor named Cristina Rivera Garza stumbles upon the corpse of a man in a dark alley, she finds a stark warning scrawled on the brick wall beside the body, written in coral nail “Beware of me, my love / beware of the silent woman in the desert.” After reporting the crime to the police, the professor becomes the lead informant of the case, led by a detective with a newfound obsession with poetry and a long list of failures on her back. But what has the professor really seen? As more bodies of men are found across the city, the detective tries to decipher the meaning of the poems, and if they are facing a darker stream of violence spreading throughout the city.

Backlist

Plot: The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus – what they call Will – to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do. I tell them that I belong, and they believe me. But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart. And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family. To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me. And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

This one is for book group Jan 2026 but it’s so big and the writing is so tiny I need at least two months with this book.

Plot: When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

This is my Nov 2026 book group pick!

Plot: Though Arslan and his party have escaped Kharlan’s forces, Kharlan will stop at nothing to capture the former prince of Pars. To draw out Arslan, Kharlan has an underhanded plan to massacre innocent villagers until the prince makes his appearance, but Arslan will not stand idly by while the lives of his people are at stake, so he heads out to take on Kharlan and his army of over one thousand soldiers. Though it may seem like Arslan’s sense of justice is far from strong enough to take on Kharlan’s overwhelming military might, with Narsus’ razor-sharp wit, Daryun’s unmatched prowess as a soldier, Elam’s excellent bow skills, and the help of two new and formidable allies, Arslan has more than a fighting chance to prevail and journey closer to reclaiming his once lost kingdom.