January 2025 releases to add to your TBR
The new year is here and so there’s a whole 12 months of new releases that I’ve been noting down in my handy phone note so I can stay on top of everything on my radar coming out this year. I know it’s a dorky habit, but it’s so handy to have at my fingertips.
This month we have debuts, new books from YA legends, cosy fantasy and, of course, a sequel that half of the book world is not so patiently waiting for.
‘AFTER LIFE’ BY GAYLE FORMAN
7th January, Hot Key Books
One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It's just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber's mom sees her, she screams. Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she's inexplicably riding now.
This return doesn't only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber's estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber's friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone's turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?
This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.
Though I don’t read contemporary YA much anymore, my enduring love for Forman’s ‘If I Stay’ and ‘Where She Went’ makes me eager to pick this up when it comes out. Forman’s novels are always beautifully written and an emotional gut punch, and they clearly ling long after finishing as ‘If I Stay’ came out back in 2009!
‘WATER MOON’ BY SAMANTHA SOTTO YAMBAO
16th January, Bantam / Transworld Digital
Would you rewrite your destiny if it meant losing a part of your past?
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it.
Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just the chosen ones – those who are lost – will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop's new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike other customers. For he offers help, instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice – through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own – and risk making a choice she will never be able to take back.
This cosy fantasy debut also falls into the sub genre healing fiction which as seen a huge boom in the latter half of 2025, but I’m more in it for the cosy fantasy vibes and the absolutely stunning cover - it really gives me those cosy vibes and promising some really stunning writing. The reviews are already coming in really strong so I think this is going to be my next book of the month as I was lucky enough to snag a NetGalley proof.
‘REVVED UP AND READY’ BY JASMINE GRACE
16th January, Jasmine Grace (Kindle Unlimited)
Cam Hacker is too dangerous to date. Good thing we're only pretending.
Maybe I shouldn't admit it, but after ending my nine-year relationship, I have no idea who I am anymore. So, I’ve decided to rediscover myself using a list of things I’ve never done before. Step one: Break up with that jerk. Check. Step two: Move to Palm Springs. Check.
Now, I’m working on step three: Figure out what comes next—when, of course, my ex gets engaged to the woman he cheated on me with. So, naturally, I take the high road…by fake dating his favorite motorcycle racer—who also happens to be my impossibly sexy new roommate.
Sadie Winslow agreed to be my pretend girlfriend. Honestly, I must be the luckiest guy alive.
Ten years ago, a viral video of me winning a street race in nothing but my helmet and boots made me an overnight sensation. Using my reputation as The Race Naked Guy to fund my career worked—until it didn’t.
Now, I need to clean up my act if I want to race next year. Fortunately for me, my adorable, ray-of-sunshine roomie is more than willing to help. Acting like we're a couple? Easy. Keeping it strictly pretend? That's going to be the real challenge.
This is the third book in the ‘Heartbeats in the Heat’ series and I’m really looking forward to it! These are really quick and fun romances set in Palm Springs and they work as great palette cleansers between heavier reads.
‘AND HE SHALL APPEAR’ BY KATE VAN DER BOURGH
16th January, Fourth Estate
In the hallowed halls of Cambridge, a dangerous obsession takes hold…
When a young man arrives in Cambridge as a first-year student, he finds himself an outsider. There’s the punting and the politics, the wine and the waistcoats, all seemingly familiar to everyone but him. Then he falls under the spell of Bryn Cavendish.
A notorious party boy and skilled magician, Bryn is magnetic. To be in his circle is to revel in clouds of ecstasy, untouched by the rules. To be exiled is to haunt the peripheries of campus life like a ghost.
As the academic year intensifies and Bryn’s magic tricks become more sinister, one question lingers. Is Bryn’s charisma the source of his influence or does he wield a much darker and more dangerous power?
I am one half of The Dark Academicals so of course I’m excited for a debut being compared to ‘The Secret History’ and ‘Saltburn’! I think this will make an appearance on a season of the podcast this year so I probably won’t be reading it soon, but I’m excited nonetheless.
‘ONYX STORM’ BY REBECCA YARROS
21st January, Piatkus
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 to 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 bit 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 can survive its wrath.
I don’t think a synopsis was needed for this because basically half of the bookish world is waiting for this book, but I am so excited about it that I have to include it. The third book in ‘The Empyrean’ series is going to be one of my highlights of the first part of the year (I really, really hope) and I’m very excited to reread the first two books and dive in as soon as it’s out.
‘THE LAMB’ BY LUCY ROSE
30th January, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.
With this gothic coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.
‘The Lamb’ sounds creepy, gross, fun and like a truly wild ride and it’s already had a huge amount of buzz - I think it’s going to be a big release for 2025. I have a proof from NetGalley so you’ll hopefully be seeing a review fairly soon!
‘BLOB: A LOVE STORY’ BY MAGGIE SU
30th January, Sceptre
A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect man...
Vi Liu's life is a mess. Having dropped out of college, she's stuck in a job she hates at a local hotel. Her ex-boyfriend has blocked her and she's lashing out at her family and co-workers.
One night, drunk outside a drag club, she stumbles across a mysterious sentient blob. She takes it home, where she feeds it a diet of sugary cereal and reality TV. Slowly, she realises that she can shape the blob into her perfect man: someone attentive, outgoing and with more than a passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling.
But is Bob the blob really the answer to all her problems, or a catalyst for further disaster? Sharp, strange and very funny, BLOB is a delightful story about growing up, fucking up and learning how to be a real person.
I’ve just read this! It’s bizarre and funny and though I had a rough start with it, I ended up really enjoying it.
What’s on your January 2025 wishlist?
Written by Sophie
