It may be November but those end of the year round-ups are already starting and with book award season in full swing, what better time to share my LRG Best Books List for this rather tumultuous year of 2025?
This is a basic top five(with some honorable mentions coming up) of books that I read to completion this year and throughly enjoyed. My picks are all fiction (didn’t want to get into too much nonfiction as the daily headlines give me enough to deal with) and for the most part, published this year.
There’s a TBR reading challenge that I’ve been doing this year that will get a separate post of top reads later this month( none of those titles are listed here for that reason), Okay, time to present my literary winners in a somewhat chronological order of when I read them:
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: This debut novel from Drag Race superstar Bob the Drag Queen gives us a what if scenario; what if legendary figures from the past just suddenly showed up and decided to use modern day means to talk about their experiences with the rest of us?
As the title suggests, our narrator Darnell is recruited by Harriet and a small number of her historical traveling companions to produce their rap album as well as set up their tour. During this process, Darnell not only gets to work on the project of a lifetime, he also comes away with learning a few truths that could help him get over one of the worst moments of his personal and professional life.
The book is a short ride but filled to the brim with history, humor and heart, plus a couple of songs (added to the audio book edition) that make for a meaningful emotional soundtrack indeed:
For one thing, two women are trying to romance the same man without each other knowing it along the guy in question!
It starts with April, who leaves a note in a book for handsome store clerk Westley, only he doesn’t read it. Instead, the note is found by Laura, who thinks that Westley wrote it for her.
As for Westley, he’s more interested in the big league indie movie being filmed at the store than anything else and the camera really seems to love him as he takes a small part in the production. A charming sort of chaos soon follows.
This is the kind of novel that makes you wish that Nora Ephron was still with us in order to bring this engaging romantic comedy of errors to vivid cinematic life. For a debut novel, Macdonald shows the steady hand of a seasoned pro when it comes to this type of prose:
This first entry in James Islington’s
Lucky Day:
fantasy series introduces us to Vis, once a prince but now alone and orphaned by the empire known as The Hierarchy, which gains its powers by draining people of their actual will power.
Living a rough and tumble existence, Vis is recruited by Ulciscor Telimus, a high ranking official, to infiltrate Catenan Academy, a training ground for young future leaders, to discover the truth behind the mysterious death of Ulciscor’s brother . Having a hidden agenda of his own, Vis takes the offer yet finds that there’s much more that he bargained for here.
I won’t say more than that but I can say that now I understand the immense praise this story has been getting from readers and critics alike.
Granted, I had a rushed reading time with it(had to return it to the library sooner than I expected) but this intense blend of political drama, fantasy and coming of age saga was quite the page turning intoxicating bookish delight that I haven’t had the pleasure of in such a long time.
The second book, The Strength of the Few, was released earlier this month and I don’t know when it will be in my hands but I do know for a certainty that it will be worth the wait and then some:
Love is a War Song: On that same library trip that brought me to Will of the Many, I considered myself blessed by the bookish gods upon finding Danica Nava’s second novel on the shelves as well.
Our leading lady is Avery Fox, a rising pop star whose career has taken a major stumble due to a controversial magazine cover.
To ride out the backlash in private, Avery’s mom/manager sends to Oklahoma to stay at the horse ranch of her grandmother Lottie, whom she’s never met due to unresolved emotional issues. While there, Avery begins to learn more about her heritage and family history as well as clash with Lucas , Lottie’s right hand man who finds her shallow upon first sight.
Having read Nava’s first novel, The Truth According to Ember, not long before taking up this book, it was a treat to see the quick leaps and bounds in storytelling skills that the author has made so far. No doubt about it, Nava is on her way to being a literary chart topper with this riveting romcom that shows love is a battlefield yet worth winning nonetheless:
This wild new ride by Chuck Tingle has a number of interesting themes in it, such as the depths of corruption, recovery from trauma and bi erasure, yet the overwhelming universal theme that I found within these pages is facing the utter chaos of life itself.
The novel follows Vera, who lost her mother during a bizarrely tragic occurrence called the Low Probability Event, in which the most unlikely events happened all at once. This LPE lead to massive deaths and emotional aftershocks that even four years later, Vera hasn’t been able to start to recover from.
Having been a devoted statistician, Vera’s faith in stability has been shattered severely but when a government agent asks her to join in an investigation on a suspiciously lucky casino that may hold the answers to what happened that terrible day, she takes him up on that offer and her true journey begins.
To say that the story that unfolds here is unimaginable is an understatement and a compliment all at once. Tingle has an amazing talent in mixing horror, humor and finely tuned emotional depth that is breathtaking to behold. It’s a strong cup of tea to be sure yet worth taking a taste of true literary magic worthy of being seriously savored:
Lucky Day, as it happens, is a nominee in the Horror category of the Goodreads Choice Awards, which started their opening voting rounds today, Yes, I voted for Lucky Day and a few others ( which I plan to post about soon) and hopefully, it will make the finals. Keeping my fingers crossed for sure on that one!
In the meanwhile, here are my honorable mentions, books that are great reads that I highly recommend:
The Build-a-Boyfriend Project by Mason Deaver
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
A couple of those book are also Goodreads nominees but regardless of that , they are definitely awesome books on their own merits. I just didn’t want to overwhelm my post with such massive praise for them!
Here’s to looking forward to more wonderful books in our collective future, despite how fraught our timeline looks at the moment. Yes, it’s hard to deal with these times that we’re going through yet it does help to take a break for simple moments of joy.
This morning, I saw the first snow of the season( snow flurries but still..) and while running my usual errands, discovered to my delight that it was cold enough for my breath to fog up. It happened briefly but that once was plenty enough for a small surprise of fun.
Not much of a thrill, I know, but being able to do that was always a mini magical bit that I have been charmed by since childhood and it’s nice to get that little jolt of bliss from such a mundane thing after all these years.
It may not be much but those tiny things that give you a sense of pure happiness are treasures worth protecting. Whether it’s the weather, a favorite cookie or a good book, those are gifts that no one can take away, no matter how much they try. Happy reading, folks , this and every year to come:
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