So…the end of the year is (checks the calendar) just a few sleeps away. Apparently it is the job of a book reviewer like myself to provide a BEST OF THE YEAR list and I have honestly been keeping a list like this in mind since January 1 of this year.
Now, I have 9 books that I put at a 10/10 ranking on my lists this year. I could just list those, but that would be BORING. And frankly, all those rankings took place in the day or two after I read all those books, which means that some I might go back and rank slightly lower now, but I also want to recommend and highlight some other books that might not have been full 10/10 rankings on the day I read them.
A FEW CAVEATS:
- I did not read EVERYTHING that was released in the last calendar year. While I read well over 100 novels, some things just didn’t get read for one reason or another. Notable books I did not read, therefore am not including on this list:
- Shadows Upon Time (Sun Eater #7) by Christopher Ruocchio. I have read the first Sun Eater novel, but haven’t made it any further as of yet.
- Of Empires and Dust (The Bound and the Broken #5) by Ryan Cahill. Same story…but I have read the first two novels in Cahill’s series.
- King Sorrow by Joe Hill. I have the hardback sitting right next to me as I write this, but at this point it’s more looking like an early 2026 read for this reviewer.
- Whispers of the Storm by Z.B. Steele as well as (INSERT YOUR OWN FAVORITE INDIE BOOK). I’ve seen countless people raving about Steele’s fantasy novel and it’s sitting on my Kindle right now, but just haven’t gotten there yet. I’ve read a fair share of indie-published books this past year, but obviously there are SO MANY that I just can’t get to them all.
- Also, this list is MY list. I can’t deny I’m not influenced by others and their opinions, but I like what I like. I’m always trying to expand my reading tastes, but at the end of the day, I may not vibe with the book that you vibed with. There are a lot of GREAT books that were just not quite what I was going for and were dinged a little on review from me, and likewise, there may be a book or two on this list that you don’t like as well as me. Cool. Art is subjective and I love to see what everyone else ranks on their end-of-the-year list.
So, without further ado…
FAVORITE ANTHOLOGY OF THE YEAR
I have a soft spot for short story anthologies. If one story doesn’t quite vibe with you…just flip to the next one a few pages away. I found a few really fun anthologies this past year, but ultimately this award ended up going to a multi-author collection I read very early in 2025 — Combat Monsters, edited by Henry Herz. Combat Monsters tells stories with World War II as a backdrop, but with supernatural, fantasy, and/or horror elements taking top-billing. There was a wonderful variety of stories that showed the horrors of war sometimes mixed with eldritch horrors. Oftentimes we saw that even with sea monsters and strange beasts, the evils wrought by humanity still managed to outrage and horrify. I really loved this collection and eagerly anticipate future releases from Henry Herz. (My review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-combat-monsters-untold-tales-of-world-war-ii-edited-by-henry-herz/)
FAVORITE BOOK PUBLISHED BEFORE 2025
I’ll be honest — a vast majority of the books I read this year featured books published this year (or even a handful coming in 2026). So there wasn’t a lot to choose from for this award, but the choice was simple and this goes to The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I had tried to read this book once or twice before, but it was hard to get into for me. But I was reassured by many other readers it was worth it, and holy smokes they were right. I just needed to push through the initial introduction and I was hooked. I don’t normally go for characters like Locke and his crew, but when Lynch makes the antagonist of the story so despicable it really made me root for Locke at every step along the way, even as I couldn’t see a way out of each and every situation he found himself in. It’s really a remarkable novel and I regret not reading it sooner. (My review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-the-lies-of-locke-lamora-gentlemen-bastard-1-by-scott-lynch/)
FAVORITE SEQUEL
Okay…this might ruffle some feathers. I did LOVE James Islington’s The Strength of the Few and I can’t say it isn’t worthy. I found A LOT to like about it, but ultimately when I looked at that book versus my ultimate choice, I decided on which book I’d rather re-read right now, and that book is A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, the second in his Shadow of the Leviathan series (my review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-a-drop-of-corruption-shadow-of-the-leviathan-2-by-robert-jackson-bennett/). The Sherlock and Watson-esque chemistry between Ana and Din is the fuel that drives these books and Bennett uses it well. The body horror mystery from the first book could have easily been copied-and-pasted for this installment, but Bennett deepens our look into his fantasy world while giving readers a cracking-good mystery that only Ana and Din can solve.
FAVORITE NOVELLA
I read this story in early March, yet, when I was thinking of short stories and novellas I read this last year, Thomas Howard Riley’s brutal gut-punch of a story still resonated with me. Told from the perspective of an old fighter trying to get through the last remnants of an army to find his long-lost son, Riley manages to keep the reader on their toes with blow after blow. In The Last Gasp of Midnight, the old man’s opponent has his own motivations, but it’s a bloody back-and-forth that takes less than 30 minutes to read, but the ending will stay with you for days (or weeks, or months). The great news? You can get this for free, simply by signing up for Riley’s email list.
FAVORITE RE-READ
Again, I didn’t do a lot of re-reads this past year. I will say, I did listen to some of Project Hail Mary and Dungeon Crawler Carl as audiobooks as I was driving my son to doctor’s appointments but since I didn’t listen to the complete books, I’m gonna exclude those. I wanted to do a re-read of this book since it was the 20th anniversary of its release to see if it still holds up today. That book was Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. There are a few things Scalzi himself would probably change (20 years ago, it looked like Palm Pilots and PDAs were peak technology and that kinda gets built into the story), but apart from that, there is a timeless Heinlein or Asimov-level quality to it. It has the feel of a 21st century novel in terms of some of the themes and some of the pacing, but ultimately Scalzi managed to craft a classic in the sci-fi space and I can say it still holds up today.
FAVORITE SCI-FI NOVEL
As a reviewer, I’ve been privileged to get review copies for many of the books I read this year, but in a few rare cases, I loved the book so much that I spent my own money to get a physical copy (not even some fancy special edition) just to have it on my bookshelf. Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky is that rare book for me. I initially read it in April and by the time it hit American bookshelves in June, I just had to have it. I am still fairly new to Tchaikovsky’s works, starting with Alien Clay just about a year ago. Shroud is a first-contact story similar to Alien Clay, but that’s about where the similarities end. Tchaikovsky gives us a tale about a humanity trying to exist in a place where it doesn’t belong. I was expecting aspects of the early 2000s movie Pitch Black, and there are a few, but it goes even further with the alien-ness of it all, Tchaikovsky imagines creatures that are so beyond our conception. In alien books and movies, we always try to impose our own “humanity” upon the creatures we encounter, and with Shroud, Tchaikovsky shows the flaws in those assumptions and I loved every bit of it. (https://fanfiaddict.com/review-shroud-by-adrian-tchaikovsky-4/)
FAVORITE SERIES OF THE YEAR
Knowing that I was planning to read the second book in the series, I corrected an oversight from 2024 by reading The Will of the Many back in May. I had a blast with it, following the trials and tribulations of Vis Telimus. The action was well-plotted and exciting, the magic system was interesting, and the intrigue set against a Roman Empire-themed fantasy world was one of the best set-ups for a series I’d read in years.
Then a couple of months later, I read The Strength of the Few (my review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-the-strength-of-the-few-hierarchy-2-by-james-islington/) I was amazed that James Islington was able to take the events of his first book, and create, not just one – but three separate storylines in three different lightly-connected worlds. There is just so much going on, that I wasn’t surprised at all when Islington wrote that he’s planning on making his Hierarchy Series at least a four-book series instead of the standard trilogy you might see from a series like this. Whenever the third book comes out, I know I’ll have to re-read these books, but I actually look forward to when I get a chance to revisit the Hierarchy series by James Islington.
FAVORITE INDIE BOOK OF 2025
There are so many great indie books out there these days and you can easily compile a Top 10 of the year list just from Indie or Self-published books. I really liked Andrew Givler’s Ironbound as the start to a progression fantasy series, but in the end, I couldn’t help putting Cage of Stars by Frasier Armitage in this slot. As I said in my original review (https://fanfiaddict.com/review-cage-of-stars-by-frasier-armitage/), I’m a sucker for sci-fi stories with Dyson Spheres, but that ends up being the background to a novel that manages to combine the science of Star Trek, the adventure and unknown of Huckleberry Finn, and the childlike wonder of Are You My Mother? all into one perfect package. This book needs more readers and more love. If you’re jonesing for a great read (Indie or not), try picking up Cage of Stars.
FAVORITE “NEW TO ME” AUTHOR IN 2025
I’ve really tried to narrow down my choices for each of these categories, but I’m going to allow for a tie here. Joe Abercrombie and Philip Fracassi earn top honors for this spot. My first experience with Abercrombie was his novel The Devils, which is definitely in my Top 10 of 2025. (My review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-the-devils-by-joe-abercrombie-2/) Many others rank his First Law books higher, so I plan to give those a read, hopefully in 2026, but I really had a fantastic time with The Devils and his alternate-history version of Europe with supernatural creatures and monsters. The first Fracassi book I had the privilege to read this year was The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre, a tightly-woven slasher novel set in an old folks home. Great character work and a fun horror book. (My review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-the-autumn-springs-retirement-home-massacre-by-philip-fracassi/)
FAVORITE ENDING TO A TRILOGY
I didn’t have this book on my first draft of this list and didn’t think I’d be able to read it in 2025, but fate smiled upon me and I finished it just a week before I needed to hit publish on my top favs of 2025. Empire of the Dawn by Kay Kristoff is a marvel. The storytelling is phenomenal and the pacing is second-to-none. The character of Gabriel de León is an all-timer and his tragic tale is so well-crafted that it’s hard not to be jealous of Kristoff’s writing. I’m really not a fan of vampire stories too much, but I was intrigued by all the reviews for these books, so in 2025, I read all three parts to Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire series with each ranked between a 9.25 and a 9.75 on my personal scale. The ending has the possibility of splitting fans, but I’m glad that Kristoff was bold enough to give it to us.
FAVORITE NOVEL FROM A FEMALE AUTHOR
There were a ton of great ones to choose from this year. I did enjoy V.E. Schwab’s Bury My Bones in the Midnight Soil as well as the debut novel from Emily Paxman Death on the Caldera, and the novellas that make up Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot duo. Ultimately, though, it was a recent read that claimed this honor — The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow. I knew I was going to read The Everlasting later in 2025, so during the summer I asked about other Harrow books and I was recommended The Six Deaths of the Saint, a short story that Harrow published in 2022. The short story and the novel are two sides of the same coin and really should be both read if you’re going to read one of them. In TSDOTS, Harrow tells a vicious fantasy timeloop story that seems doomed to end badly, and she ultimately uses that core as the basis for The Everlasting. There are a lot of differences and the story is much more fully fleshed out in the novel, but the story adds some added depth to the novel and should be read together. As for the novel, it’s a masterwork in lyrical language, with action and an eternal romance guiding each and every word. I loved it and will gladly re-read it, if only to find all the clues I missed along the way. (My review: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-the-everlasting-by-alix-e-harrow/)
BOOK I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT aka (BOOK OF THE YEAR)
I’ve mentally debated about this selection for months now. Nearly all of the books mentioned above were contenders for this spot for a while, but I can’t deny what I felt after reading Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell. I might be on an island with this selection, but that’s okay with me. I still vividly remember the moments reading the final chapters of this book. I was beside myself as Wiswell’s reimagining of the story of Heracles connected with me on an emotional level. I had a LOT to say about it in my original review (https://fanfiaddict.com/review-wearing-the-lion-by-john-wiswell/), but the more I am removed from my original reading of it, the more I feel it truly deserves to be my top read of 2025. In Wearing the Lion, Heracles is a victim of circumstance due to his birth, but Hera is a wounded woman who has to hurt someone. Her pain leads to even more pain as her fury causes the deaths of Heracles’ children (spoilers for a Greek myth). The way the story is told throughout with more modern language and sensibilities, yet still very much set in Ancient Greece lends an interesting flair that feels anachronistic at times, but at other times is very much ancient. Heracles embarks upon his legendary labors and we discover redemption, found family, and a different interpretation of a classic story along the way. John Wiswell manages to take a tragic tale and provide redemption for Heracles in the end. I was bowled over by the characters introduced in the second half of Wiswell’s story and will always treasure how it felt in the moment I first read Wearing the Lion.
To Recap & Look Ahead
2025 was a phenomenal year of reading for me. I read a lot and I read a lot of great books. When I started reviewing books at the beginning of the year, I was fairly certain some of the ones mentioned above would be on this list, but many surprised me. Before this year I hadn’t read many of the authors and hadn’t planned on reading Alix E. Harrow’s works at all. That was wrong of me, and I’d like to apologize to her and her fans. On the flip side, there were some on my “Most Anticipated” list that were pretty far from my Top 10 of the year. Some were…fine…but a few were frankly a little disappointing.
But that’s what’s so great about reading…the best books we come across are often unexpected, blindsiding us with their brilliance. I’ll treasure the emotional beats of Wearing the Lion for a long time and hope others find the book as impactful as I did.
There are a ton of great books already announced for 2026 (Check out the FanFiAddict list of Anticipated 2026 releases here: https://fanfiaddict.com/ffas-most-anticipated-titles-of-2026-so-far/), but there are plenty to read that aren’t yet announced and plenty to read from years past as well. Thanks for following my reviews this last year and let’s have some great reads in 2026!
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