Tag: 2025

My 2025 Reading Recap

It’s been a weird year, both in my reading life and in the world beyond. I felt pulled in too many directions at once, and wound up feeling less productive than usual—both in terms of how many books I read and in general. That said, I still had some good times and some great reads. And I’m aiming to be more intentional and more focused in 2026. 

As of this writing, I have read 43 books out of my stated goal of 50 books for the year, with maybe time to squeeze one or two more in before the year ends. This will be the first time since 2022 that I haven’t met my numerical goal—though if we were counting books I started rather than books I finished, I’d have hit the mark! Aside from one or two that I intentionally DNFed (did not finish), there are at least five books that I got partway through and was enjoying but wound up inadvertently abandoning. This happened largely because I’ve been reading to a lot of deadlines—either book club meetings or something work-related—and not giving myself enough time. Then when those deadlines passed, I set the half-finished book down in favor of something else that felt urgent. This also happened with books that I was excited to read and brought on vacation with me, but then felt that I had to return to my obligation-books when my trip was over. I’ve been trying to finish as many of these as I can before the end of the year, but I definitely want to try to avoid ending up in this situation in the future. To do that, I think I need to give myself more time to start a book ahead of book club meetings and also try to avoid spreading myself too thin.  Continue reading My 2025 Reading Recap

Books I’m Excited for in 2025

Happy New Year (almost)! As I get ready to write my New Year’s Resolutions for 2025, I always like to look ahead to the books that will be coming out over the next year. Here are just a few of the ones that I’m excited for: 

1) Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito (set to be released February 4)

Victorian Psycho coverA Victorian, gender-swapped American Psycho? The pitch for this one certainly has me intrigued. The book follows Winifred Notty as she plays the role of the perfect governess at Ensor House while occasionally giving in to her darkest impulses.

2) Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread by Leila Taylor (set to be released February 11)

Sick Houses coverIt’s rare that I include a nonfiction book on this list, but I loved Leila Taylor’s Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul back in 2019 and just learned that she’s coming out with a second book. Sick Houses explores the role that houses and domestic spaces play in the horror genre, from Otranto to Amityville. I always enjoy Taylor’s analyses of horror and the Gothic and can’t wait to see what new insights she provides here.

3) The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (set to be released March 4)

The River Has Roots coverI haven’t read any of Amal El-Mohtar’s solo works before, only the brilliant This Is How You Lose the Time War, cowritten with Max Gladstone, but this dark fantasy inspired by fairy lore and folk ballads sounds right up my alley.

4) The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (set to be released March 18)

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter coverI’ve been a big fan of Stephen Graham Jones’s works, from The Only Good Indians to My Heart Is a Chainsaw and I Was a Teenage Slasher, so of course I have to check out his next piece of gut-wrenching horror. I’m particularly excited to see that The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a historical novel that makes use of the found document trope. Presented as the diary of a Lutheran pastor and transcripts of interviews with the locals, the story takes place on a Blackfeet reservation in the year 1912. And it involves a vampire. What more could you need?

5) Overgrowth by Mira Grant (set to be released May 6)

Overgrowth coverMira Grant (Seanan McGuire’s more horror-heavy pseudonym) has been one of my favorite horror writers since I first discovered her short fiction in Ellen Datlow’s various anthologies, but the last full-length novel written under this pseudonym that I read was her mermaid slasher Into the Drowning Deep—far and away my favorite book of 2018. So you can imagine my excitement when I learned that we’re getting some new Mira Grant this year. Not just that, but it’s a tale of pernicious plants and alien invasions. I can’t wait to see how Mira Grant tackles these well-worn subgenres.

6) The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (set to be released July 15)

The Bewitching coverSince first reading Mexican Gothic in 2020, I’ve been gobbling up all of the Silvia Moreno-Garcia books I can get my hands on. This new one is a generation-spanning dark academia tale of women and witchcraft that centers on a graduate student named Minerva as she researches a mysterious horror author and the strange happenings that occurred at her school decades earlier.

7) America’s Most Gothic by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes (set to be released July 29)

America's Most Gothic coverA second nonfiction book on the list! You know no yearly TBR is complete without a Leanna Renee Hieber book on the pile. This new one is a followup of sorts to this year’s A Haunted History of Invisible Women, both cowritten with Andrea Janes, founder of NYC’s spooky walking tour company Boroughs of the Dead. While Haunted History focused specifically on female-centered hauntings, America’s Most Gothic takes a broader look at real-life hauntings and how they relate to the tropes of Gothic literature. Absolutely the kind of book that this blog was made to review. 

8) The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas (set to be released August 19)

The Possession of Alba DiazOne of my favorite books I read this year was Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas, so I’m excited to see what’s next from her. Set in 1765, The Possession of Alba Díaz explores the history of Mexico’s silver mines, but things take a demonic turn when Alba flees her plague-ravaged village only to become infected with something even worse…. It’s also a love story and, as I discovered this year, I really do love the horromance combo!

9) Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (set to be released August 26)

I have not yet read any R.F. Kuang, despite seeing all the hype for Yellowface and Babel. But perhaps this new one will be the perfect place to start. Katabasis—or, a journey to the underworld—was one of the first literary tropes I remember ever learning about, a seed planted in my grade school education that would eventually grow into the interests that led me to create this blog. I’m excited to see how R.F. Kuang tackles this most ancient of literary tropes in a dark academia setting. Alice Law has sacrificed everything to be able to study magic with renowned Cambridge professor Jacob Grimes. So when a magical accident casts Grimes into Hell before he can even write Alice a recommendation letter, she has no choice but to go in after him. I’m seeing some parallels to Leigh Bardugo’s Hell Bent here, but perhaps it’s no surprise that some academics might equate part of the university experience with a journey through the fiery pits of hell….

10) Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell (set to be released October 7)

And lastly, one more plant horror book. I’m not familiar with this author, but when I saw that this was a queer reimagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1844 story “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” I knew I had to add it to the list! 

 

What’s on your reading list for 2025? Any good Gothic or horror books I didn’t include here? Are any of these going in your TBR pile? Let me know in the comments!