Fresh Fiction Picks - Summer 2025

Here are our fresh fiction picks for summer 2025! Have a browse through to help focus your gift buying for this season, and beyond!

She might win the throne.

She might destroy an empire. Either way, it begins with murder. After twenty-four years on the throne, it is time for Bersun the Brusque, emperor of Orrun, to bring his reign to an end.

In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders will compete to replace him. Trained at rival monasteries, each contender is inspired by a sacred animal - Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, and Hound. An eighth - the Dragon proxy - will be revealed only once the trials have begun.

Eight exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists - the best of the best. Then one of them is murdered. It falls to the brilliant but idiosyncratic Neema Kraa to investigate.

But as she hunts for a killer, darker forces are gathering. If Neema succeeds, she could win the throne - whether she wants it or not. But if she fails, she will sentence herself to death - and set in motion a sequence of events that could doom the empire .

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil Cover

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (V.E. Schwab)

This is a story about hunger. 1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

A young girl grows up wild and wily - her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice.

She vows to have no regrets. This is a story about love. 1827.

London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow - but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage. 2019. Boston.

College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life . . . how it ends, and how it starts again.

Wish You Were Her (Elle McNicoll)

Dear Mysterious Reader, I think I'm falling in love . . .

Everyone wants a piece of actress Allegra Brooks. When she decides she desperately needs to get away from the spotlight she heads for the remote town of Lake Pristine and its summertime book festival.

When Allegra immediately clashes with annoying (and annoyingly handsome) bookseller Jonah Thorne, their rivalry soon becomes the talk of the small town. Before long, Allegra's main escape is the increasingly flirtatious email relationship she's sharing with an anonymous charming bookseller that she's sure can't possibly be Jonah . . .

An unforgettable romcom about finding the one person who makes you feel yourself when the whole world is watching.

House of Flame and Shadow (Sarah J Maas)

The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath. Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate.

Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust. Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all.

After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he’s in the Asteri’s dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce’s fate. He’s desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri’s leash, his hands are quite literally tied.

Let the Bad Times Roll (Alice Slater)

Everyone knows Daniel. But no one knows where he is...

THEN

Alone in New Orleans, Selina is struggling to fit in until a charismatic stranger invites her for a drink.

It feels like fate, but who is Daniel, and what does he want from her? Just as the humidity and the hangovers start to take their toll, Daniel vanishes.

NOW

Daniel is missing. No one has seen or heard from him in weeks. Beside herself with worry, his sister Caroline hosts an intimate gathering in her London home so those closest to Daniel can come together and compare notes.

But what should have been five courses of a Cajun-style feast has now become an interrogation. Those left behind must piece together their shared understanding of the man they thought they knew. And all isn't quite as it seems: Caroline has invited a stranger to the table, an accomplished psychic who claims to have met Daniel four thousand miles away in New Orleans.

As evening turns to night, the dark truth of what really happened begins to emerge...