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Y’all, 2025 is already on some BS. Fable, an app that I had heard about a while ago (and low-key forgot about until now) has gone viral for something super cringey. They decided to “roast” the reading choices of their users, and one of the criticisms was that maybe they should read more white authors. Yeah.
The exact phrase they used for a person who’d read a sizable number of books by Black authors was, “Your journey dives deep into the heart of Black narratives and transformative tales, leaving mainstream stories gasping for air. Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?”
Good Lord. I don’t know if my blood pressure will survive 2025…
In less eye-rolling news, there are, of course, new books to highlight. Under the science fiction and fantasy umbrella, there’s Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay, an epic Nepal-set dystopian; and Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear, the 10th entry of the Wayward Children bestselling series by Seanan McGuire. Meanwhile, The Unexpected Diva by Tiffany L. Warren is historical fiction that tells the very real story of a Black opera singer born into slavery, and Single Player by Tara Tai keeps it cute with a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance centering video game creators.
For nonfiction, In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space by Irvin Weathersby Jr. looks at how racism is maintained through publicly displayed art, and Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was) by Colette Shade feeds us millennials with essays about big early aughts moments.
The new books featured below include a posthumous release by Zora Neale Hurston, a literary dystopian set in a flooded NYC, a love story that starts in 1940s Shanghai, and even a cozy Korea-set mystery.
The Life of Herod the Great by Zora Neale Hurston
A never-before-published Hurston novel is always going to be noteworthy. After Hurston’s 1950s novel Moses, Man of the Mountain challenged some long-held views surrounding Moses, she wanted to give another Biblical figure the same treatment. Here, she writes of Herod the Great—friend of Marc Atony and Julius Caesar—as the forerunner of Christ.
All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall
With Station Eleven teas and inspiration from curators in Iraq and Leningrad—who protected their art and culture collections from war—All the Water in the World follows Nonie, her family, and their researcher friends, who have all stayed behind in a flooded New York City. After a particularly nasty storm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must head north on the Hudson—a journey that shows them all the ways people have adapted to a new reality.
Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
This book is starting 2025 with a buzz. In it, Suchi’s and Haiwen’s childhood friendship sweetens into teenage love in 1940s Shanghai, and it seems like their futures are laid out in tandem. But then Haiwen secretly signs up for the army to spare his brother from the draft, and that shared future is fractured. Their lives diverge for decades, except for one day when Haiwen is grocery shopping in LA, looks up, and sees Suchi. It feels like they have a second chance at what should have been, but all of the living they’ve done weighs on them, and it’s not clear that they will be able to make something new and worthwhile.
Immortal: A Novel of the Celestial Kingdom by Sue Lynn Tan
This is one of my most anticipated books of 2025, and it’s all because of how much Tan’s Daughter of the Moon Goddess had me shook in 2022. While Immortal is set in the same Chinese mythology-inspired world, instead of a moon goddess’s daughter, we’re following the heir to the Tianxian throne. Liyen’s world suddenly gets turned upside down when she gets poisoned, which is bad enough, but it’s when her grandfather saves her that things really hit the fan. In saving her, he angers the immortals, whose queen sends the God of War to attack Tianxia, which leads to Liyen experiencing great loss, and even love, as she tries her best to save her people.
Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat by Kim Jiyun, translated by Shanna Tan
This cozy Korean bestseller is part mystery, part slice of life, all heartwarming. Yeonnam-dong Smiley Laundromat remains a tranquil place for locals, despite its quickly gentrifying surroundings. One day, a notebook appears that brings people together as they start writing candid diary journals in it. The closeness inspired by the notebook soon leads to Laundromat locals coming together to help the notebook’s owner find peace. This sounds like balm for your soul.
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
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