Strictly for favorites, irrespective of rating. May be biased, you have been warned.
First Top 10 Tuesday post of 2026! Happy New Year, everyone!!!
This week’s Top 10 Tuesday prompt has us look at our best books of 2025, and I am eager to see what everyone has to share!
My own favorites are listed below, and reviews shared earlier by me HERE. My reading list is still heavier on the historical fantasy fiction side, but I am glad I managed to pick up on non-fiction reads as well.
So, which were your best books of 2025? Do share in the comments!
When the world is going grim, you take refuge in the pieces of awe and marvel around you. Sharing some art, photography and music to click for.
{Disclaimer: None of the links or images shared here belong to me in any way, and no copyright infringement or commercialization is intended by sharing them here for fair use purposes.}
[1] Feast on the photos of the Earth’s most stunning landscapes for the 2025 International Landscape Photographer of the Year contest. In case you have trouble accessing the official website, also try The Atlantic and My Modern Met. I could not take my eyes off this haunting landscape photograph from New Mexico by Karol Nienartowicz.
Name(s): Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy
Author: Ann Leckie
Publisher: Orbit Books
Cover Art: John Harris
Awards: Hugo, Nebula, British Science Fiction Association, Arthur C. Clarke, Locus etc. etc.
Audiobooks: Recorded Books (Book 1); Hachette Audio UK (Book 2)
Ancillary Justice had (IIRC) won almost every award the SFF genre had to offer, with good reason. It’s no easy feat, world-building on this level, with a character of this level of feel-good integrity and grit, and a thrilling, convoluted, galvanizing plotline to boot. Think Star Wars, combine it with Inception, Artificial Intelligence tropes and some comedic elements, and you will still fall short of Ancillary Justice. I can give the book(s) no higher praise. Till date, Ancillary Justice is definitely one of my favorite SciFi books.
The books are set in Imperial Radch, a highly advanced technology militaristic colonial empire which has conquered and rules most of interplanetary space. The first book, Ancillary Justice, tells us how Breq used to be a part of a sentient artificial intelligence/ ship (imagine a supercomputer hacked into pieces but still functioning, if you will) of the Radch empire, but has now been sundered and seeks revenge against the perpetrator.
Shogun (Season 1 – FX/ Hulu 2024)
I watched this late last year, but only putting up a mini review now for records. First of all, I had no idea it was based on a series of books, Asian Saga series by James Clavell. Second, I had no idea there had already been other TV adaptations in the past. Third, I am waiting for Season 2, due for release in 2026!
We are in Japan in the 1600s. The Taiko, the old ruler, has died and the country is dangerously divided among competing feudal lords. Two very ambitious men from two very different worlds – an English sailor named John Blackthorne and a shrewd Japanese feudal lord Lord Toranaga – collide (and sometimes collaborate) over conflicting interests. So much is changing in the 1600s globally that Japan too is bound to change.
If you haven’t watched Shogun yet, believe me, you are in for a treat.
What a strange and mesmerizing tale! Gilling has incorporated elements of folk legend, superstition, horror, The Gothic, complex mythology and epic knight quests, and made it into a completely new and unique genre of its own.
The simplest description: There is an abbey at the top of a mountain, where people visit for answers from the gods. A bunch of diviners (think: oracles) offer their interpretations of the signs they read. But then many of these diviners disappear, and the last one standing, “Number Six” (think, Brienne of Tarth) decides to find out what’s happening. Her allies are a rather insecure boy-king and his band of knights, who may or may not believe in the gods or the diviners’ great gifts.
Some parts of the story, especially early on, seem a little implausible, and you do have to suspend disbelief. But it’s a small price to pay, for a very rewarding plotline overall. The characters, all of them, are very well written, each one with a distinct voice. And that ending is something you will never see coming, and yet, it couldn’t have ended any other way.
I read it once, and then I went back and read it all over again. It’s that good. I was a huge fan of Gillig’s Shepherd King duology in 2023, and The Knight and the Moth is no different.
Recommended for fans of: The Gothic, Cozy Horror, Gargoyles, Complex mythology systems, Epic knight quests/ Arthurian adventures, Medieval fare, Dark academia, Folktales, Brienne of Tarth, Oracles/ Divination stories, Darkangel Trilogy, House of Salt & Sorrows, Naomi Novik’s work, The Familiar, etc. etc. etc.
Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
Published: 2025
Recommended for fans of: Patricia McKillip, Juliet Marillier, To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo, gritty folktale retellings, The Gothic, the poem Sea-Fever, The Pirates of the Caribbean
This is a retelling of The Little Mermaid (with some elements of other tales besides), set in the coastal city of Saint-Malo, France (see that lovely image below). Not the Disney version though – this is the real folk legend of the seamaid that so many sailors used to believe in.
Lucinde was adopted as a child by a rich shipping family. She is at home with the sea but on land, her poor feet won’t cooperate. One day, she saves a drowning man… and that’s only the first of the disasters that befalls her.
It’s time to list our top 10 reads of 2024 (and download massive TBR reclists, of course). Not much of reading this year, but I would not have missed this Top 10 Tuesday theme for the world!
I have not been a great fan or follower of the Grishaverse, so was hesitant in picking this up. But what a marvelous story this turned out to be. We peer into the ages of 16th century when anti-semitism was rife. Luzia is desperately trying to escape her confined pitiful life with her displays of magical craft… but soon ends up getting embroiled in a larger political net. Everything in this book was so impressive – the Spanish Golden Age/ Renaissance feel, the worldbuilding, the writing, the prose, the characterizations. Aaaaand, it is a standalone. If you’ve liked Mistress of the Art of Death, you’ll love this one too.
Happy New Year ’24, everyone! And at last, my favorite topic for the yearly wrap-up to Top 10 Tuesday: favorite books of 2023. We save the best for the end, and it is so much fun adding those best to Mount TBR. Here’s my list too.
Three great December reads — all mysteries, all within this month, and all pretty good! I am already adding some of them to my Best of 2023 list.
Phenomenally well-written, terse suspense. Astronomer Vivvy Bouchet also has unsettling psychic insight and gets pulled into looking for a missing girl by cops. Is she a quack or is it real – nobody can make up their mind about it. As a narrator, Vivvy is unusually talkative but also just a bit unreliable, and this makes her a supremely interesting character. Equally interesting is her public fight with a cult-ish conspiracy podcaster Bubba Guns.
The tense pacing of the first half dwindles later, but Heaberlin still manages a very decent wrap-up at the end. I hear the book’s already up for TV adaptation. And with a title like that, how can you possibly ignore this book? Highly recommended!
Another solid thriller from Armstrong. Recently divorced single mother Aubrey Finch believes she has spotted a kidnapping, but nobody wants to believe her. But Finch has other ghosts from her past, which compel her to pursue the case and in the process, reveal her own ghosts to the public eye. The pacing is excellent. If you can ignore the fact that most of Armstrong’s heroines seem very alike, you will like this one — not as much as the Rockton series, but still quite engrossing.
This week’s Top 10 Tuesday has us looking at top 10 books that we recommend often to fellow bloggers and friends. Since May is also the month for Wyrd & Wonder, I’m going to stick to some underrated books from fantasy fiction that I do like to clobber people with.
