My Year in Books | 2025

It’s time for another award show featuring the best reads I’ve come across recently. Here is what caught my attention in 2025.

Best Fiction

Blood Over Bright Haven
By M.L. Wang
Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy

It’s much easier to tell yourself you’re a good person
than it is to actually be one.

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

I was not prepared.

Guys, I added this book to my TBR based solely on the fact that it was on sale, and the description sounded cute. I was absolutely not prepared for what I was about to read! The description that hooked me went a bit like this: “The country’s very first female mage and her assistant (a refugee) team up, and end up challenging cultural norms.” From that, I kinda pictured a YA, girl-power, feel-good romp.

This was not that. In the very best way.

Blood Over Bright Haven is a dark fantasy novel that holds a mirror up to the ugliest sides of human nature. It weaves truth into a captivating story about success and survival, and challenges readers to examine how far they are willing to go for both.

This is a dark story, an uncomfortable story, and an important story. Don’t make my mistake by going into it expecting something light, but DO read it. I read over 60 fiction books this year, and it holds up as my #1 for a reason.

Because good people can turn desperate when the horrors are upon them–especially people whose culture of plenty has left them with no systems to cope with scarcity or cataclysm. Good people will turn monstrous when it’s down to their survival or someone else’s.

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang

Best Non-Fiction

Who Deserves Your Love: How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship
By KC Davis, LPC
Non-Fiction, Psychology, Relationships, Self-Help

What if someone is doing their best, and their best still hurts us?

Who Deserves Your Love by KC Davis

KC Davis has done it again! Last year, this list included Davis’ first book How To Keep House While Drowning. This year, my non-fiction book of the year unreservedly goes to her relationship book: Who Deserves Your Love.

Author KC Davis is an Licensed Therapist and Addiction Counselor who has focused for many years on healing family relationships that have been touched by addiction. She is also the daughter of an alcoholic and a childhood abuse survivor. Her insights into pain, trauma, and the relationship dynamics that keep people stuck in unhealthy patterns come from a very personal place, with the added wisdom of education and professional experience.

Something that sets this book apart from all the rest, is Davis’ writing style. This is easily the most accessible relationship book on the market. Chapters are kept very short, and are summarized succinctly at the end. There are illustrations and flow charts, and the language of this book is conversational, making it a great book for the busy reader, the ADHD reader, or the struggling reader.

Who can benefit from this book:

• Anyone who is looking for a new relationship
• Anyone who finds themselves in a difficult or strained relationship (romantic, friendship, or family)
• Anyone who is in an interdependent relationship (such as caring for an elderly parent or a disabled child)

This book helps you work through insecurities, discover your values, and define the bounds of your relationships so you don’t lose yourself along the way. It is also helps you determine if you are in an abusive relationship, and provides resources for anyone who cannot use the relationship tools in this book because it would be ineffective or unsafe to do so.

One of the hardest boundary lessons is that a great many things that are not your fault are now your responsibility. Mental health disorders, addiction, ADHD–none of those things are anyone’s fault–but their impact on your life and your behavior is your responsibility to manage.

Who Deserves Your Love by KC Davis

Best Memoir

I Can Fix This: And Other Lies I Told Myself
While Parenting My Struggling Child
by Kristina Kuzmic
Non-Fiction, Parenting, Mental Health, Addiction, Memoir

“Mom, if the only thing keeping you from killing yourself was being high, would you do drugs?”

Kristina’s son, Luka

My favourite memoir of the year is one that I’ve already reviewed for the blog. I know many of you have already shown interest in this book, because that post was one of my top blogs of 2025.

I Can Fix This is the memoir of a mother walking through depression, drug addiction, and suicidal ideation with her teenage son. It is a hopeful and challenging read for any parent who finds themselves facing the unimaginable with their kids.

I Can Fix This | Book Review

Best Book on Craft

We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around and Make Something
By Amie McNee
Non-Fiction, Art, Writing, Self-Help, Journaling

You are on this planet to make art.
Not just for yourself, but for the world. Because it needs your art. Humans rely on the arts to inspire, to take refuge, to challenge, to awaken. Communities flourish when artists live within them.

We Need Your Art by Amie McNee

Every year, I try to read at least one book on writing. As a blogger with publishing dreams, (and, let’s face it, a real nerd) I am always reading about writing, looking for a book that will help me feel like I know what I’m actually doing.

Guys… I think I found the book!

Amie McNee is the cheerleader for the Every-Day Artist. The Beginning Artist. The Struggling Artist. And the Imposter-Syndrome-Suffering Artist. Her book, We Need Your Art is THE book for writers who have found other books on the subject of writing too intimidating, or their how-tos too unattainable.

In her carefree, no-nonsense, and often humorous way, (that includes just the right amount of ranting and swearing), Amie lays out some truths for writers and artists on painfully relevant topics such as: procrastination, perfectionism, jealousy, burnout, failure, and celebrating success. She tackles the hard stuff head-on, and speaks to the inner fears and insecurities that we all have, but are afraid to voice. She shares her own insecurities and failures vulnerably and proudly, letting us all know that failures are a vital part of the process.

Every chapter of this book ends with several thoughtful journal prompts, designed to help you get to the bottom of your limiting beliefs, to suss out what you truly want to get out of your artistic endeavors, and to define what success means for your personally.

This book also contains a two-week “reset” plan for jump-starting your artistic practice, or easing you back into art after burnout.

This book is meant to inspire not just writers, but all artists, to embrace their creative side, and prioritize it. Because art is valuable. And whether or not art garners fame or traditional “success”, it serves a purpose by allowing individuals and communities the opportunity to express their emotions, fears, and joys in a healthy, beautiful way.

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Best YA Novel

These Shallow Graves
By Jennifer Donnelly
Young Adult, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Romance

I merely wish to smoke. Sparky can forgive that. You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that.

These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

I became a fan of Jennifer Donnelly through her adult historical fiction, but I need to admit that I stay for her YA novels. They touch my soul in a way that few books can. I suppose you could say that they heal my inner child. After falling in love with her YA fairytale retellings, I decided to give this historical crime novel a try.

These Shallow Graves tells the story of Jo Montfort, a young woman just out of finishing school whose life is all set to begin its predicable course of marriage, babies, and wealthy society life. Everything changes when her father dies of an apparent suicide, and no one but her seems troubled by it. Determined to find the truth, she teams up with a nosy news reporter to uncover what she believes truly happened: murder.

Unfortunately for Jo, she lives in a world where women who ask too many questions get punished. Her pursuit of the truth leads her to have a brush with an insane asylum “for her own good.”

YA (Young Adult) novels are perfect for readers who want mystery, thrills, and romance, without too much darkness, horror, or spice. If you enjoy crime stories, but struggle to find ones that aren’t “too much,” you may enjoy this one!

He didn’t seem to understand that turning your back on the darkness didn’t mean the darkness would turn its back on you.

These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

Best Series & Best Self-Published/Indie Published

Daindreth’s Assassin Series
By Elisabeth Wheatley
Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Fantasy Romance

Amira believed that everyone married for love—just not usually love of the person they married.

Daindreth’s Assassin by Elisabeth Wheatley

As a rule, I read at least one self-published, indie published, or first-time-author book every year. This year, one of my self-published picks turned into my favourite series of the year!

Amira was born to be a princess, but cursed to become an assassin. She does her father’s dirty work, while her stepsister is raised for the life she should have had. When she is sent to assassinate an archduke, she comes against a force greater than herself for the first time in ages. Turns out, the archduke Daindreth is under a powerful curse himself. Since she cannot defeat him… she joins him.

The author has created a unique fantasy world from scratch for this series. It has its own races, religions, political systems, and magic systems. While it contains character types you may be familiar with (sorceresses, demons, etc…), they may not necessarily follow the tropes and rules that they do in other books.

This series does feel “indie,” to me. There are parts I wish were edited differently or flushed out more, but that didn’t stop me from picking up the next book over and over again until I completed the series. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, and seeing how the political drama and religious overtones influenced their personal journeys as they picked sides in a battle of good vs. evil. I also love that Elisabeth Wheatley knows and listens to her audience: she kept a fan-favourite character alive, and even gave him his own spin-off book (Bastard’s Honor), which happens to be my favourite installment of them all.

A note about the romance: these books are fantasy first, and romance second. The romance is slow-burn and doesn’t overtake the story, but there is a mild level of “spice” in the later books, so read with discretion.

Mercy by its nature is unjust… None of us is blameless. We’re all accomplices to some atrocity or another. It’s the way of the world.

Daindreth’s Outlaw by Elisabeth Wheatley

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