My Top Ten Reads of 2025 (January-June Edition)

Hey all, Sam here.

Several years ago, when I started getting to the point of reading 150 or so books a year, I realized it was absolutely awful for me to try and narrow that number of books down into a top ten list for the year. It was then that I decided to split the year in half, and even that can sometimes make narrowing options down a bit difficult, but certainly more manageable.

I also set myself restrictions for what books can be on my list. Basically it can’t be a re-read, because obviously I enjoyed the book enough to read it again, so it has an unfair advantage. But, I also set the stipulation for myself that the book has to be one that has been released to the general public by the time my post goes live. It wouldn’t be fair to put a book on my favorites of the year list if a vast majority of readers can’t read it yet themselves.

Are these restrictions silly for some people? Probably, but they are the ones I put in place for myself, and I’ve worked hard to stick to my own rules.

Okay, with that out of the way….I realized as I was working to get my list of potential top reads ready that I actually never posted a Top Ten Reads from the first half of this year. So that is what I am going to be doing today. First, let’s start off with a few honorable mentions…

Boudicca by P.C. Cast

Roll for Romance by Lenora Woods

House of Frank by Kay Synclaire

Di-Curious by Erin Branch

Most of the books in the post today are 5 star reads (as are most books that make any of my top reads posts), but there are a few that reach the list with a 4.5 star review. Narrowing down the list to just ten books can be difficult sometimes, which is why I include honorable mentions. These are books that were right on the cusp of making the list, but ended up getting cut at the last minute.

And now that I’m looking at not just the honorable mentions, but also the top ten reads from January to June 2025, I have quite a few of these that I still need to review, so I will do my best to try and get reviews drafted for these. My work schedule is going to get a bit chaotic for the rest of the year, but I’m going to try to finish up a bunch of book review blog posts to get up for as many days as I can these next couple of weeks.

I do have reviews for Boudicca by P.C. Cast and House of Frank by Kay Synclaire partially drafted, so hopefully I can get them finished and posted soon.

Now, before we jump into my actual top ten list, I should mention that these are in order of when I read them, NOT in an actual most-to-least or least-to-most type of ranking. It’s hard enough for me to get this list down to ten. Trying to rank them in any sort of way would basically be impossible. All told, these are just my favorite ten books from the first half of the year.

North is the Night by Emily Rath

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming

The Morrigan by Kim Curran

What will continue to hold true for most of the books that have been reviewed versus the books I didn’t review yet is whether or not they were NetGalley reads, although there are a few exceptions with today’s post, but those exceptions are ones where I have the review partially drafted so those should be a bit easier to finish up.

I keep waiting for more information on the sequel to North is the Night by Emily Rath, because it is only a duet and I need the conclusion. And I’ll just go ahead and say that I bought my copy of The Morrigan by Kim Curran from a UK Bookshop because there was no book listing here in the US and I really needed to read this book. Actually, I’m still waiting to see if there will be a US release.

Vox Machina: Stories Untold by Liam O’Brien, Jess Barner, Martin Cahill, Rebecca Coffindaffer, Aabria Iyengar, Sam Maggs, Sarah

Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd by Delilah S Dawson

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

I’ll be honest in saying that I might need to re-read Vox Machina: Stories Untold because I would want to make sure to have a star rating for each individual story in the collection, but it was a great collection of stories, so a re-read sounds wonderful. And the reason I didn’t review Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins was because I read it as a new release and I worried that any review would have spoilers….so I will likely do a re-read next year around the time the movie comes out, and then I’ll do my review then.

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

Pearly Gates by Bonnie Solomon

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

For this grouping of books, I do have a partially drafted review for The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson, so that’s at least three of the books in this post that I should hopefully be able to get reviewed still in 2025, but a lot of that is very dependent on everything else in life. Between seasonal depression and a stressful few weeks coming up at work, I can make no promises on my ability to actually get things finished and posted in a timely manner. All I can say is that I’m going to try.

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All right, well there you have it: my Top Ten Reads of January to June 2025. My book list for July to December will be coming in January, because I’m not quite done reading for the year (there’s still a couple more weeks, which means hopefully another handful of books to finish), so I don’t know if there’s a last minute favorite that will appear.

I do have a number of reviews to finish up, and not just ones I mentioned in today’s post, so hopefully there’s a bunch more content coming soon. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.