Who better to recommend the best books of the year than the authors who wrote them? For our fall issue, BUST rounded up a slew of incredibly talented authors and asked each of them to spare a few words about their favorite reading material of the year. The results were wide-ranging, and we might’ve let one or two get away with choosing a title that technically came out in 2024. However, any constant reader would agree, if Mariana Enriquez, the queen of magical realism, writer of world shakers like The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Things We Lost in the Fire, asks if she can pick a book from the previous year, you let her use a book from the previous year, and you say “thank you for your time”. Such allowances can also be made for the world renowned Ruth Ware, who couldn’t decide between two novels, so we didn’t make her, because the modern day Agatha Christie has more than earned the right to be particular, hasn’t she? And to be graced with the addition of Lisa Jewell, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Don’t Let Him In? Honestly, if she wanted to submit a few words about the merit of a particularly pleasing platform poster that caught her eye on the subway, we would’ve been game.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project was seeing how many authors chose each other’s works as their favorite of the year. Two contributors chose Rachel Harrison’s Play Nice, a haunted house story which both writers promise is so much more than your typical spooky ghost yarn, citing it as “addictive, sexy and beautifully layered”. Kalynn Bayron picked Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest treasure, The Bewitching, calling her work enchanting, and going so far as to say that it might actually be her favorite witchy book of all time. (Bayron herself has written a gripping, playful and wonderfully autumnal novel, You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight, which is a must read for those on the hunt for a genuine campfire tale.) It’s been inspiring to see these writers lift each other up, and it’s been a real joy seeking out recommendations from some of the most inspiring minds currently working in the literary scene.
Read on to see their choices, and make note of their picks. Visit your local used bookstore, grab an iced coffee, and seek out these titles and names. Tis’ the season!
Silvia Moreno-Garcia – The Voice of Blood by Gabriela Rábago Palafox
I had the pleasure of reading an early copy of The Voice of Blood and it’s the book that has remained with me all through the year. This is the first English language translation of the short stories of Mexican writer Gabriela Rábago Palafox. Although promoted as a vampire anthology, Palafox’s tales are not always fantastical, nor do they necessarily utilize the traditional figure of the vampire as seen in Dracula and popular media. Often, Palafox dabbles at the edges of the strange, producing a sensation of unease rather than of terror, and teases the idea of vampires in creative ways. Palafox was a curious writer; most of her output happened during the decade of the 1980s and she has remained an obscure figure in Latin American literature. It is only in the past few years that she has come more into focus. In life, she once said her goal was to be internationally renowned. Her chance, perhaps, has finally come.
Liz Kerin – Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
My pick is Rachel Harrison’s Play Nice, which is out on 9/25. I love the bold, take-no-prisoners way Harrison writes her women, but the main character in Play Nice, Clio, might be my favorite yet. Basically, without giving too much away, this is about an influencer who decides to renovate her childhood home when her mother passes away – except it’s not exactly empty. There’s been a demon living there since she was a little kid. Clio’s relationships with her family members are so layered and messy; I could eat them up like the most delicious, unkempt cake (you know the one – a scrumptious funfetti number that’s bursting with buttercream and tipping over like the leaning tower of Pisa, so much so that you can’t even cut it so you just scoop it with a cup). This book is so much more than a haunted house story for the digital age; it’s about mothers and daughters, childhood trauma, and making sense of your family’s past. It’s addictive, fast-paced, and ultimately devastating. Do NOT miss this one.
Kalynn Bayron – The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“My favorite book of the year so far is The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Equal parts heart-pounding thriller and terrifying mystery, spanning generations, and filled with the kind of lingering dread that just won’t leave you alone—I devoured this book in one sitting and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. All of Moreno-Garcia’s previous works have enchanted me and this was no exception. It’s a bold and exquisitely written testament to the power of storytelling, the consequences of ambition, and the bonds of family. The interconnected tales are expertly woven together. I could not put this down and I think it may be my favorite witchy book of all time!”
Rachel Harrison – House of Beth by Kerry Cullen
House of Beth by Kerry Cullen is a contemporary gothic novel that is unnerving, seductive, and quietly unpredictable. Subtlety is the novel’s strength, where it could scream, it whispers. Every page is haunting, brimming with insights and sticky tension. There are shades of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, but this ghost story is more nuanced. The novel follows Cassie, a young woman who abruptly abandons her life in New York City to move back to her hometown, where she reconnects with Eli, her best friend from high school. Eli is a recently widowed father of two young children, whose wife Beth passed under mysterious circumstances. In a blink, Cassie adopts Beth’s former life. She marries Eli, moves into his house, and homeschools his children. Haunted by secrets and choices, hope and tragedy, Cassie’s struggles are achingly relatable, however uncanny they may become. A brilliant debut that’s stuck with me.
Mallory O’Meara – Old Soul by Susan Barker
Two strangers miss the same flight in a Japanese airport. While talking over dinner, they realize they’re both mourning the death of an important person in their lives, and that those separate people spent time with the exact same woman before they died. What follows is a journey through many decades and countries to track down more victims, and most importantly, this mysterious woman. You’ll also get POV chapters from the woman herself…if that’s what she really is? This book is literary horror at its finest, and then it detonates into incredible, cosmic strangeness. I promise, you’re not going to read anything else like Old Soul this year.
V. Castro – I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde
I recently read a very short read by Rae Wilde, I Can Fix Her. What makes this book unique is the abstract take on limerence or obsessive love in a queer female relationship. It perfectly examines toxicity as a pattern until lessons are learned, if they want to learn. What happens when the desperation to be chosen goes too far? It gave me throwback vibes to films like Fatal Attraction, Sleeping with The Enemy and Single, White, Female. But I Can Fix Her is horror, so the outcome is terrifying and dark, yet not without hope IF one chooses a new path.
C.J. Leede – Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
The It Girl of modern horror, Rachel Harrison reliably delivers angsty, misbehaving, devilishly cool (that enviable, elusive *girl’s just got it*) protagonists, deliciously clever supernatural riffs on settings we know and love (or hate), and friendships, romances, and family-ships we could only find in our wildest dreams and most painful, cringeworthy, awful nightmares. In Play Nice, Clio and her older sisters inherit a house their mother swore—to the detriment of her relationships—was possessed. Determined to flip the house, Clio moves in and starts up relationships with the guy down the street, her mother (through her left-behind tell-all), and… the house itself. Or more accurately, the powerful something that also lives there. I’ve never met a Rachel Harrison book I didn’t love, but when I tell you this one is bigger, bolder, sexier, scarier, wilder than any before… run, don’t walk. Seriously. Let this book possess you, I double dare you.
Brea Grant – Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
I’ve become a big McConaghy-head in the last year since reading Once There Were Wolves and then making my way up to her latest, Wild Dark Shore. Like all of McConaghy’s novels, Wild Dark Shore takes place in a lonely, isolated setting with lonely, isolated people; in this case, a stormy island near Antarctica that is home to a seed vault. A family lives alone on the island – we meet them already in turmoil – until a woman washes up on shore. Charlotte’s characters are not perfect. At the start of the book, they let their mistakes define them. We learn to love them as they learn to love themselves. They are messy but choose to keep going. They realize they are not just a sum of the worst moments of their lives. They are brave because they choose to live and love, a hard choice in the book and in our current climate. Also, I hope you like crying.
Rachel Yoder – Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Loosely based on Moby Dick, Kate Folk’s hilarious and strange Sky Daddy begins with the line, “Call me Linda.” Much like Captain Ahab, Linda is consumed with a self-destructive obsession, though this may be where the similarities end, since Linda feels she is fated to one day die in a fiery orgiastic explosion while a passenger on the airliner of her dreams. If the book sounds too weird for you, please know you will fall in love with Linda’s peculiar and sincere voice, be moved by the sweet and tender female friendship at the heart of this book, and mumble “what the fuck!?” incessantly while reading. Easily the most original book of 2025, Sky Daddy will take you to heights you have literally never imagined. BONUS READ: Cronenberg meets Murakami meets urban Pam Houston in Kate Folk’s previous short story collection Out There.
Sarah Gailey – The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar is not only one of the best books of 2025, but one of the best books of all time, period. This book is truly a love letter to invincible bonds, and it’s obvious that the author has one such bond with the art of storytelling. El-Mohtar’s mastery of the craft is such that the story feels at once hard-won and effortless. Although the book itself is brief, it never feels thrifty; instead there is a rich, almost decadent texture to the prose and character-building. It has a fairy-tale-esque style of captivating the reader, a grounded approach to the inevitability of grief, and the deep fury of a righteously-vengeful sister. Read this one to feel grateful for the gift of story.
Mariana Enriquez – It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken
Earlier this year, a friend said ‘you have to read this’. I trust him and got a copy of It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken. The novel was published in 2024, but I read it this year. I was so moved by the story of this zombie girl in love and in distress, and the world she doesn’t understand anymore. The narrator is absolutely delightful, and you don’t even know which part of the body is really doing the talking. Even when de Marcken touches known dystopian tropes, she does it in an unique way. I nearly cried at the ending. There’s nothing more complicated to pull off than tender and gentle weird body horror, and nothing more clever than finding a personal angle when writing about grief in a literary world absolutely full of grief narratives to the point of making one cry of boredom. Favourite book in a long, long time, just gorgeous.
Carmen Maria Machado – Crawl by Max Delsohn
My favorite book of the year is Max Delsohn’s Crawl, out from Graywolf this October. In my blurb, I described “a horny, hilarious, bittersweet romp through millennial transmasc malaise,” and it is exactly that: a refreshing, bitingly funny, tender look at Pacific Northwest queers in the 2010s. It’s Delsohn’s debut and it’s a stunner. Don’t miss it!
Cassandra Khaw – The Everlasting by Alix Harrow
My favorite book of the year hands down is probably Alix Harrow’s The Everlasting, which I read three times in a row during the span of a week, almost despairing at how absolutely gorgeous it was. It’s about story and the ownership of story and how reality is shaped by story; it’s about love in its all shapes, love at its most toxic and love at its purest, love that is complicated and wild and broken and brilliant and so painfully human; it’s about a scholar and a knight but also a man desperate for purpose and a woman broken by hers; it’s about how abuse can create monsters and saints and how thin the line is that separates the two.
Monika Kim – Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
Ling Ling Huang’s Immaculate Conception, released earlier this year in May, has been haunting my thoughts since the moment I finished it. Dark, unsettling, and completely engrossing, it’s a sharp, thought-provoking exploration of class, grief, trauma, and the terrifying power of technology. Reading the story of the obsessive, codependent bond between two artists, I found myself oddly relating to the protagonist, Enka, whose feelings for her brilliant and talented friend, Mathilde, vacillated between tenderness and cruelty. I was already in awe of Huang after her debut, Natural Beauty, but her second novel completely blew my mind. Bold, imaginative, and wildly ambitious, Immaculate Conception is one of my must-reads for 2025.
Lisa Jewell – We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough
If there’s one thing I love, it’s a book that messes with my head and if there’s one author I can rely upon to mess with my head on an annual basis, it’s the brilliant Sarah Pinborough. Here, she excels herself with this spellbinding story of a haunted house in the wilds of the Devon countryside. Emily’s husband Freddie has brought them here from London for a fresh start after she awakens from a coma caused by a terrible accident. Freddie loves it but Emily knows there’s something not quite right, especially in the empty suite on the second floor. We Live Here Now is rich with rattling windows, creaking floorboards and slamming doors, but also with the mores of the bohemian middle class, and it ends with a flat-out, knockout twist. A book to experience and to live, not just to read.
Lauren Beukes – Stories Are Weapons by Annalee Newitz
Between the fascism, the global boiling, and the mediocre plagiarism remix engines of generative AI, I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the world and questioning the point of being a professional storyteller in the age of slop. Annalee Newitz’s incredibly timely Stories Are Weapons was exactly the book I needed to read in our uncertain present, tracing the history of propaganda and psyops from Freud, to advertising and the comics code, Benjamin Franklin’s fake news to Nazi influencers, the myth of the “last Indian”, through to Cambridge Analytica, Russian troll farms, QAnon and incel terrorists. More importantly, Newitz unpacks how stories are also how we resist, from the Ghost Dance as indigenous activism to reclaiming history and building a new commons to protect democracy and each other.
Tananarive Due – The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
As soon as I read the first pages of Stephen Graham Jones’s The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, it might be the best book of Jones’s stellar career–and The Only Good Indians is one of my favorite horror novels, so that’s saying a lot! The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is the perfect example of how great horror literature can transform readers by amplifying the horror in social issues – or, in this case, American history – and scrape the meat from the bare bones, revealing a story in the language of fiction that resounds with unshakable truth. This novel is blisteringly compelling and entertaining on the surface, but at its heart The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is one of the most heartbreaking and informative works in literature on Indigenous genocide in the United States. This novel literally gives readers a new vocabulary with which to immerse ourselves in that shameful history through the eyes of a “monstrous” creature who is still far less monstrous than those he hunts.
Ruth Ware – King Sorrow by Joe Hill and The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson
It’s always agonizing trying to choose a book of the year because inevitably there are dozens that deserve mention – but two that I still find myself thinking about, months after reading, are King Sorrow by Joe Hill and The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson. On the face of it, they couldn’t be more different – the first is a lush, sprawling horror novel about a group of friends fighting an ancient evil across decades, and the second is a taut historical thriller about a confectioner caught in a web of deceit after her husband’s death. What they have in common are twists, cunning, and a clear-sighted brutality about human nature, and the price of a single mistake.
Alison Rumfitt – The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey
I’m quite bad at reading new books. I’ve been consciously trying to catch up, but for the most part I’m still reading books from two, three years ago and counting them as new. I made an exception for Catherine Lacey’s wonderful The Möbius Book, a slippery work of fiction – or autofiction – about a sudden breakup and its aftermath. I tried to tell a friend about it and he called it gimmicky, which is unfair. The book is read from either side and ends in the middle, which makes for a curious reading experience. I adored it.
