Every year brings hundreds of exciting new releases, but only a small number of books truly become the books everyone is talking about. In 2025, readers gravitated toward blockbuster fantasy sequels, highly anticipated returns to beloved fictional worlds, emotional romances, psychological thrillers, and ambitious historical fiction.
Some of these novels became instant bestsellers because readers had been waiting years for them. Others exploded through BookTok, Goodreads, book clubs, libraries, and word-of-mouth recommendations.
And then there were books that seemed to appear everywhere at once.
If you missed some of the biggest books of 2025, or you’re simply searching for a popular book worth adding to your reading list, these ten novels are a great place to start.
From Rebecca Yarros and Suzanne Collins to Emily Henry, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Freida McFadden, here are 10 of the most popular books of 2025 and why readers couldn’t stop talking about them.
The 10 Most Popular Books Right Now
- Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) by Rebecca Yarros
- Sunrise On The Reaping by Suzanne Collins
- Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
- The Crash by Freida McFadden
- Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
- Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
- Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
- Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
- Fearless by Lauren Roberts
1. Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) by Rebecca Yarros
Few fantasy series have generated as much excitement in recent years as Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean series.
After the enormous popularity of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, expectations for the third novel were incredibly high. Onyx Storm arrived with an enormous built-in audience eager to discover what would happen next to Violet Sorrengail, Xaden Riorson, and the dragon riders of Basgiath.
The series combines dragons, war, political intrigue, danger, magic, and romance into the addictive formula that has helped make romantasy one of publishing’s biggest genres.
But the biggest reason Onyx Storm became such a major release is simple: readers were already deeply invested in these characters.
The dramatic events of Iron Flame left fans with countless questions, making the wait for the third novel especially difficult.
Onyx Storm gave readers another massive installment filled with revelations, relationships, battles, and developments that will keep fans debating what might happen in future Empyrean books.
Read Onyx Storm if you like:
Fantasy romance, dragons, magical schools, high-stakes battles, enemies-to-lovers romance, and long fantasy series
2. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Suzanne Collins returning to Panem was always going to be a major literary event.
But Sunrise on the Reaping became especially exciting because it finally gave readers something Hunger Games fans had wanted to see for years: Haymitch Abernathy’s Hunger Games.
The novel takes readers back to the Second Quarter Quell, decades before Katniss Everdeen volunteers for her sister in The Hunger Games.
Readers who know the original trilogy already know that Haymitch wins the Games. That doesn’t make the story any less compelling.
Instead, knowing where his life eventually leads adds another layer of tragedy to his story.
That’s one of the reasons Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games prequels work so well. They don’t simply expand the world of Panem—they allow readers to reconsider characters and events from the original trilogy.
Few fictional universes from the 21st century have remained as culturally relevant as The Hunger Games, and Sunrise on the Reaping demonstrated that readers are still eager to return to Panem.
Read Sunrise on the Reaping if you like:
Dystopian fiction, survival stories, political fiction, The Hunger Games, morally complicated characters, and emotional novels.
3. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
At this point, a new Emily Henry novel has become an annual event for romance readers.
Her novels regularly dominate reading lists because Henry understands how to balance romance with humor, emotional vulnerability, memorable characters, and larger questions about relationships and adulthood.
Great Big Beautiful Life continues that tradition.
The novel follows two writers competing for the opportunity to tell the story of a mysterious woman with an extraordinary past.
Naturally, the situation becomes much more complicated.
One of Henry’s biggest strengths has always been writing characters who feel like people rather than simply pieces of a romance plot. Her books explore careers, grief, friendships, insecurities, dreams, and the complicated process of figuring out what you actually want from life.
That approach has helped her become one of the defining romance authors of the decade.
If you’ve enjoyed Beach Read, Book Lovers, Happy Place, or Funny Story, Great Big Beautiful Life deserves a spot on your reading list.
Read Great Big Beautiful Life if you like:
Contemporary romance, slow-burn relationships, emotional fiction, writers as protagonists, and character-driven stories.
4. The Crash by Freida McFadden
Freida McFadden has become nearly impossible to avoid if you’re a thriller reader.
And that’s not a complaint.
McFadden has developed an enormous following by writing fast-paced psychological thrillers filled with secrets, suspicious characters, short chapters, and the kind of twists that convince you to keep reading long after you planned to stop.
The Crash delivers exactly the type of suspense her fans have come to expect.
The novel centers on a young woman whose life takes a terrifying turn after a devastating accident leaves her dependent on strangers.
But this is a Freida McFadden novel.
Things are rarely what they initially seem.
Part of McFadden’s appeal is accessibility. Her thrillers move quickly and constantly give readers another question that needs answering.
If you’re experiencing a reading slump and want something that will immediately pull you into the story, The Crash is an easy book to recommend.
Read The Crash if you like:
Psychological thrillers, unreliable characters, shocking twists, short chapters, domestic suspense, and books you can finish in a weekend.
5. Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
Ali Hazelwood has developed one of the most recognizable brands in contemporary romance.
Her novels often feature ambitious protagonists, intense chemistry, witty dialogue, and characters navigating both their professional lives and complicated romantic relationships.
Deep End gives readers another romance with plenty of tension and emotional stakes.
This time, Hazelwood moves into the world of elite college athletics.
That’s part of what makes the novel interesting. Readers get the familiar elements that have made Hazelwood popular while entering a setting that feels different from some of her earlier books.
Readers who discovered Hazelwood through The Love Hypothesis have watched her become one of the most recognizable romance authors publishing today.
And Deep End shows why her books continue to generate so much excitement.
Read Deep End if you like:
Sports romance, contemporary romance, complicated relationships, witty banter, and chemistry-driven love stories.
6. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Taylor Jenkins Reid has built her career around unforgettable characters living extraordinary lives.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo explored Hollywood.
Daisy Jones & The Six explored rock music.
Carrie Soto Is Back explored professional tennis.
With Atmosphere, Reid turns her attention toward NASA and the space program.
The novel follows Joan Goodwin, an astronomer who becomes part of NASA’s Space Shuttle program during the 1980s.
The setting alone makes Atmosphere stand out among Reid’s novels. But beneath the space exploration is the kind of deeply human story readers have come to expect from her.
Ambition, identity, friendship, love, sacrifice, and the pursuit of something larger than yourself all play important roles.
Reid has a talent for making fictional lives feel strangely real, which is one of the biggest reasons her novels generate such passionate readers.
Atmosphere offers another sweeping, cinematic story that is difficult to forget.
Read Atmosphere if you like:
Historical fiction, space exploration, emotional novels, ambitious female protagonists, romance, and character-driven stories.
7. Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Readers who enjoy psychological thrillers probably already know Alice Feeney.
Her books specialize in uncertainty.
You think you understand what is happening.
Then something changes.
Suddenly, you’re questioning everything again.
Beautiful Ugly follows author Grady Green after his wife mysteriously disappears. His search for answers eventually takes him somewhere isolated, where the mysteries surrounding her disappearance only become stranger.
Feeney excels at creating unsettling atmospheres, unreliable perspectives, and situations where readers aren’t sure whom—or what—to believe.
That’s exactly what many thriller readers want.
Rather than simply racing toward a final twist, her books make readers question the story throughout the journey.
Read Beautiful Ugly if you like:
Psychological thrillers, missing-person mysteries, isolated settings, unreliable narrators, dark secrets, and unpredictable endings.
8. Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
Abby Jimenez has become one of contemporary romance’s most reliable authors.
Her novels can be funny and comforting one moment before becoming surprisingly emotional the next.
Say You’ll Remember Me continues that tradition with a romance built around two people whose connection arrives at an inconvenient moment.
That’s a familiar romance setup, but Jimenez’s strength comes from what she does around the love story.
Relationships don’t exist in isolation.
Family responsibilities, careers, distance, timing, emotional baggage, and real-life obligations can all make even the strongest connection difficult.
Jimenez allows those complications to become important parts of her stories instead of simple obstacles waiting to disappear.
The result is romance that can feel both escapist and surprisingly grounded.
Read Say You’ll Remember Me if you like:
Emotional romance, funny dialogue, complicated relationships, heartfelt stories, and romances that deal with serious real-world issues.
9. Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
One of the most interesting books on this list is Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall.
Unlike several other titles here, it didn’t depend entirely on an already massive franchise or one of publishing’s biggest author names.
Readers helped turn it into a major conversation.
The novel combines elements of romance, mystery, historical fiction, and family drama.
At the center is a woman forced to confront her past when someone she once loved unexpectedly reenters her life.
But Broken Country isn’t simply a romance.
Secrets, tragedy, difficult choices, and questions about the lives we might have lived all become part of the story.
It is exactly the type of novel that can create passionate book-club discussions because readers are likely to have very different opinions about the characters and their decisions.
Read Broken Country if you like:
Historical fiction, literary mysteries, second-chance romance, family secrets, emotional novels, and book-club fiction.
10. Fearless by Lauren Roberts
Fans of Lauren Roberts’s Powerless trilogy had been waiting for Fearless, making the final installment one of the year’s major fantasy releases.
The series arrived at exactly the right moment.
Young adult fantasy and romantasy have become increasingly intertwined, and Roberts’s combination of romance, fantasy, conflict, and high-stakes character relationships found a huge readership.
By the time Fearless arrived, readers were eager to discover how the story would end.
Final books also generate a different kind of excitement than ordinary sequels. Readers aren’t merely looking for another adventure—they want answers.
Who survives?
Which relationships endure?
How will the conflict finally be resolved?
And, most importantly, will the ending live up to everything that came before it?
Those questions made Fearless one of the books fantasy-romance readers couldn’t ignore.
Read Fearless if you like:
Romantasy, YA fantasy, enemies-to-lovers tension, magical kingdoms, dangerous competitions, and completed fantasy trilogies.
Why Were These Books So Popular?
Looking across the biggest books of 2025 reveals several interesting trends about what readers wanted.
Romantasy Remained Huge
Fantasy and romance continued to be an incredibly powerful combination.
Onyx Storm and Fearless both benefited from readers looking for fantasy novels where the romantic relationships are just as important as the larger conflict.
The popularity of these books shows that romantasy isn’t simply a temporary trend. It has become one of the major categories shaping contemporary commercial fiction.
Readers Returned to Authors They Already Loved
Many of the year’s biggest releases came from writers who had already built enormous audiences.
Suzanne Collins.
Emily Henry.
Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Freida McFadden.
Ali Hazelwood.
Rebecca Yarros.
Readers know what kind of experience these authors tend to offer, which makes a new release feel like an event.
Thrillers Continued to Thrive
Thrillers are perfect for readers searching for books that are difficult to put down.
The Crash and Beautiful Ugly both appeal to readers who want mysteries, suspense, surprising revelations, and endings worth discussing.
Psychological thrillers have also benefited enormously from online reading communities because they’re naturally suited to recommendations.
It’s easy to convince someone to read a book when you can tell them, “Don’t look up anything about the ending—just read it.”
Familiar Worlds Still Matter
Sunrise on the Reaping demonstrates something publishers have known for years: readers love returning to fictional worlds that mean something to them.
But nostalgia alone isn’t enough.
A successful prequel or sequel also needs to reveal something new.
By revisiting Panem through a character readers already knew, Suzanne Collins gave longtime Hunger Games fans another reason to examine the original series through a different lens.
Book Communities Can Turn a Novel Into an Event
BookTok, Goodreads, Instagram, Reddit, book clubs, libraries, and traditional word of mouth all influence what readers discover.
A book doesn’t need to appeal to everyone.
It needs to appeal strongly enough to a group of readers that they can’t stop recommending it.
That enthusiasm can transform an ordinary release into one of the most talked-about books of the year.
Which Popular Book Should You Read First?
Not sure where to begin?
For fantasy readers: Start with Onyx Storm if you’re already reading the Empyrean series.
For Hunger Games fans: Sunrise on the Reaping is the obvious choice.
For romance readers: Try Great Big Beautiful Life or Say You’ll Remember Me.
For thriller readers: Pick up The Crash or Beautiful Ugly.
For historical fiction readers: Atmosphere and Broken Country are excellent places to start.
For romantasy readers: Onyx Storm and Fearless should be near the top of your list.
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the most popular books of 2025?
Some of the most widely discussed books released in 2025 included Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros, Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Crash by Freida McFadden, and Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez.
What was one of the biggest fantasy books of 2025?
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros was one of the year’s biggest fantasy releases. It is the third novel in the Empyrean series following Fourth Wing and Iron Flame.
What was the new Hunger Games book released in 2025?
Suzanne Collins released Sunrise on the Reaping, a Hunger Games prequel centered on a young Haymitch Abernathy and the Second Quarter Quell.
What popular romance books came out in 2025?
Major romance releases included Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, Deep End by Ali Hazelwood, and Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez.
What popular thrillers were released in 2025?
The Crash by Freida McFadden and Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney were among the prominent psychological thriller releases of the year.
Which book on this list should I read first?
That depends on your favorite genre. Fantasy fans should consider Onyx Storm, thriller readers can start with The Crash, romance readers should try Great Big Beautiful Life, and Hunger Games fans shouldn’t miss Sunrise on the Reaping.
Final Thoughts on the Most Popular Books of 2025
2025 gave readers no shortage of memorable books.
Some were continuations of enormously successful series. Others came from authors whose names alone were enough to make readers preorder their newest novels. And a few became breakout successes because readers simply couldn’t stop recommending them.
What makes this list especially interesting is its variety.
Fantasy and romantasy sit alongside psychological thrillers, contemporary romance, dystopian fiction, and historical novels. It proves that there isn’t one single type of story dominating reading culture.
Readers are simply searching for books that make them feel something and preferably keep them turning pages.
Whether you’re catching up on books you missed or simply searching for your next great read, these popular books of 2025 are worth keeping on your reading list.
How many have you read?
And which one are you picking up next?
Until next time, happy reading!
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