This is Soaliha here, I’m a journalist, writer, podcaster and book enthusiast with a particular passion for reading (and sharing) books by authors from diverse backgrounds — which is why we’ve launched this column in the first place. 

Anyone who has spent even a modicum of time in online spaces like the infamous #BookTok will know that it is often the same type of books spotlighted again and again, with little room for authors of colour or other marginalised voices to get their moment — which is disappointing given there are so many stories out there that deserve to be told! 

This book club was made specifically so that we can all diversify our reading and support authors from different walks of life. From moving non-fiction essays about disability to angsty sapphic dystopia, there’s something here for everyone. Check out what I reckon will be the best books for 2025 below!

Best Books 2025: January

The Rest of You by Maame Blue

Flitting between London and Ghana, The Rest of You is a moving story about the emotional journey of Whitney Appiah, a Black British masseuse who, despite her job helping other people heal the trauma in their bodies, is only beginning to reckon with the pain of her own past. 

Spanning three decades and gliding between the perspectives of Whitney, her aunts Gloria and Aretha, and their house help Maame Serwaa, the novel exposes painful memories and harsh truths of what it is to be a woman, to be Black, and for these identities to merge in Britain. 

Maame Blue, who is now based in Melbourne, received glowing reviews for her previous book Bad Love, a coming-of-age romance which also centred Black characters. I can’t wait to see how she rips up our hearts this time.

The Rest of You hits shelves in Australia on January 1, 2025.

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

Set in the backstreets of Tokyo, Water Moon follows Hana Ishikawa, the owner of a magical pawnshop which only appears to lost people who can then barter their life choices and deepest regrets. 

However, on the first day of her new job, Hana finds the store ransacked, her father missing, and one of the shop’s most valuable choices stolen. Even more suspiciously, a charming stranger stumbles in, who is unlike any other customer. And so begins a magical journey where the two dive head first into mystical lands to recover the stolen property and save Hana’s father.

This is my current read, and its description as a cross between Before The Coffee Gets Cold and a Studio Ghibli film is accurate! It’s full of heart, imaginative, and a refreshing take on romantic fantasy. Perfect for fans of the cosy fantasy genre!

Water Moon releases on January 16, 2025.

How To Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, And Doom by Johanna Hedva

If we lived in a different world, would illnesses be treated as inconveniences? Or are they just part of being alive? What is the antidote to capitalism, if not choosing to care for ourselves and each other despite it all?

In this incisive collection of essays, Johanna Hedva — one of the most influential voices in disability activism in the US — challenges what it really means to be disabled in a society that exploits sickness. In their musings, they cover everything from having to advocate for themselves in America’s healthcare system, to kinks and their relationship with the colour yellow.

How To Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, And Doom hits shelves on January 1, 2025.

Biology Lessons by Melissa Kantor

Grace Williams is going to make it to college. She is smart, ambitious and has her whole life planned out from her senior year to a Nobel prize in biology — until she accidentally falls pregnant.

Living in Texas, abortion is illegal, and even if it wasn’t, Grace’s parents would expect her to keep the baby. Suddenly, her potential is gone, before her life has even begun. But not if she can help it. 

Grace turns to her friends, and the trio set off on an epic adventure to sneak Grace across state lines and to a clinic that can give her the healthcare she desperately needs.

Given the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US under Biden, and then Trump’s election and threats to abortion rights, this book could not come at a better time. It’s a testament to the power of solidarity, and it’s both terrifying and a beacon of hope for those women who already find themselves stuck and with nowhere to go. 

Biology Lessons will release on 14 January 2025.

I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang

Jenna Chen is struggling. She’s been rejected from every Ivy League college she’s applied to, and feels like she’s failed her immigrant parents’ dreams for their American daughter. Feeling increasingly desperate, she starts to wish she was her much more successful cousin, Jessica Chen — and then her dream comes true.

But being Jessica Chen is not what Jenna thought it would be. As she learns Jessica’s secrets, her own real life begins to fade, and soon Jenna discovers that if she doesn’t figure things out, her old life could disappear forever.

In a darker, more anxiety-inducing take on Freaky Friday, I Am Not Jessica Chen reminds us all that sometimes, the grass is NOT always greener on the other side. It releases on January 28, 2025.

The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold

This sapphic love story between two teenage girls is set in a future dystopia (at this point, we could probably call it a speculative fiction), after a climate change catastrophe has destroyed society and few survivors are left. But already, another cataclysmic storm is set to shake the earth, leaving Liz — the sole inhabitant of the last bookstore on earth — no choice but to work with the prickly Maeve if she wants her home to survive.

Soon, Liz and Maeve develop a connection, but their prep for the storm falters as the world begins to collapse around them, and they realise there are more threats to their survival than they thought. As the world begins to collapse, secrets are unleashed and demons from the past resurface. 

I’ve seen this book described as having similar vibes to The Last of Us, except cosy, somehow? It’s largely set in the bookstore and has a focus on interpersonal relationships and introspective musings, which means it’s good for both people looking for some action, and those who prefer domestic dramas.

The Last Bookstore on Earth releases on January 14, 2025.

Visualising Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation 

Visualising Palestine tells the story of Israeli invasion and settler-colonialism in Palestine through striking illustrations and accessible infographics. These colourful portraits paint a picture for people who want to learn more about Gaza’s history but struggle to know where to start, or feel overwhelmed by the decades of information.

But do not be fooled, the colourful imagery might look beautiful but it still conveys heart-wrenching statistics about the plight of Palestinian people, and details not only the loss of their land, but their steady resistance to the ethnic cleansing of their people.

Visualising Palestine will be available to buy on January 1, 2025.

The Queen’s Spade by Sarah Raughley

Once a princess of the Egbado clan, Sarah is forced to live in the heart of the colonial empire that ripped her from her home and relegated her as simply royal property. 

From inside enemy lines, she plots her revenge against the British throne, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get her life and freedom back. However, others start to suspect she is not the harmless sweetheart she has been pretending to be — and slowly, the walls start closing in.

Simmering with rage and grief, this historical fiction novel is based on the life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria’s African goddaughter. We live in a time where novels about the Victorian era are heavily romanticised and the race politics are woeful to say the least (hello, Bridgerton). For many women, especially Black women, Victorian England was actually a horror story — and this book won’t let you forget it.

The Queen’s Spade comes out on January 14, 2025.

A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williams

Now I know we have more than enough dragon-centric romantasies out there, but I’m intrigued by this one in particular because of S.F. Williams’ background in linguistics, and her specific interest in the way languages shapes meaning and relationships in different cultures. Perhaps I am being ambitious, but I’m hoping that this means A Language of Dragons will have more philosophical substance to it than the usual fare!

The novel is a dark academia fantasy set in London in the 1920s starring Viv Featherswallow, a student who accidentally finds herself at the centre of a civil war. In order to save her loved ones from certain death and right her own wrongs, she has no choice but to become a code-breaker. Her job? To demystify the mysterious language of dragons. 

But as Viv works at this seemingly impossible task, she starts to question the politics of what she is doing, and whether the war is one she actually wants to fight for. Who are her real enemies?

Honestly, this book is pressing all my buttons. Dark academia, a focus on languages and how they shape beliefs, and a slow burn enemies to lovers that isn’t the main plot point? Yes please.

A Language of Dragons debuts on January 2, 2025.

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

Ebby Freeman was 10 years old when her family experienced a profound tragedy that led to unwanted media scrutiny and repressed trauma. Almost two decades later, Ebby is still running from her demons, with heart ache following her from the US to France. 

As she begins to realise that she cannot escape her past, Ebby revisits that fateful night long ago, when a gun went off, her brother fell to the ground, and the centuries-old jar belonging to her enslaved ancestor shattered into pieces. She revisits her ancestry, her family history, and finds that perhaps it is here that she will find the keys to her future. 

Good Dirt is about the enduring trauma of slavery and white supremacy — these things didn’t happen that long ago, and the wounds are still healing. It will be released on January 28, 2025.

Best Books 2025: February

Those Opulent Days by Jacquie Pham 

For fans of Knives Out and Glass Onion, this murder mystery set in 1928 follows a group of four wealthy friends as they indulge in a celebration — only for one of them to be murdered. 

Flitting between the fateful night and a series of events leading up to the murder, Those Opulent Days shines a light on the glaring economic inequality amidst the French occupation of Vietnam. A combo of historical fiction and whodunnit, this genre-bending story isn’t just about murder. Under colonialism, violence and suffering breeds more heinous crimes.   

Those Opulent Days releases on 29 January, 2025.

Half Truth by Nadia Mahjouri

Set between Tasmania and Morocco in the late ‘90s, Half Truth follows two women searching for answers: Khadija, a mother in Marrakesh whose son has been missing for 20 years, and Zahra, a daughter in Tasmania who seeks the father she never knew.

Khadija seeks closure, and Zahra seeks belonging. When their stories collide, they both learn about motherhood, belonging and loss — and how these can change you, for better or for worse.

Half Truth releases on 11 February, 2025.

Ugliness by Moshtari Hilal

Have you ever felt ugly? I know I have. Growing up as a dark-skinned Pakistani girl in Australia with thick eyebrows, a hairy face and a sloped nose certainly saw to that. But who decided these features were ugly, and what role does ugliness play in hatred?

Afghani author Moshtari Hilal asks all this and more in her incisive exploration of how we see ourselves. Through essays, illustrations, autobiographical passages, poems and photos, Hilal explores the relationship between power, beauty, ugliness and race — and ultimately, what it would mean to embrace ugliness, rather than fear it. 

The English translation of Ugliness releases on 11 February, 2025.

Capitana by Cassandra James

If you’re a fan of romantasy but tired of the formulaic, eurocentric enemies-to-lovers stories that BookTok shoves down our throats, then check out Capitana by Cassandra James: a pirate romantasy inspired by Colombian culture and mythology. 

Ximena Reale has spent her life training to become a Cazador — pirate hunter — and is finally given the chance to prove herself when the queen is kidnapped by seafaring bandits. If she can bring the queen back, she’ll finally get her dream job. However, her classmate Dante deLeon is also gunning for the role of rescuer, and so this isn’t just a mission — it’s a race. Rivals-to-lovers fans, this one’s for you.

Capitana hits shelves on 4 February, 2025.

Beirut by Barrack Zailaa Rima

This stunning graphic novel is a poetic and autobiographical look at the bustling city that is Beirut. Rima and her family act as tour guides, showing us around their beloved city as we bump into various characters along the way who share their stories amidst winding alleyways and warm cafes. 

Beirut is actually a trilogy, and it’s just been translated into English. This beautiful novel will hit Australian shelves in February.

Needy Little Things by Channelle Desamours 

In the United States of America, 36% of girls and women reported missing in 2022 were Black, despite the fact that Black women and girls only make up 14% of the population. Black women are six times more likely to be murdered than their white counterparts, according to The Lancet, and we know that crimes against Black women go unreported. It’s with this in mind that Needy Little Things, a YA mystery and speculative fiction novel about Black girls going missing, is a poignant and relevant read. 

Sariyah Lee Bryant has precognition — she can tell what people need if the item is a tangible thing, like a phone or pencil. When her best friend Dejah goes missing shortly after she fulfills her need, Sariyah is desperate to find her. In a world where police are dangerous and the media is only interested in missing persons when they’re white, Sariyah must find her friend on her own — before she, too, is at risk.

Needy Little Things by Channelle Desamours releases on 4 February, 2025.

Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell 

Nesting is a gut-wrenching story about an Irish woman’s struggle to escape an abusive relationship with her two young daughters in tow — and all the ways society makes this courageous act feel impossible. 

In Australia, an average of at least one woman a week is killed by a current or former partner. Domestic violence is one of the key issues of our time, and yet support services are anemic, shelters are few and far between, women who try to escape domestic violence aren’t protected or taken seriously, and the government is slow to act. These stories are important because they are the reality of so many women, here and abroad, and yet we continue to treat men’s violence as though it is invisible, simply part of the fabric of society. 

Nesting hits shelves on 29 January, 2025. 

Palestine In A World On Fire: A Global Conversation by Katherine Natanel and Ilan Pappé

It has been 16 months since Israel began its genocidal onslaught in Palestine. In these months, the plight of the Palestinian people and their fight for self determination has become known across the globe — but Palestinian resistance has been central to liberation literature for decades. 

Palestine In A World On Fire: A Global Conversation is a collection of interviews with some of the world’s leading progressive thinkers (Angela Y. Davies, Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, to name a few) who highlight the intersections between Palestinian liberation, and the fight against misogyny, colonialism and capitalism. 

Palestine In A World On Fire: A Global Conversation was initially published in October 2024, but will be available in Australia this February.

(S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi

This YA fantasy novel is based on Caribbean folklore and follows the demonic appetites of two teenage girls who are not what they seem. Fifteen-year-old Marison is the daughter of a soucouyant — every new moon, she transforms into a fireball witch who must feed on the lives of others. Genevieve, 17, is suffering from a skin condition and battling a hunger she doesn’t truly understand. Both girls are struggling to live the life they yearn for — but things are about to get explosive, and not for the reasons either of them expected. 

Personally, the best YA books are the ones about girls who are monstrous — who eat the hearts of princes, and who choose their own satisfaction over others. One of my favourite YA novels is Midnight Girls, which is also about teenage girl witches who eat others, so I am very excited for this one. 

(S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi releases on 11 February, 2025.

Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis Sharma

Prudence Wright has made it. After emigrating from Johannesburg, South Africa, she has excelled in her career, married a loving man and settled in a large home in Washington, DC, where she can now raise her autistic son. However, one dinner party changes everything. 

Her husband’s new colleague and guest is Matshediso, a man she knew from her time as a law student in South Africa. Matshediso’s presence forces Prudence to revisit the harrowing Truth and Reconciliation hearings she attended in the ‘90s which uncovered the horrors of Apartheid in South Africa. But his appearance also forces her to reckon with her own secrets: horrors from her own past, forced deep into the abyss, only to resurface when she least expected it.  

Whether we can truly recover from stains of the past is a question that is more poignant now than ever. The legacy of apartheid in South Africa continues to this day, and spills over into discourse about Israel’s occupation and destruction of Gaza.

Casualties of Truth releases on 11 February, 2025.

Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza 

Originally written in Spanish — where the word victim is feminine — Death Takes Me is a subversive literary crime thriller that follows a professor who finds the castrated corpse of a man in a dark alley, left with a poem written in nail polish. She calls the police, and becomes involved in solving the crime. But the bodies keep piling up, and she must use every part of her wits to put a stop to the violence. 

What makes this novel so interesting is its refusal to fall into the convention of having nameless and mutilated female bodies as central to the plot. The crime genre is riddled with the dehumanisation of women — but what if all the bodies, sexually mutilated or not, belonged to men? Would we so easily stomach this violence? When does it stop being a game?

Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza releases on 25 February, 2025.

Modern Divination by Isa Agajanian

Ava Reid, author of A Study in Drowning, described Modern Divination as “the cosy contemporary fantasy of my dreams”. Olivie Blake, best known for The Atlas Six, called it “lush and atmospheric”. If the GOATs are loving Isa Agajanian’s witchy dark academia, it’s probably safe to bet we will too. 

Modern Divination follows Aurelia, a witch who goes to Cambridge and keeps her magic a secret. However, Aurelia is in danger: someone is hunting witches and stealing their magic, and she herself is losing some of her powers. Forced to ask for help from fellow witch and rival Teddy Ingram, the pair seek refuge in his family home. But as they become closer, the killer grows nearer…

At a time where diverse gender identities are under attack and their books are being banned, it’s important to read books written by trans and non-binary authors!

Isa Agajanian’s Modern Divination hits shelves on 28 January.

That’s all from us for now — check in next month for March new releases.