2025 Bossy Fiction Ideas for Your Holiday Gift List
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Bossy Book Gift Ideas
As I finish sharing my book gift idea lists for the season, I thought I'd offer a full list of giftable fiction published in 2025 that I've loved reading this year. I've also included additional book ideas within each genre or theme so you'll be stocked with plenty of ideas for your loved ones.
The good news about book gifts and looming holiday deadlines: your local bookstore can get you set up with last-minute slam dunks for everyone on your list!
You can also check my past Bossy gift idea lists (linked below) for quirky books, perennial classics, modern favorites, nonfiction must-haves, or other titles that might be perfect for the people on your holiday list.
2025 Bossy Book Gift Guides
2024 Bossy Book Gift Guides
2023 Bossy Book Gift Guides
2022 Bossy Book Gift Guides
2021 Bossy Book Gift Guides
2020 Bossy Book Gift Guides
Bossy Independent Bookstore Love
A Bossy book-buying note: If you're buying books this holiday season, please support your local independent bookstore. They need and appreciate our business! (The book covers on Bossy Bookworm link you to Bookshop, a site that supports the beloved indies that keep us swimming in thoughtful book recommendations and excellent customer service all year round.)
I love my local independent bookstore, Park Road Books. They have a fantastic selection of titles, staff members offer spot-on recommendations (and sparkling personalities!), and they can order almost anything they don't have in stock. If you're local, please give them a try.
A Twisty, Fast-Paced, Con-Artist Mystery
01 First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
Elston's first adult novel ticked all of my mystery-reading boxes: a con artist, fake identity, dangerous boss, complicated mark, trusty sidekick, clever maneuvering, and non-manipulative twists.
I loved the key elements of this story: the capable con woman, the past coming back to haunt her, the complicated mark, the tricky cross and double-cross, and Elston's delightful twists. This was smart and intriguing, a fast and compelling read with a main protagonist I was rooting for.
Elston has an upcoming mystery, Anatomy of an Alibi, scheduled for publication January 13.
For my full review--I rated this mystery 4 stars--please check out this link.
Other mysteries you might want to gift: Richard Osman's charming Thursday Murder Club series, Steve Cavanagh's twisty Kill for Me, Kill for You, or the most recent in Tess Gerritsen's retired-spies-in-Maine Martini Club series, The Summer Guests.
A Captivating Historical Fiction Survival Story
02 Isola by Allegra Goodman
Isola, based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman, shifts between details of a life of moneyed ease and an abandonment on an unforgiving, uninhabited island after our main protagonist falls in love with the wrong person.
I was fascinated by each aspect of this tale, and Goodman transported me into the details and (often infuriating) dynamics of life at the time.
Isola is inspired by the story of the real-life Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval.
For my full review of this book, which I rated 4.5 Bossy stars, please see Isola.
Other historical fiction titles published in 2025 that might also fit the bill: The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian, Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall, Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine, and There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak.
A Rich Time-Travel Fantasy by a Favorite Author
03 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
The Everlasting involves jaunts through multiple versions of the same story, as our fantastic main protagonists shift and change, bravely outsmart those who would control them, dare to hope for a future together, and fight dark forces until the bitter end. This is adventure-heavy, sometimes tender, and always intriguing. I loved it.
This is the type of romantic fantasy I adore. No swooning, childish behavior, or foolishness, just hard-won connections, deep character development, bravely defying expectations, and absolutely lovely love. This broke my heart and mended it over and over, in the best ways possible.
For my full review of this 4.5-star read, please check out this link.
Other fantasy novels you or your giftee might also enjoy: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab, and Katabasis by R. F. Kuang.
An Intriguing Literary Fiction Standout
04 What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan's literary fiction What We Can Know looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary poet's put-upon wife trade points of view to illuminate across two timelines a calculated rewriting of history, our brave and hubristic present-day existence, and fictional yet hauntingly plausible dangers.
I was struck by the stacked surprises that became clear in What We Can Know, and I loved realizing the incorrect assumptions I made about certain characters' motivations and capabilities.
For my full review of this novel, which I rated 4.5 Bossy stars, please check out What We Can Know.
Other great literary fiction titles published this year: The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr, Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai.
A Branching Narrative Novel
05 The Names by Florence Knapp
Knapp's novel explores three life paths for a set of characters, all set into motion by the naming of the youngest child--whimsical, Mom's choice, or named for his cruel father. The trauma was difficult to read, but the various timelines were fascinating, as were the intersections of events and characters among them.
Each timeline produces a vastly different boy, a significantly shaped sister Maia, drastically different paths for mother Cora, and altered futures for father Gordon. Supporting characters make easter-egg appearances in other timelines.
None of the paths are too easy or perfect, but each offers varied satisfaction and challenge in the form of justice, tragedy, self-realization, fulfillment, confidence, and hope.
For my full review of this novel, which I rated 4.5 Bossy stars, please check out The Names.
Other captivating fiction titles published this year include: The Correspondent, A Guardian and a Thief, and The Book of Love.
A Romantasy Without Excessive Swooning
06 Silver Elite by Dani Francis
While I probably should stop reading "romantasy" because I prefer my fantasy and romance to remain separate, I was taken with the double-edged quest, elite training, magical abilities, and complex conflicts between classes in the first in this dystopian series.
Francis explores issues of class and race through her characters' strongly held assumptions and prejudices surrounding Mods and Primes, and Wren's fierce loyalty to her kind is complicated by the secrets she's keeping about abilities that would make her even more feared, a deeper outcast, and a terrifyingly unknown quantity to both types of person in her world.
This is the first in a series and I'm really looking forward to reading the next installment.
For my full review of this title, which I rated 4 Bossy stars, please check out Silver Elite.
Other great 2025 fantasy novels with some romance that are not swooning romantasy: Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry, A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson, and The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig.