Books in the Media: what's next for 2025?
This week BookTok creators offered their predictions for the books and authors they believe will be popular in 2025.
Rebecca Yarros is set to cook up a storm with the third instalment in the Empyrean series due to be published in January. Alice (@aliceandherbookshelf; 992 followers) commented: “We’re kicking off 2025 with Onyx Storm which I have no doubt will be a huge success.” Alice (@bookswithalice; 13,900 followers) agreed that the book will “take over towards the end of this month, I’m already seeing so many posts in anticipation”. #onyxstorm has already been used in over 38,000 posts on TikTok at the time of writing and Emily (@emilymiahreads; 82,100 followers) agreed that the novel, published by Piatkus, will be “super popular”. The three creators, alongside Lewis (@achilleanshelves; 18,500 followers), also flagged Sunrise on the Reaping (Scholastic), the latest addition to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series which follows fan-favourite character Haymitch Abernathy. Publishing in March 2025, Sunrise on the Reaping could be a BookTok hit as #hungergames – a hashtag used for all the books set in the dystopian world – has been used in over 1.1 million posts. “For a lot of BookTokers, we grew up with the Hunger Games and, for me, it was the first series I truly fell in love with,” said Alice (@bookswithalice). It will be “extremely popular on all sides of BookTok”, declared Lewis.
Kehinde (@kehindeslibraryy; 12,700 followers) thinks Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk will be popular this year following the recent online interest in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Fitzcarraldo), originally published in 2019. The novel is “all over social media” likely, in part, Kehinde noted, because Dua Lipa selected it as the January book of the month for her bookclub, Service95.
Laura Steven’s romantasy Our Infinite Fates (Penguin), due for publication on 27th February, is already gaining traction on BookTok. “I love the premise and have seen a lot of positive ARC reviews,” said Alice (@aliceandherbookshelf). “As much as I love a series, I love that this is a standalone fantasy novel – bring those back!” Further mentions for romantasy and fantasy went to Kristen Ciccarelli’s The Rebel Witch (HarperCollins) and VE Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (Pan Macmillan). Of the latter, Alice (@bookswithalice) said: “I’m sure it’ll go over well with her existing fan base as well as draw new readers in.” She also noted that RF Kuang is “in for another great year” with the publication of Katabasis (HarperVoyager), a dark academia fantasy novel that follows two academic rivals as they journey to the underworld to secure a letter of recommendation from their dead supervisor. “I know BookTok will be seated and ready!” Nods also went to Faithbreaker (HarperVoyager) by Hannah Kaner and Arcana Academy (Hodderscape) by Elise Kova. Lewis also highlighted SF Williamson’s Language of Dragons (HarperFire) as a “popular early release for 2025 which will grab fans of similar dragon-based fantasy stories”. On “Queer BookTok”, he continued, Aidan Thomas’ Cemetery Boys: Espíritu (Feiwel & Friends) will likely “do very well” when it is published in September 2025. It “will be such an amazing year for authors”, declared Emily.
Romantasy, Alice (@bookswithalice) predicts, will be “keeping its crown for the time being” as one of the most popular genres on BookTok with a wealth of upcoming publications from Saara El-Arifi’s Cursebound (HarperVoyager), the final book in the fae romantasy series, to Fearless (Simon & Schuster) by Lauren Roberts. “It is so reminiscent of the huge books that we read as teenagers so, particularly for my previously non-reader friends, this genre has reminded them of the fun and enjoyment that can be had when reading,” explained Alice (@aliceandherbookshelf). Fantasy and romantasy have a “chokehold on BookTok” concurred Emily.
Romance is also on track to have a big year, spearheaded by Emily Henry who “will definitely have a huge year” with the publication of Great Big Beautiful Life (Penguin). The film adaptation of Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation (Penguin), starring Emily Bader and Tom Blyth, is also due for release in November 2025. “I think there has been a shift in publishing houses recognising the power and popularity of romance books and I have loved seeing romances of all kinds embraced in 2024, and not just pushed to the side”, Alice (@aliceandherbookshelf) reflected.
