The Best New Book Releases Out February 25, 2025
Shows like Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Girls hold a special, nostalgia-filled place in my heart. If you are a fellow person of culture, there are Golden Girls goodies for readers. And, if you’re looking for another reading challenge to follow—apart from our 2025 Read Harder Challenge, of course—Danika Ellis has gathered some books that will fit this year’s Free Black Women’s Library Reading Challenge. I’ve never heard of the challenge myself, but its goals—”to read 24 books written by Black women and Black nonbinary folks by December 31, 2025″—sound lovely.
Now for the new. In the realm of YA, there’s A Touch of Blood by Sajni Patel, which fuses the myth of Persephone with Indian lore; and the romantasy Unlock the Dark by Sasa Hawk, with its monster transformations and unique magic system.
Then there’s the adult romantasy A Circle of Uncommon Witches by Paige Crutcher, and the fae and folklore-filled cozy fantasy Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill. If contemporary dark literary fiction is more your speed, there’s Creep: A Love Story by
Emma van Straaten.
As for the books below, there’s a look at what the American dream means for immigrants, an inverted Yellowface, the truth of DEI in the workplace, and even a girl haunted by a witch in a remote British village.
Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Robin Myers, Sarah Booker
One day, Professor Garza (no relation) comes across a dead man in an alley, and the crime scene is a hot mess. The man’s body is mutilated and there is a poem scrawled on a wall nearby. After the police get involved, the case’s lead detective—and the good professor Garza—become obsessed with what turns into a slew of men’s bodies being found all over the city. As they try their best to solve the mystery, we get another perspective on the nature of violence—specifically, how gendered it is.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
Dr. Nadia Amin publishes an article on how rehabilitating ISIS brides is a possibility, which brings the UN to her door. They offer her a chance to lead a deradicalization program for ISIS-affiliated women, which would take her to Iraqi refugee camps and far away from London and the painful breakup she just experienced. She accepts, but when she gets to Iraq, she realizes that her being a UN newbie isn’t exactly well-received. There are also people saying that the methods the program uses are unethical. With everything looking bad, Nadia decides to visit the camp with her team—the lawful good (and annoying) Sherry, and Pierre, the perpetual Grindr scroller. Once they get there, Nadia is immediately drawn to Sara, a low-key rude young woman from East London. She’s determined to get Sara home, and the decisions she makes to overcome the obstacles could lead to consequences she never imagined.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
Reading the title, I assumed Akkad was referring to Palestine, and I was right. The blurb for this nonfiction book mentions how, just a few weeks after October 7, 2023, he tweeted: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”
In this book, he explores the promise of the American Dream and Western ideals in general, and how disillusioned non-white Americans have become in them. He also looks at what it means for so much of the world to be ran by a select few (white) countries, and how he even grew up believing in the meritocracy espoused by the West.
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The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay
This London-set debut is giving hints of R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface, but inverted. Kind of. It follows Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo, who is trying to make it as a playwright in London’s theater world but comes up against what she very reasonably suspects is name-based racism. Then she meets the charismatic Hugo Lawrence Smith, who, like his name, is very white and is looking for a change from his corporate world. Together, they hatch a plan: Eddie (what Naledi goes by) will let Hugo pretend he wrote her play, and then when it’s a success, they’ll both reveal how it was hers all along, thereby exposing the inherent racism of the theater industry. But, as usual with these things, things go amok.
Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work by Shari Dunn
I often feel like a book being described as “timely” is played out, but that is exactly how I’d described Dunn’s Qualified, which looks at how the narrative around DEI assumes a lack of qualifications, especially when things like “competency checking”—a practice that looks at non-white people twice as hard when hiring—are and have been in full effect since forever. Through research and interviews, Shari Dunn peels back the layers of competency checking and its place in the post-2020 “racial reconciliation” workplace.
Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce
Realizing that the cover of this book has a wall and then following the logic of the title gave me the heebie-jeebies. Which is to say that, even from the cover, this horror novel is already working on your nerves.
It follows Mina, a British child psychologist who is new to her career and eager to get work. When she meets Sam at her grief group—which she attends to help her deal with her brother’s death—it seems like she’ll finally get her first job. He tells her of Alice, a 13-year-old living in the remote village of Banathel who says a witch is haunting her. Alice’s behavior is getting more intense, and though this will give Mina needed money and Sam a good story to write about, Banathel has a long history of dealing with witchcraft. And it’s not in a way that outsiders would necessarily agree with.
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!