The Black Wolf by Louise Penny

THE BLACK WOLF by Louise Penny is the latest in her series about Inspector Gamache and the Canadian village of Three Pines. This novel picks up where The Grey Wolf ended, with a terrorist plot foiled and the instigator jailed, but something does not seem right to Gamache and his trusted team of Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste. Plot points involving immoral officials, climate change, and manipulation of social media make this title very relevant; so much so that Penny includes an introductory Author’s Note about how she finished the draft in September 2024 only to be surprised herself in January 2025 “when I started spotting headlines that could have been ripped right from the book.” THE BLACK WOLF received a starred review from Publishers Weekly who summarized this absolutely excellent book perfectly: “Penny’s talent for nail-biting suspense and quiet character moments fuse with surprisingly topical subject matter to deliver an unputdownable installment of an ever reliable series. Readers will cheer.” It will have you thinking …

She writes, “Three Pines is a state of mind. A place we carry with us always and live in when we see the chance for the clever, often cutting, remark, but choose kindness. When we are forgiving, as we sometimes need to be forgiven. When we choose decency, and acceptance. When we have integrity and the courage to stand up for what we know to be right. Even at some personal cost.”

Best of the Year in Books ...

Here (in no particular order) is a compilation of some of the “Best of the Year” lists, updated for 2025: 

National Public Radio provides “Books We Love,” 1000s of titles (from 2025 and earlier years) and shows their covers in a fun, very interactive way. Please do not forget to consult the Indie Next Lists - recommendations from independent booksellers – like this one for book groups. 

More ideas from National Book Awards or public libraries like Chicago Public Library, Lake Travis Public Library Staff made a video featuring their favorites,  and New York Public Library published the year’s 10 most checked out books. Keep searching – these lists often lead to others with suggestions for all ages. 

Best of 2025 from School Library Journal; including Sisters in the Wind on its Young Adult list. And there are multiple state award lists to consult, too, like the Texas Lariat Reading List, its 2026 suggestions should be coming soon. Plus professional choices from Publishers Weekly – I am excited because I am not very familiar with their Top 10 or Mystery choices so plenty of new ideas to explore. Kirkus Reviews also has a variety of lists.  A separate Kirkus list is provided for best young adult books which can be further subdivided by genre. 

And Goodreads has its Choice Awards across several categories for 2025: https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2025 With titles like this year’s top fiction choice (My Friends by Bachman), this is always a “go to” list since reader votes and word of mouth have built interest. Amazon, of course, offers its own list of editor choices for 2025, with best seller (and my personal favorite of the year) Heart of a Stranger. LibraryReads: primarily for public libraries, this group has stopped issuing overall favorites, but  has an impressive archive with Top 10 choices by month. 

Name a publication and you are likely to find a best book list. For example, The Washington Post offers several lists. The Wall Street Journal has a best of 2025 list for books, both from their reviewers and fifty “luminaries.” In addition to an article about Five Breakout Books (that is a gift link) of which Theo of Golden is one I have on hold currently, see 100 notable books of the year from The New York Times; there is also a top ten list on their site. Overwhelmed? The blogger at LitHub has compiled a chart which lists the titles that appeared most frequently on recommended lists (Memorial Days is on eight and The Correspondent is on five) … and my “to-be-read” pile grows ever taller… Plenty of overlap and some delightful selections on these many lists. … Ah, so many books and so little time. Once again: Happy Reading!!! Enjoy!!!

Paper Girl by Beth Macy

Geraldine Brooks (Horse and Memorial Days) says, “If you want to know why our nation is so divided read Beth Macy's PAPER GIRL.” This new text is subtitled “A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America.” As such, it is extremely relevant today and while being very informative, is also a difficult read emotionally. Best-selling and award-winning author Macy (Dopesick) returned to Urbana, Ohio where she grew up and attended high school in order to document the changes in the past forty years. Macy returns to familiar themes about drug addiction, decline of unions (“One in three full-time workers carried union cards when I was coming of age, but now that number is one in ten”), and the lack of local journalism. Readers will empathize with a promising student who is motivated to overcome a dysfunctional family situation, but who struggles to attend college on a scholarship which doesn’t cover transport, room or board. Macy is a gifted writer who shares information about her community and her family in a straightforward, insightful manner. She asks, for example, how communities lose faith in their schools; pointing out “the more divided our education levels, the more divided our nation.” There is so much to consider that I read this book over several months. Macy writes, “The more time I spent back in my hometown, the more I recognized the unprecedented forces that were actively turning the community I loved into a poorer, sicker, angrier, and less educated place.” Still, like Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett in Upswing, Macy is hopeful in this recent text (and in real life where she is running for Congress in the 2026 midterms). PAPER GIRL received a starred review from Publishers Weekly (“a welcome salve for a festering social wound. It’s a sobering journey into America’s splintered heartland”), is a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2025. 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths

THE FROZEN PEOPLE by Elly Griffiths is the start of a new mystery series which features Ali Dawson who has the extraordinary capability to travel in time. She leaves the modern day to go to 1850 London in an attempt to find out whether the ancestor of a government official is guilty of murder. But, something goes wrong, and she is trapped there while a modern-day murder results in her son being arrested. Ali’s colleagues frantically try to return her so that she can apply her crime-solving skills to her son’s case. This series is quite different from the historical mysteries and police procedurals that Griffiths’ fans have come to enjoy, but it does convey a dark feeling of menace and readers will be engaged. Kirkus says, “Murder on several time planes is a fascinating premise enhanced by an enthralling look at Victorian London.” Griffiths herself notes, “Even though the plot is somewhat fantastical, I wanted to make the details as convincing as possible.” Her research and clever writing shine through.

Winning the Earthquake by Lorissa Rinehart

WINNING THE EARTHQUAKE by Lorissa Rinehart is about “How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress.” Rinehart, described as a women’s historian, author, speaker and regular Substack contributor, is clearly enthusiastic about Rankin and her accomplishments. The text presents Rankin in a very favorable light while providing details about her 1880’s childhood in rural Montana and her subsequent work with the poor in New York and San Francisco. Rinehart makes a convincing argument that Rankin’s “formative years in Montana taught her that society functioned best when men and women participated equally. Her work in San Francisco proved that women led the way when it came to grassroots enactment of Progressive reform. [And] Her education … underscored the necessity of government regulation in bringing about holistic change on a large scale.” I already knew that Rankin was a pacifist and had served in Congress, but I did not realize that she was first elected to Congress in 1916, four years before the right to vote was granted to women nationwide. I also did not realize that she had voted against US involvement in both World Wars (believing that “you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake”) and that she was active (while in her nineties) in protesting the Vietnam War. This is a very accessible text brimming with details; with roughly a fourth of the book devoted to Notes. WINNING THE EARTHQUAKE received a starred review from Library Journal which said, “This superb biography of the first woman elected to Congress deserves a place on every public and academic library bookshelf.”

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

ARSENIC AND ADOBO by Mia P. Manansala was a LibraryReads selection in May 2021 and a GoodReads Nominee for best mystery/thriller that year.  Honestly, it has been on my “to-be-read” pile for quite a while, especially since it had received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.  The first in a series (Tia Rosie’s Kitchen) of what is now six books, I just finished it over the holidays. The main character is named Lila Macapagal and she is devoted to her Filipino family and their restaurant. The story is cute (Lila owns a “chubby” dachshund called Longganisa, a type of sausage) and reminded me of Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes (although the later has a Chicago location versus being located two hours outside the city in fictional Shady Palms), particularly since the livelihood of each restaurant is threatened after an unexpected death. I was grateful for the glossary and pronunciation guide which the author included, although I still struggled to differentiate some of Lila’s family members, especially the older generation, like Tia Rosa and Lila’s grandmother. I clearly enjoy a cozy culinary, often with  enclosed recipes like those found in ARSENIC AND ADOBO, but my favorites in that category remain the Goldy Bear ones by Diane Mott Davidson.

The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan

THE SECRET CHRISTMAS LIBRARY by Jenny Colgan has such a beautiful, festive cover that I was immediately drawn to it. Other readers in my book group have recommended titles by her, too, and this was a wonderful cozy holiday read with a great setting – castle in Scotland filled with hundreds, no, thousands, of books. The castle is home to Jamie McKinnon, a kind, young (and attractive) laird who is trying to save the estate. His plan is to find a special book which his puzzle-loving grandfather apparently hid before his death. As a result, Jaime invites experienced “book hunters” Mirren Sutherland and Theo Palliser (attracted to each other in a past adventure) to join him in the quest. Jaime’s sister, Esme, turns up as well, joining the group and housekeeper Bonnie as they each contribute to solving a rather involved riddle. I loved the description of the snow-bound, chilly castle and couldn’t wait to get under the covers and read each night. THE SECRET CHRISTMAS LIBRARY, which the author calls a “fairy tale of sorts,” is that as well as a fun mystery with a touch of romance. Enjoy!

The Botanist's Assistant by Peggy Townsend

THE BOTANIST'S ASSISTANT by Peggy Townsend is a fun mystery in a university setting. The main character, Margaret Finch, is clearly neurodivergent so this is a bit reminiscent of The Maid or Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder. Initially, Margaret is so regimented that it is difficult to develop empathy, but it is wonderful to watch her grow (adopting a cat) and develop a sense trust with other people. She finds Professor Deaver (her boss whom she idolizes) dead and then struggles to convince school authorities that he has been poisoned. Her snooping is sometimes comical, but often effective, and whenever she thinks she clearly has a suspect identified, something happens to change that calculus. Deftly presenting interesting facts about botany and poisonous plants, THE BOTANIST'S ASSISTANT is an entertaining read with plenty of twists and surprises. Library Journal gave it a starred review while Publishers Weekly said, “sweet enough to charm cozy fans.”  Enjoy!!

A Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn

A FAMILY OF SPIES by Christine Kuehn is a significant work of non-fiction that reads like a fictional story. Readers will be enthralled and surprised at the real-life twists in this “World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor.” In 1994, Christine receives a letter from a screenwriter asking about her paternal grandfather, Otto Kuehn, implying that he had been a Nazi agent stationed in Hawaii just prior to the attacks in Pearl Harbor. What follows is Christine’s account of her research, including a confrontation with her own father, and subsequent discoveries about her own family history. She learns about her father’s older stepsiblings: Leopold, who worked in Germany as a deputy to Hitler’s propaganda minister and Ruth, who had an affair with Goebbels until (the author believes) he found out that she was Jewish and arranged for the family to emigrate to Hawaii where Ruth and her parents acted as spies, eventually appearing on an FBI watch list. It is a truly fascinating account.

I listened to portions of the audiobook which is narrated by Erin Bennett and very well presented. Recommend this unusual, but engrossing, title to WWII history buffs.

Consider the Birds edited by Callie Smith Grant

CONSIDER THE BIRDS contains a series of essays about human interaction with birds, sometimes with them as pets, sometimes observing them in nature. The collection is edited by Callie Smith Grant and the audiobook is narrated by Siiri Scott. Together with the contributing authors they do indeed share “Heartwarming True Stories of Our Feathered Friends.”  There are some religious references, but overall, CONSIDER THE BIRDS contains gentle stories and offers pleasant listening.  It was informative to hear about wildlife rehabilitation and the special connection, like knowing when backyard birds were in distress, that an author developed. This recording is full of facts, too; did you know that swallows who can fly and eat at the same time? There are tales about a pet crow, about hummingbirds, and a seagull (coincidentally, the state bird of Utah) named Coco who was adept at asking for food from a restaurant waiter. The antics are often fun and generally informative, describing actions, diet, and even parenting styles for these amazing creatures.

Deeper than the Ocean by Mirta Ojito

DEEPER THAN THE OCEAN by award winning author Mirta Ojito is beautifully written. The story takes place in two time periods, contrasting a tale that is set in the modern day with one that begins in the early years of the twentieth century. It is a story of family, of secrets, and of thwarted love. In 2019, Mara Santander, an investigative journalist, is mourning her husband: “What I needed, what I wanted was life assurance, the guarantee, in writing, if possible, that he would live as long as I did, that his side of the bed would never be pristine and that my hand would always find his in the dark. He laughed off my fears and hugged my worries away. Now, of course, I'm grateful for his foresight.” She eventually travels to the Canary Islands in search of information about her great grandmother, Catalina. Married to one man and in love with another (“my love for you is higher than the sky and deeper than the ocean”), Catalina experiences the heartbreak and trauma of an ocean storm and eventually rebuilds her life in Cuba which is where, many years later,  Mara emigrated from (“What do you do when you can’t stay, and you can’t go back?”). DEEPER THAN THE OCEAN is a very moving debut novel, where “hope … could be even more heartbreaking than grief,” and is recommended by USA Today for “fans of Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, and Kristin Hannah.” The settings are beautiful, the culture is exquisitely shared, and the emotions are complex. 

A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith

A CASE OF LIFE AND LIMB by Sally Smith is the second volume in The Trials of Gabriel Ward series (after A Case of Mice and Murder) and was recently reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, referring to “its lawyerly shenanigans and emotional poignancy.” This is a delightful series written by a lawyer and resident of the Inner Temple so the affection which Ward feels for his surroundings seems genuinely based on Smith’s own feelings. Set at Christmas time 1901, this puzzle concerns some rather gruesome body parts delivered as gifts and containing indirect threats to leaders of the community. Gabriel Ward grows as a character while continuing to battle some of his reservations about getting involved in investigations and also arguing a libel case involving a young actress. A CASE OF LIFE AND LIMB received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly ([with] “Elegant prose, expert pacing, and a well-drawn protagonist …. This series deserves a long life.”).

Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd

WRITING CREATIVITY AND SOUL by Sue Monk Kidd is, according to the author, “Part memoir, part guidebook, and part reflection on the writing life.” She begins by quoting Maya Angelou about “Three things you need in order to write. First, you need something to say. Second, you need the ability to say it. Finally, you need the courage to say it at all.” Later sections of the book talk about playing with images, possible beginnings of a story, and references a Zen adage: “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; In the expert's mind there are few.” I also liked the chapter where Monk Kidd wrote about character development (“Love them, empathize with them, participate deeply in their inner lives.”) and four questions that she asks: Who is my Character? (followed by many sub-questions about her relationships, likes and dislikes, emotions). What does my Character want? Who and what thwarts my Character? How will my Character be different in the end? As Monk Kidd develops these ideas, she gives examples from her writing, such as Lily from The Secret Life of Bees or Ana from The Book of Longings; readers will have a richer experience if they have read her other works. I agree with her assessment that this text is more memoir and reflection than it is a manual for new writers, but it is interesting to share in her comments about the writing process which she has honed over decades.

Every Day I Read by Hwang Bo-reum

EVERY DAY I READ by Hwang Bo-reum contains a series of essays which describe “53 Ways to Get Closer to Books.” There is room for disagreement (the author even advocates both Read Bestsellers and Read Beyond Bestsellers). Throughout, there are many, many suggestions of book titles and authors and I found myself highlighting several to consider, although some are not as readily available here as they would be in Asia. I also highlighted and starred several passages; here are just a few: “by insisting on finishing a book you no longer want to read, you're taking time away from the books you're truly interested in.” OR “We change as we read books. We just don't realize it. And this change may have an impact on the course of our lives.” Publishers Weekly reviewed EVERY DAY I READ and concluded, “Dedicated bibliophiles and casual readers alike will adore this.” I concur. So do the voters at LibraryReads: EVERY DAY I READ was a December 2025 selection.

As a related aside, The New York Times just published an article called, “Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class.” It refers to a forthcoming study by Jonna Perrillo and Andrew Newman; Uncensored will be published in March, 2026.

A Field Guide to Murder by Michelle L. Cullen

A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER by Michelle L. Cullen is described as “perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Benjamin Stevenson” so naturally I rushed to read a preview of this debut which is scheduled for a January publication. The main character, Harry Lancaster, is indeed a bit of an older curmudgeon but he bonds with Emma Stockton, his caretaker, and together they set out to solve what could be a murder mystery while simultaneously distracting each other from some sad thoughts. Harry is concerned about growing less independent and Emma has to make an uncomfortable decision about her upcoming wedding. A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER is a cute, entertaining story which Kirkus describes as “[A] neighborhood cozy that ticks all the boxes.” Enjoy! And consider tuning into Netflix’s “A Man on the Inside,” also featuring an older sleuth.