It's an exciting time of year! Big announcements have been made about what we can expect to be reading in 2025 and there are already some great titles for the first half of the year. 

Here are some of the titles that have piqued our interest. In this list you'll find some the names of some authors we've selected in the past, some debuts and some follow ups to bestsellers! 

Want to stay on top of the latest releases? Sign up now for a WellRead subscription and we'll send you a new release literary fiction title to dig into each month. 

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Unfinished Business by Shankari Chandran – Expected 31st December 2024 

Sri Lanka, 2009. Decades of civil war and bloodshed are being brought to an end at last—by any means necessary. In the capital, Colombo, tenacious journalist Ameena Fernando is murdered, execution-style, on a busy street near her home, with no witnesses.

With pressure growing to find Ameena’s killer, CIA agent Ellie Harper is sent to seek justice for the journalist’s death, with strict instructions: find something, but not too much. It’s her first time returning to the island after her last mission went tragically awry four years prior, and Ellie has more than one ghost to lay to rest. Amid the international scheming and jostling for stakes in post-war Sri Lanka, Ellie follows the trail of secrets on a mission to uncover a truth worth killing for.

City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim – Expected 7th January 2025 

Natalia Leonova's talents were once celebrated across Europe, her grace and artistry in demand on stages from St Petersburg to Moscow to Paris. But when a devastating accident leaves her unable to dance, Natalia is left unmoored in St Petersburg, the city that made her a ballerina. Soon, the ghosts of her former life begin to resurface- her loving but difficult mother, her absentee father, the friendships destroyed by her single-minded ambition.

Above all, she is haunted by Alexander and Dmitri, the two gifted dancers who led to her downfall. So when Dmitiri resurfaces with a tantalising offer for Natalia to return to the stage in her signature role of Giselle, she must decide whether she can live without ballet, and how much she is willing to sacrifice to get back on stage.

Painting a vivid portrait of a world in which cutthroat ambition, ever-shifting politics, and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with both profound intimacy and breathtaking scope.

Confessions by Catherine Airey – Expected 28th January 2025 

It is late September in 2001 and the walls of New York are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady's father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges. Her mother died long ago and now, orphaned on the cusp of adulthood, Cora is adrift and alone. Soon, a letter will arrive with the offer of a new life- far out on the ragged edge of Ireland, in the town where her parents were young, an estranged aunt can provide a home and fulfil a long-forgotten promise. There the story of Cora's family is hidden, and in her presence will begin to unspool...

An essential, immersive debut from an astonishing new voice, Confessions traces the arc of three generations of women as they experience in their own time the irresistible gravity of the past- its love and tragedy, its mystery and redemption, and, in all things intended and accidental, the beauty and terrible shade of the things we do.

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson – Expected 11th February 2025 

Ebby Freeman's life has always been marked with tragedy. First, the death of her brother Baz, killed in an anonymous armed robbery when they were teenagers. Then her perfect fiance Henry deserted her on the day of their wedding, without an explanation.

When Ebby arrives in a sleepy French village, she believes she's found an opportunity for healing and anonymity. Until Henry appears, staying at the neighbouring property with his beautiful new girlfriend in tow.

It's the worst situation that Ebby can imagine. But might it give her a chance to piece together the fragments of her past - and finally embrace her future?

Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld – Expected 25th February 2025 

In 'Lost But Not Forgotten,' Sittenfeld gives readers of her novel Prep a chance to see how our beloved character Lee Fiora is doing thirty years later, when she returns for an awkward school reunion. In 'The Patron Saints of Middle Age,' a woman looks up two best friends that she moved away from after her divorce. In 'Creative Differences,' a photographer from the mid-west quickly realises that the 'documentary' she stars in is actually a commercial for a multi-national corporation. And in 'The Marriage Clock,' a Hollywood producer falls for a bestselling Christian self-help author while working on their film adaptation.

In these twelve dazzling stories, Sittenfeld skewers our assumptions about fame, marriage and celebrity. Laying bare on the page what we're all thinking but hesitate to say, she explores women's lives at the intersection of sex, love, ambition and the entangled pursuit of a fulfilling life.

Signs of Damage by Diana Reid – Expected 4th March 2025 

The Kelly family’s idyllic holiday in the south of France is disturbed when Cass, a thirteen-year-old girl, goes missing. She’s discovered several hours later with no visible signs of injury. Everyone present dismisses the incident as a close brush with tragedy.  

Sixteen years later, at a funeral for a member of the Kelly family, Cass collapses. The present and the past start to collide as buried secrets come to light and old doubts resurface. What really happened to Cass in the south of France? And what’s wrong with her now?

A gripping tale of unravelling memories and moral ambiguities, Signs of Damage wrestles with the difference between understanding other people, and trying to explain them.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy – Expected 4th March 2025 

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, 18 and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, 17, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; 9-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can't stop turning back towards the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn't telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realises Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it's too late-and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

The Theory of Everything by Yumna Kassab – Expected 4th March 2025

Good News: The worst has already happened.

Bad News: Even worse is on the way.

This is a fictional theory, a rant, a manifesto, an engagement or disengagement with the times, a record; it is bearing witness, a dramatisation of actual events, a horror-scape, either a monologue or dialogue, a testament, travel guide, handbook, textbook, potential encyclopaedia; it is five mini-novels or else five post-novels, an epic, a drop in the ocean, an homage, a reference, one long secret handshake, an agreement, a wink; it is an explosion of form, tangential, discursive, a firming of the foundations, a lament, an absurdist comedy with realism that is as realistic as it gets; it is a spectrum, shades of black from the dark to the next shade up from white, a proliferation, a step-back, a righting, a note to oneself, a line in the sand or a gust in the form of a structure-shaking gale; it is a dance (a two-footed, single-person line dance), an experiment, pure science, flicking the finger; it is, of course, backing away, crossing the street and avoiding eye contact; it is fantasy, humour, a romance without any leads, a defiance, a subdued rebellion, an anti-philosophical philosophy; it is pacifism that instigates a fight, a denouncement in the form of a laugh, an exploration, an adventure, a time-lapse, a panorama, a conclusion, you may just have to read the theory because these are just alluding-to-the-theory words.

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters – Expected 11th March 2025

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling novellas surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last novella, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins – Expected 18th March 2025 

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honour of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight ... and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Kataraina by Becky Manawatu – Expected in May 2025 

In Auē, eight-year-old Ārama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikōura, setting in train the tragedy that unfolded. Ārama’s aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but, silenced by abuse, her voice was absent from the story. In Kataraina, Kat and her whānau take over the telling. As one, they return to her childhood and the time when she first began to feel the greenness of the swamp in her veins — the swamp that holds her tears and the tears of her tīpuna; the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the girl shot the man. Unflinching in its portrayal of the darkness, tender in its harnessing of the hope that future generations represent, Kataraina is a stunning novel that confirms Becky Manawatu as one of the most talented and powerful writers working in Aotearoa/New Zealand today.

Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson – Expected in 2025 

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with each new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.