Grace's 2025 Holiday Book Recommendations

Whether you are after a last minute gift for someone or looking to treat yourself over the holiday break, you can’t go wrong with a book in my opinion! Even though the holiday period can sometimes be hectic, I hope everyone is able to take some time for themselves and get lost in the pages of a good story for at least a little while. Here are a few of my favourite recent reads that I think would make the perfect choice. 

Thank you for Listening By Julia Whelan

For Sewanee Chester, being an audiobook narrator is a long way from her old dreams of the silver screen, but she’s found success and satisfaction from the inside of a sound booth and it allows her to care for her beloved, ailing grandmother.

She doesn’t buy what romance novels are selling and she stopped narrating them years ago.

But when Sewanee discovers one of the world’s most beloved romance novelists wanted her to perform her last book (with Brock McNight, the industry’s hottest, most secretive voice), her admiration of the late author who helped give her her industry start, and the opportunity to get her grandmother more help, makes her decision for her.

As Sewanee begins work on the book, resurrecting her old romance pseudonym, she and Brock forge a real connection, hidden behind the comfort of anonymity. Soon, she is dreaming again, but secrets are revealed, and the realities of life come crashing down around her once more.

If she can learn to risk everything for desires she has long buried, will she discover a world of intimacy and acceptance she never believed would be hers?

I loved the depth of the characters in this one and felt like I was on the edge of my seat the whole time wanting to find out what happened next. It had me squealing in delight watching the romance plot unfold, but also tearing up as the storyline around Sewanee’s grandmother develops.

Fair warning in advance for anyone who has experience with a loved one grappling with Alzheimer’s as there are some dark but beautifully handled conversations around this throughout the story. 

I also highly recommend listening to the audiobook to get the full effect from the reading experience! 

Carrie Soto is Back By Taylor Jenkins Reid

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever. 

The determination and drive that Carrie demonstrates throughout this story is incredibly inspiring. I also loved exploring how the relationship between Carrie and her father/coach changed so much throughout the course of her life/career.

If anyone watched the Challengers movie this year and is craving more of the intense, competitive, tennis vibes then this will be a great read for you to pick up.  

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow By Gabrielle Zevin

In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. Before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

There isn’t really much for me to say about this one other than I highly recommend reading this book! I had it recommended to me multiple times but was intimidated to start in case it didn’t live up to the hype.

It more than exceeded my expectations though and is such a beautiful, poignant, laugh-out-loud story that left me staring off into the distance for a good while after it was over.

Romantic Comedy By Curtis Sittenfield

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, the late-night live comedy show that airs each Saturday (think Saturday Night Live). With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.

Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder whether there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy; it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her...right?

Funny and charming, this was a slower read for me as I was dipping in an out in the middle of moving, but worth the time it took. The book takes a bit of a shift in the middle with the arrival of the global pandemic which caught me by surprise a little. I haven’t read many books that try to sum up this time in our recent history but thought it was a very interesting and realistic representation.

Finlay Donovan is Killing it By Elle Cosimano

Finlay Donovan is a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist; her life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.

This one is a wild ride of twists and turns. The scenarios Finlay find herself in are increasingly ridiculous, but still somehow feel entirely plausible thanks to Cosimano’s writing.

What have been your top reads this year? 

Share your recommendations in the comments below, we'd love to hear them!