Rating the Waterstones 2025 Fantasy Books of the Month
I read them all and here's what I thought.
In 2024 Waterstones introduced a fantasy and sci-fi category for its book of the month picks and as a keen fantasy reader (and writer) I thought I’d read all 11 (they don’t do books of the month in December) and see how I got on. I also was keen to try some sci-fi as it’s not a genre I go to regularly but having recently absolutely adored The Fifth Season I’m keen to try more.
I wrestled with how to do this as part of a wider wrestling with how to talk about books online. There were a couple of books I didn’t get on so well with, but I’m increasingly wary of being very critical about books online. I’m so on board with keeping reviewing spaces largely free of writers and certainly don’t check or get involved with reviews of my own books. I am entirely at peace with that being none of my business. However it is more tricky when you’re a writer who is a reader and who long before they were a novelist was reading and talking about books online. I love talking about books online! But I don’t want to publicly bash a book I didn’t like (that’s what my private Instagram is for) both out of respect for the work put into it and also, to be frank, it’s very awkward if you then cross paths with them (or their editors). They are essentially a colleague and I have no idea if they’ve seen my opinions or not. I’m taking a step back from discussing the Women’s Prize so publicly next year too for the same reason, especially as I venture into the adult space with my own books (I have a romcom coming in spring 2027). I haven’t been critical of children’s books online since I started writing them and I think that principle is going to have to now extend to adult fiction too.
Having said all of that, it’s entirely uninteresting to me to be unhelpfully vague or to lie about books and I want you to be able to trust my word when I recommend something so there’s going to be less “here’s everything I read and what to avoid and what to pick up”, and more “here are the highlights of what I’ve read and if it’s here I genuinely liked it”. It means that the recommendations can still be entirely sincere but without tying myself up in knots trying to be honest without being too critical about things I didn’t like.
So having said all of that - thanks for bearing with me - I’ve decided to highlight my top five alongside giving you a flavour of the other six in terms of trying to give a steer on if you’d like them without ranking them. Also, taste is subjective! Out of curiosity I ranked the 11 books in order according to GoodReads ratings and my least favourite is well reviewed on GoodReads and three of my top five would be in GoodReads’ bottom five so take from that what you will…
My Top 5 in reverse order:
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
One of two books I had read already, I really enjoyed this when I read it back in January 2024. It does mean my memory for specifics are a little hazy but at the time I said:
This is perhaps what you’d call literary sci fi or maybe speculative reading group fiction?! Part of its joy is its glorious mashup of genres - it’s a time travel novel about colonialism that’s also a love story. It’s witty and sad and weird and sexy. I think and hope this is a book that we’ll all be talking about and reading this summer.
I think that despite my best efforts I was unduly affected both by the buzz and by the naysayers meaning nearly two years later I’ve sort of lost track of what I personally thought about it. I’m going by how enthusiastic I was when I wrote the above, even if it hasn’t stayed with me as much as I clearly thought it would. I would say that I appreciate books that are trying to do something new and interesting and even if this has its flaws, I nearly swapped the order of this and the next one to give it points for its big swings.
Plot: A British-Cambodian civil servant working for the government’s top secret time travel project is assigned Commander Graham Gore to assimilate into modern society, who has been ripped from certain death as part of Franklin’s doomed 1845 Arctic expedition.
Blood Over Bright Moon by ML Wang
So this comes out top if you’re ranking by GoodReads reviews and I can see why as it’s a very well executed version of a familiar story. It’s very of the moment in terms of its dark academia vibes, its fantasy with a tinge of dystopia genre, and its exploration of themes like complicity in colonialism and state violence (which isn’t done subtly but I think lands effectively). It hits a lot of tropes and largely will do what you are expecting it to do but I found it to be really well written and hugely engaging - I read it super quickly, had a great time, was rooting for the characters, and was moved by the ending. If you like this sort of thing, I’d say it’s a must-read.
Plot: In a sealed-off city, Sciona is the first woman to become a highmage. Alongside dealing with the misogyny of her colleagues, her and her refugee assistant Thomil learn the violent truth about where magic really comes from.
The Great When by Alan Moore
This was the last book I read and I had heard very mixed things about it - from someone telling me to avoid it entirely to someone who said it was their book of the year. Personally I really enjoyed it; even though not everything worked for me, I liked how weird and clever and irreverent it was and I enjoyed that it felt like reading a fantasy novel from a few decades ago. By a fairly long shot it’s the least accessible on the list, and definitely more of a Marmite read; Moore’s style is dense and descriptive and pretty florid and the world-building is wild and more concerned with style and verve that technicalities. But it’s so original, and full of glorious lines about London and magic and people.
“Machen edged around his startling subject matter - his conception of the human realm as a mere safety curtain, a dilapidated rag, threadbare in places, that was pulled across a more substantial world.”
“It occurred to Dennis that the English copes with deprivation by reworking misery into a ragged-arse mythology.”
“This was the whole problem with the past, that it was never really over, when the dreadful bricks of yesterday were what tomorrow would be built from.”
Plot: Eighteen-year-old orphan and accidental bookseller Dennis Knuckleyard ends up in possession of a book that shouldn’t exist. In his attempt to return it before disaster befalls him, he becomes acquainted with the hidden, dangerous Great When - “the real London - London’s theory not its practice” and its denizens.
Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
This was such a pleasant surprise for me. As I said at the top, part of the appeal of doing this was to find some new sci-fi that wasn’t too inaccessible. This is a novel set on a spaceship, something I would usually avoid, but I loved this. It’s got a very Wes Anderson feel, it’s quirky and whimsical but really got me emotionally in the end as although it is undeniably about a spaceship really it is about people and humanity and love and hope. It starts off as a series of vignettes about the people who work on or are staying at the Hotel Abeona, all told from different POVs, but I loved the way the ties between all these people came together. Some of them operate more separately, and one of those had me in tears after a mere 20 or so pages. (I would say if you need everything to be tied up neatly and don’t enjoy a more meandering vibe you might get impatient with this.) The writing is lovely, it’s sweet and cosy but with depth and I found it to be quietly very beautiful.
Plot: The Grand Abeona Hotel is luxury intergalactic hotel run by a found family of misfits. The book introduces to them all, as well as some of the guests, as a loose plot involving imperial spies, anonymous love poems and at the heart of it all the manager and caretaker Carl.
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
My favourite of the eleven picks was another one I’d already read. And to be totally frank, Katherine is a personal friend of mine BUT we met because I love her books so much and she’s also not very online so won’t see this anyway. It’s also one I read way back at the beginning of 2024 but this one has really stayed with me; it’s exquisitely written, incredibly moving and with a very clever speculative twist. I love a historical novel with a fantasy/speculative element, I would go as far as to say it’s probably my favourite sub-genre. Here the central question is what would the supernatural devil do in a man-made hellscape like World War One. (It also has some excellent yearning and chemistry, but no spoilers). While I enjoyed several of the other books, recommending them would come with some caveats about what you enjoy, where this is the only one I would enthusiastically recommend to anyone.
Plot: Laura, a Canadian nurse, is trying to find out what has happened to her soldier brother Freddie who is missing, presumed dead in Belgium during the First World War and while there she hears rumours of a secretive hotel and its owner amid the trenches. Laura’s story is alternated with flashbacks to Freddie a year earlier who is trapped and wounded with an enemy soldier.
And here’s some pointers for the rest, in the order they were chosen through the year:
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White
A fantasy murder mystery that’s very accessible and fast-paced with a large, diverse cast of characters and a chaotic, somewhat obnoxious, anti-hero at its centre. One for readers who enjoy romp-y YA-style fantasy which feels very of the moment (there’s a “good soup” reference etc) and who don’t mind (or enjoy) somewhat nonsensical world-building.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
Historical fantasy set in an alternate version of the Spanish Inquisition about a servant girl who discovers her magical powers and is thrown into a world of scheming and danger. One for readers who value writing and description over plot (there is a proper plot, but the pacing is a bit wonky) and like a love story but that’s not the main/only story. I found the historical elements very compelling - I’d actually love to read a straight historical novel by Bardugo.
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
A well written version of a familiar genre ie a fairy tale retelling. It’s a version of The Goose Girl by the author of the popular The Saint of Steel books (Paladin’s Grace etc). I have essentially run out of appetite for fairy tale retellings unless they’re doing something very different and even though this hasn’t stayed with me, I undeniably was absorbed and entertained by it while I was reading it. Would enthusiastically recommend if you are after fairy reimaginings.
Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood
An appealing concept if you enjoy cosy fantasy (the love story is very much a secondary plot); a modern London bookseller who has let her magical powers lapse has to prove her worthiness on her 30th birthday in order to keep them. It’s a likeable and straightforward read for readers who are after cosy vibes and stories of young women coming into their own rather than robust world-building or lyrical writing.
The Last Gifts of the Universe by Riley August
Another whimsical sci-fi that has overlap with Floating Hotel in some themes and vibes, but I preferred Floating Hotel. This is a well done, charming, and very readable book though. It’s about an archivist who scours dead planets for the titular last gifts but happens across a surviving message warning of the end of the universe. There’s also a cat called Pumpkin, which will endear some people and put some people off and I would honestly say your reaction to that one fact will give you a good handle on whether you’d like the book generally.
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
A great concept - a young woman inherits a pawn shop in Tokyo at the border between worlds where you can pawn your deepest regrets. She ends up in a very whimsical race for answers across the hidden magical world - think bridges over midnight, night markets in clouds, jumping through puddles etc etc. I had some stumbling blocks with a few writing tics where dialogue follows the exact same rhythm as a way to set up cliffhangers or characters speak very unnaturally to give unsubtle life lessons. But I genuinely loved some of the imagery and ideas, it’s got strong Studio Ghibli vibes.
So there you go, I hope that got some useful recommendations for what to pick up or what to avoid from this. Overall I really enjoyed the project, I love giving myself a project for some of my year’s reading as my brain responds well to gamifying things and ticking things off and making lists so I’m considering doing it again this year, but might do thrillers as I really rarely read them and am curious, or just the general fiction pick as a way to try new things. Or even non-fiction to really mix it up. Let me know if you have a preference…