New Women’s Fiction To Read in 2025

From beloved author Hannah Orenstein, this love letter to lake life is “the Parent Trap for adults,” the story of two half-sisters who meet for the first time at their father’s cabin in Maine after his unexpected death.

The second book in the sensational Dirty Diana series — based on the #1 fiction podcast. Traveling to Paris, Diana Wood reconnects with the man from her past who’s haunted her memories and ignited her imagination. Will this trip help her to reclaim the wild, sensual woman she used to be?

What if you were lost at sea … with your one-night stand? Two strangers find themselves stranded at sea together in this epic new love story by bestselling author Beth O’Leary.

Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. But when she finds herself at the lake she spent the summer at when she was a teenager — alongside her crush, Charlie Florek — she feels seventeen again. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart. Because Alice sees people — that’s why she is so good at what she does — but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back. A radiant, new escape to the lake from #1 New York Times bestselling author Carley Fortune.

How do you find yourself after you lose the one you loved the most? Grieving the loss of her best friend, a young woman’s life is turned upside down when she meets a grumpy stranger who swears he can help her live again, in this heartwarming, slow-burn romance by the author of Ready or Not.

Three days to fall in love. Six years to try to forget. One Day meets a contemporary Bridgerton in this high-drama, escapist wonder of a love story, Paige Toon’s best yet.

Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo, a podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating — but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?

The long-awaited follow-up to the Reese’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestselling global phenomenon The Light We Lost: A thrilling love story about the roles fate and choice play in shaping a life.

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick.

In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night. Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs — and the results kick off a partnership that will span years. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice? Moving from Brooklyn bars to San Francisco dance floors, Deep Cuts examines the nature of talent, obsession, belonging, and above all, our need to be heard.

In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off to register her son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she’d like to call the child, Cora hesitates … Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora’s and her young son’s lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

A woman learns the astonishing truth of her family’s ties to a vanished American Kingdom in this riveting new novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand. Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a transporting multi-generational novel about the stories that shape up and the dazzling courage it takes to dream.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel delivers an exciting and moving historical novel about a courageous wife and mother hiding in occupied France. In Far From Home, Danielle Steel captures the devastation of World War II with a sweeping story of family love that transcends impossible odds.

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is … complicated. So when her real dad — a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago — suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: About love, and what it actually means to be family.

A funny, fiercely intelligent, and moving collection exploring marriage, friendship, fame, and artistic ambition — including a story that revisits the main character from Curtis Sittenfeld’s iconic novel Prep — from the New York Times bestselling author of Eligible and Romantic Comedy.

A wickedly funny and audacious debut novel following an academic who flees from heartbreak and lands in Iraq with an insane job offer — only to be forced to do the work of confronting herself.

Four strangers are brought together to participate in an experimental treatment designed to heal broken hearts in this surprising and heartfelt debut novel from author Amelia Ireland. Riveting and wise, The Seven O’Clock Club shows us the courage needed to face your past and the joy that can be found in stepping into your future.

A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot-air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Two sisters living on Martha’s Vineyard during World War II find hope in the power of storytelling when they start a wartime book club for women — a spectacular novel inspired by true events from the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls.

Every parent exists inside of two families simultaneously – the one she was born into, and the one she has made. From a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother is forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.

A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: A socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter’s wedding. Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the height of her powers.

A young woman’s radicalization sparks a widespread movement and media frenzy in this explosive novel of youthful passion, political awakening and first love, by an extraordinary new talent.

She found the literary voices that would inspire the world … The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.

In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The House of the Spirits, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father — and herself.

Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers … When Xander Lin, an enigmatic influencer, is found dead, Vera is determined to solve his murder. The only problem? After his body is fished out of Mission Bay, the police can’t seem to actually identify him. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to know him, not even his parents. Who is Xander Lin?

Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.