Anticipated Releases (October- December 2025)

Hey guys, this is Abi here,

And I'm back with my long overdue Anticipated Releases post for the final three months of 2025! I know I always say this, but I can't believe how quickly this stage of the year has rolled around!

Nevertheless, there are still a great many books that are about to be releases, and I can't wait to reveal my own personal list!

I will be starting from the start of October, even including the books that have already been released, just so you know.

I hope you enjoy this list, and don't forget to post your own anticipated releases list in the comments!

~October 2025~

1. Remain, by Nicholas Sparks & M. Night Shyamalan

Release date: 7/10/25

When I first heard about this, I wasn't sure whether to put it on my list or not. It didn't seem all that different from other supernatural romances I'd heard about in the past, even if I'd heard of Nicholas Sparks in the past.

Then I found out who M. Night Shyamalan was- world renowned writer and director of Unbreakable, Split, and The Sixth Sense, and looking at this with a fresh pair of eyes, I decided to add it to the list after all.

"When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia’s deathbed revelation—that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family—sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.

Tate and Wren find themselves forging an immediate connection, one that neither has ever experienced before. But Tate gradually discovers that below the surface of Wren’s idyllic small-town life, hatred, jealousy, and greed are festering, threatening their fragile relationship just as it begins to blossom. Tate realizes that in order to free Wren from an increasingly desperate fate, he will need to unearth the truth about her past before time runs out . . . a quest that will make him doubt whether we can ever believe the stories we tell about ourselves, and the laws that govern our existence. Love—while transformative—can sometimes be frightening.

A story about the power of transcendent emotion, Remain asks us all: Can love set us free not only from our greatest sorrows, but even from the boundaries of life and death?"

Aside from that, it also looks like this is going to be a film in 2026. I'm very much hoping the book sells well, but consider the names behind this project, I'm almost expecting it to do well (will definitely be joining the large fan base in reading this).

2. The Scammer, by Tiffany D. Jackson

Release date: 7/10/25

I read Grown by the same author five years ago yesterday, and it's turned into one of those books that I still think about today. Tiffany D. Jackson is known for her sensitive subjects and hard-hitting writing style and although I haven't picked up a book by her for the last five years, I have a feeling that I'm going to love this one.

"Out from under her overprotective parents, Jordyn is ready to kill it in prelaw at a prestigious, historically Black university in Washington DC. When her new roommate’s brother is released from prison, the last thing Jordyn expects is to come home and find the ex-convict on their dorm room sofa. But Devonte needs a place to stay while he gets back on his feet—and how could she say no to one of her new best friends?

Devonte is older, as charming as he is intelligent, pushing every student he meets to make better choices about their young lives. But Jordyn senses something sinister beneath his friendly advice and growing group of followers. When one of Jordyn’s roommates goes missing, she must enlist the help of the university’s lone white student to uncover the mystery—or become trapped at the center of a web of lies more tangled than she can imagine."

3. Twice, by Mitch Albom

Release date: 7/10/25

This one is a bit different from the previous two. It tells the story of Alfie Logan, who, from the age of eight, discovers that he can travel to any point of his life, and relive that moment again, and make a different decision about what to do. A second chance basically.

As he grows older, he eventually directs his gift to his love life. Studying his crushes, then going back in time to make himself more appealing. Soon he meets Gianna, and it isn't long before he falls deeply in love with her.

But, his eyes begin to wander, and soon he finds out about his gift's fatal flaw: once he undoes a love, that person can never fall in love with him again. Knowing this forces him to make a decision that will change Alfie's life forever.

The book begins many years later, when Alfie is arrested for allegedly cheating and winning millions at a casion roulette wheel.

This sounds so interesting, especially with the mixed up start and end. Maybe a heartwarming story for December? What do you all think of this?

4. The Secret Christmas Library, by Jenny Colgan

Release date: 14/10/25

I don't need to know anything but the fact that this book is about a Secret Christmas Library. That's literally all I need to know.

I'll copy/paste the blurb here for you guys though:

"Mirren Sutherland stumbled into a career as an antiquarian book hunter after finding a priceless antique book in her great aunt’s attic. Now, as Christmas approaches, she’s been hired by Jamie McPherson, the surprisingly young and handsome laird of a Highland clan whose ancestral holdings include a vast crumbling castle. Family lore suggests that the McPherson family’s collection includes a rare book so valuable that it could save the entire estate—if they only knew where it was. Jamie needs Mirren to help him track down this treasure, which he believes is hidden in his own home.

But on the train to the Highlands, Mirren runs into rival book hunter Theo Palliser, and instantly knows that it’s not a chance meeting. She’s all too familiar with Theo’s good looks and smooth talk, and his uncanny ability to appear whenever there’s a treasure that needs locating.

Almost as soon as Mirren and Theo arrive at the castle, a deep snow blankets the Highlands, cutting off the outside world. Stuck inside, the three of them plot their search as the wind whistles outside. Mirren knows that Jamie’s grandfather, the castle’s most recent laird, had been a book collector, a hoarder, and a great lover of treasure hunts. Now they must unpuzzle his clues, discovering the secrets of the house—forming and breaking alliances in a race against time."

5. The Women of Artemis (Retold: The Grecian Women), by Hannah M. Lynn

Release date: 21/10/25

This is the never-before told story for the world's most ferocious heroines: the rise of the Amazons.

When Otrera married at the age of fourteen, she imagines a life of unity, of love and partnership with her new husband. Years later, living in destitution with her abusive husband, she now knows that that kind of marriage doesn't exist. It is simply a women's lot to live with the treatment of her husband, whoever he may treat her. Until it's not.

Rallying women in a similar situation to herself, Otrera fights back, and she takes no prisoners. She is raising an army of women, and their reasoning is clear to her: when men are in charge, freedom isn't granted. It's bought with blood. It's a price she is more than willing to pay, if it means freedom for the women she stands with, if it means getting them all away from their abusers.

But a community of women- an army of women- is bound to make enemies of men and Gods alike.

~November~

1. The House Saphir, by Marissa Meyer

Release date: 4/11/25

A new fairytale retelling by the phenomenal Marissa Meyer! *Adds it to the list*.

But seriously, there was a time, maybe a decade ago, where Marissa Meyer was one of the biggest names around in the fantasy genre, for her Cinder series especially.

Now, she's back, with none other than a fairytale retelling that promises to be gory, addictive, and above all, intense.

"The ghost of Bluebeard. A handsome count. A con artist in over her head.

Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is the ability to see ghosts. She and her sister eke out a living by selling fraudulent spells to gullible buyers and conducting tours of Count Bastien Saphir's mansion - who killed three of his wives more than a century ago. But she never expected to meet his great-grandson and heir to the Saphir estate. Armand is handsome, wealthy and when he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his home of Bastien's ghost, she can't resist.

But when murder returns to the House Saphir, Mallory is almost certain the killer is mortal. If she has any hope of payment, she'll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all while upholding the illusion of witchcraft.

Still that all sounds easy compared to her biggest learning to trust her heart. Especially when her heart's desire might be the murderer himself."

2. The Merge, by Grace Walker

Release date: 11/11/25

This sounds like everything that's science fiction done right. The Merge is about the world's first experimental process, where two people are merged into one, in extreme circumstances. It sounds new, and exciting, and unlike anything I've read for a very long time. Aside from that, it's Grace Walker's debut as well. This sure sounds like one interesting book.

"How far would you go to never say goodbye?

Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alzheimer’s. Her daughter Amelia, a once fiery and strong-willed activist, can’t bear to see her mother’s mind fade. Faced with the reality of losing her forever, Amelia signs them up to take part in the world’s first experimental merging process for Alzheimer’s patients, in which Laurie’s ailing mind will be transferred into Amelia’s healthy body and their consciousness will be blended as one.

Soon Amelia and Laurie join the opaque and mysterious group of other merge teenage Lucas, who plans to merge with his terminally ill brother Noah; Ben, who will merge with his pregnant fiancée Annie; and Jay, whose merging partner is his addict daughter Lara. As they prepare to move to The Village, a luxurious rehabilitation center for those who have merged, they quickly begin to question whether everything is really as it seems."

3. Making Mary Poppins: The Sherman Brothers, Walt Disney, and the Creation of a Classic Film, by Todd James Pierce

Release date: 11/11/25

I don't think I've had a non-fiction book on one of these posts before. But, there's a first for everything. Making Mary Poppins contains every piece of information you could want about, well, making Mary Poppins. From the time the Sherman brothers approached Walt Disney with a single song, to meeting him in person, to composing the entire score, and all the production surrounding the film. I really hope this isn't going to cost the bomb I think it will (and that I can find it in my local Waterstones too, because I desperately want to get my hands on it).

4. The Botanist's Assistant, by Peggy Townsend

Release date: 18/11/25

There seems to be a lot of books about botanist's coming out, doesn't there? I must have found at least three in the past six months, when searching for new releases. They must be pretty good, for publishing houses to keep releasing them too.

"A murder in the science lab shatters a woman’s quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself in this entertaining and uplifting mystery.

Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. Six-feet-tall and big-boned, she lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a 20-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing. But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric—an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything—make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist.

It's those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death shakes the small university where she works. Even as authorities claim the death appears to be from natural causes, Margaret fears it might be something more: a murder born of jealousy and dark secrets. With the aid of a newly hired and enigmatic night custodian, Margaret finds herself thrust into the role of detective, forcing her to consider that she may not be able to find the killer before the killer finds her.

With a cast of quirky and likeable characters that one won’t soon forget, The Botanist’s Assistant is a delightful story of perseverance and the power in all of us to survive."

If I do end up picking this up, I think I'll have to pick this up in November- or risk having it on the shelf until January at least- it definitely wouldn't be a book that gets me in the mood for Christmas.

~December~

1. Persephone's Curse, by Katrina Leno

Release date: 2/12/25

Having read the blurb, and then some of the reviews, it reads a lot like Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. It's the strength of the relationship between the sisters that sells this book to me, mixed in with the tale of Persephone from Greek legend. I think I might have to do a bit of research regarding Persephone's story before reading this book, since it's not one of the more familiar Greek tales.

Here's the blurb:

"Are the four Farthing sisters really descended from Persephone? This is what their aunt has always told that the women in their family can trace their lineage right back to the Goddess of the Dead. And maybe she's right, because the Farthing girls do have a ghost in the attic of their Manhattan brownstone —a kind and gentle ghost named Henry, who only they can see.

When one of the sisters falls in love with the ghost, and another banishes him to the Underworld, the sisters are faced with even bigger questions about who they are. If they really are related to Persephone, and they really are a bit magic, then perhaps it’s up to them to save Henry, to save the world, and to save each other."

To be honest, this book sounds perfect for February. It's still winter, it's still dark, it's about love, family love and romantic love. Definitely a nice placeholder until then.

2. Better in Black (The Shadowhunter Chronicles #22), by Cassandra Clare

Release date: 2/12/25

It's been a very long while since I've included one of Cassandra Clare's books in an Anticipated Releases post, owing to the fact that it took me a good couple of months to finish Queen of Air & Darkness in 2019, and I never seemed to have finished her novels (there were always several that were either waiting to be released, or I had on my unread shelf). But this one is a little different. Cassandra Clare has orchestrated a series of short stories from all of her Shadowhunter books, with each of her fan-favourite couples within them.

I don't really care if there are short stories of characters I haven't met, but there's a story about Will and Tessa in this book, so it's worth getting, just for that.

She's really been quite clever with this, to be honest. She's keeping newer fans hooked into the franchise, and bringing back old fans, so they can get another taste of some of the older couples as well.

Okay! Those are all of my Anticipated Releases for the last three months of 2025! I think there are a good few on there, and I hope you've enjoyed reading about my list (of course, feel free to comment your own list in my comments, in case there are any you want to short about).

With that, I hope you have a wonderful evening, and I'll see you all soon!

Byeeeee!

-Abi xxxxxx

September Wrap Up (2025)

 Hey guys, this is Abi here, 

And I'm here with a (slightly) late wrap up, due to a two day trip to Lincoln. 

But I'm here, and I will be posting both this and an Anticipated Releases post for the last three months of the year- in due course. 

Without further ado, here is a breakdown of the books I finished in September. 

1. Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadette Evaristo

Just putting it out there: every time I see this book, I think Bernadette Peters is the author, which is terrible of me, to get the name of the author wrong, but I think the same thing whenever I hear the Bernadette, regardless of what context. 

Girl, Woman, Other is a compilation of short stories, from the POV of 12 different characters. There are three stories to a section, and each of those characters cross paths in some way or another. 

I actually found with this book, that even though I absolutely adored each and every story, I struggled to stay engaged to it. Thus, why it took me the best part of three weeks to finish it. 

These characters were from a variety of ages, sometimes through generations in a family, sometimes the interaction came from a school setting, but they were all powerful stories, moving and heartfelt in a way that you rarely see in the Fiction genre these days. They each had their own challenges, their own obstacles to overcome and it was interesting to read and find out how they dealt with their own individual situations.  I have been wanting to read this for the longest time, and I was so happy when I was given the chance to. 

Of course, you find out each character's ending in one ending paragraph, at the afterparty of the first story's theatre premiere- coming full circle, and it was a good ending to a brilliantly thought-out tale. 

2. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

My colleague was nice enough to lend me this book, in exchange for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, (she in fact finished that before I had even started this) but that's not the point :). 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Graveyard Book tells the story of Bod, whose taken in by two ghosts in a graveyard, after he escapes the assassin that killed his entire family. It's a short novel, not even 300 pages, but you read about Bod from the age of 2, all the way to when he's a young man, seeking a future outside of the graveyard, but unable to leave, because of the hunter, still hell-bent on his murder. 

For me, the first few chapters felt unconnected. It was like each chapter was a whole new story, and was unrelated to anything I'd read previously. Other than the introduction to a new character, whose relevance I couldn't see at the time, a lot of the chapters almost fell flat (despite me liking reading them at the time). Then I reached a point, maybe 100-120 pages in, that it felt like the story finally came together. 

From that point on, you could say that I was a bit more anxious to find out what happened with Bod, and the killer that wanted him dead. 

The second half of the book is enough to struggle through the first part in my opinion. 

Overall, lovely, whimsical writing, a very unique story, that should not be underrated. I would say with some certainty that this is on my top three Neil Gaiman books. 

And I'm not done yet. 

3. Fence, Vol. 6: Redemption (Fence #6), by C.S. Pacat

4. Fence, Vol. 7: Challengers (Fence #7), by C.S. Pacat

Of course I was going to drop everything when I unwrapped these for my birthday! I just wish there were more volumes! I'm aware that there are standalones of course, but I don't want to say goodbye to everybody else! Anyone know if C.S. Pacat is planning on coming back to the series? Because I need more?!

God knows there aren't many sports book series, much less fencing, but that's why this series is such a standout. Amazing, adorable characters that I love so much, so intense, I practically bite a nail off after every graphic novel, just an amazing, fast paced story- you must understand, I've never had withdrawal symptoms like I have for this series- ever. 

SO I NEED THE NEXT VOLUME.

Okay, so those are the books that I read in September! Right now I'm working Great Expectations, and have been for a while- which is why there aren't anymore books on my Wrap Up for September. 

I'm very much hoping to finish it before I holiday to Dubrovnik next thursday, but we'll see how we go. 

Anyway, that's all I have for you today- as always, feel free to comment what you got up to in September, and I'll be posting my Anticipated Releases as soon as I can! 

I hope you have a good morning, afternoon, or evening- wherever you are! 

Byeeeeee! 

-Abi xxxxxx

Chain Reaction

 Hey guys, this is Abi here, 

After the random story scene I posted just under a month ago, I've been thinking a little bit about how to continue on with it. 

Just for myself you know, to keep my storytelling active, you know. 

And I think I have an idea. 

Like before, completely unedited, just what I was thinking at the time of writing. I hope you enjoy it. 

~Chain Reaction~

Okay, on to the next client. Charlie. Where’s he at? Oh look, he’s walking at home, and the watcher is in proximity. Okay, perfect. He’s moved further along to discovering his abilities.

Okay, it might not be the best situation in the world, kids can develop quickly when they’re nervous, but so long as the watcher is there, that’s fine.

What’s the watcher doing? He probably shouldn’t get so close to the client. I should send something, to warn him.

Typing, typing…

Okay, I get it, if that’s what you like to do, if that’s what works, then so be it.

It sure is windy out there tonight.

…

…

…

…

Wait, what just happened?

Wait…

Wait…

Wait, what?

WHAT THE FUCK DID THE KID DO?

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh this is not good.

What do I do now? Surely, I can’t make contact, that’s the most fundamental rule.

But of course, in extreme circumstances, rules don’t apply. 

Should I?

No.

No, I can’t.

Can I?

What’s Faras really going to say against it.

I mean, the kid’s freaking out right now.

No, I have to.

Red button.

PRESS.

A trapdoor opens underneath my feet and I’m falling.

Wow, I hope this isn’t a long fall.

Okay! I guess that's what you would call scene #2, all done! I'm going to come up with a name for this series of scenes, if I continue on, I promise! Anyway, I know this was completely random, but let me know in the comments whether you want me to carry on, or not! 

That's all that I have for you guys today, so I'll see you all soon! I hope you all have a wonderful day! 

Byeeeee! 

-Abi xxxxxx