Best Books to Gift 2025 - Adult Fiction

Books make the best gifts.

Updated November 25, 2025
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Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
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Best Books to Gift 2025 - Adult Fiction

Books make the best gifts.

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The tiger and the cosmonaut
Boudel Tan, Eddy
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE A noirish page-turner about a mysterious disappearance and a moving portrait of a Chinese Canadian family navigating insecurities, expectations, and simmering anger in their small BC town. Casper Han grew up the dutiful...
The secret of secrets : a novel
Brown, Dan
Paper Book
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The world's most celebrated thriller writer and author of The Da Vinci Code returns with his most stunning novel yet--a propulsive, twisty, thought-provoking masterpiece that will entertain readers as only Dan Brown can do. ...
The killing stones
Cleeves, Ann
Paper Book
Detective Jimmy Perez returns in The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves, New York Times bestselling author of the Vera, Shetland, and Two Rivers series. When a violent storm descends upon the Orkney Islands, the body of Archie Stout is left behind in its...
The Paris Express a novel
Donoghue, Emma, 1969- author.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the author of Room, The Wonder, and The Pull of the Stars comes a taut and suspenseful historical novel that reimagines an 1895 French railway disaster, an event famously documented in dramatic photographs The Paris Express is set over a single day, as...
The three lives of Cate Kay
Fagan, Kate (Sports writer)
Paper Book
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK | NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named A Best Book of 2025 by Time Magazine, NPR, Goodreads, and others. "[A] propulsive puzzle of a novel." --New York Times Book Review "This story swept me away with its big...
Finding Flora
Florence, Elinor
Paper Book
Instant #1 Bestseller A rollicking historical novel set in turn-of-the-century Alberta about a young woman on the run from her abusive husband who uses a legal loophole to claim a homestead in the Wild West--perfect for fans of Outlawed and The Giver of Stars.<...
The wilderness
Flournoy, Angela
NATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE 2025 KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION "Flournoy has delivered a future classic--the kind of novel that generations to come will read to understand the nuances and peculiarities of this time."...
Problematic summer romance
Hazelwood, Ali
The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller! What is wrong meets what feels right in this romance set in Italy by the New York Times bestselling author of Deep End. Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out...
Detective Aunty a novel
Jalaluddin, Uzma
When her grown daughter is suspected of murder, a charming and tenacious widow digs into the case to unmask the real killer in this twisty, page-turning whodunit--the first book in a cozy new detective series from the acclaimed author of Ayesha at Last After her husband's unexpected...
The mysterious case of the missing crime writer
Ragnar Jónasson
Paper Book
An Instant National Bestseller The next thrilling golden-age-style mystery from #1 Icelandic bestseller Ragnar Jónasson, author of Death at the Sanatorium and Reykjavík. One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.
Katabasis (Standard Edition) : A Novel
Dante's Inferno meets Susanna Clarke's Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save...
Cannon
Lai, Lee
Paper Book
A LAMBDA Award winner and breakout fiction sensation returns with a darkly funny slice of friendship strife We arrive to wreckage--a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heat-wave, this is...
The Hunger We Pass Down : A Novel
Lee, Jen Sookfong.
AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER. From the bestselling author of Superfan comes a haunting novel about the demons passed down through five generations of women in a Chinese Canadian family, and what it might take for them to finally break free of the past. Will you break your mother's curse...
Elphie : A Wicked Childhood
Maguire, Gregory.
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller What happened to young Elphaba before her witchy powers took hold in Wicked? Almost 30 years after the publication of the original novel, for the first time Gregory Maguire reveals the story of prickly young Elphie, the future Wicked Witch of the West-...
Wild dark shore
McConaghy, Charlotte
Paper Book
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR 2025 "A breathtaking novel of ROMANCE, MYSTERY, AND TWISTS that will shock you...I love this book so much." --Reese Witherspoon "A WILDLY TALENTED...
What We Can Know : A Novel
McEwan, Ian.
"A philosophically charged tour de force by one of the best living novelists in English." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "[What We Can Know] gave me so much pleasure I sometimes felt like laughing. . . . It's the best thing McEwan has written in ages. It's a...
The bewitching
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic. "In Silvia Moreno-Garcia's sure hands, every uncovered secret is...
Death of the Author (Standard Edition) : A Novel
Okorafor, Nnedi
Paper Book
THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER Recommended by New York Times Book Review * People * NPR * Rolling Stone * Los Angeles Times * Reader's Digest * and more! "This one has it all." -- George R.R. Martin * "As delicious as it...
Overdue
Perkins, Stephanie
Paper Book
A SPARKLING ADULT DEBUT FROM BELOVED NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR STEPHANIE PERKINS! Get this stunning deluxe edition while supplies last! The collector's hardcover features beautiful lush pink edges, custom endpapers and a unique foiled case stamp. Perfect for any bookshelf!...
Flesh: A Novel
Szalay, David
Paper Book
From Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay, comes a propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar...
Pick a colour a novel
Thammavongsa, Souvankham, 1978- author.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class. An intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away...
The Book of Records
Thien, Madeleine
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE QUEBEC WRITERS' FEDERATION AWARDS PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTION * Named a Most Anticipated Release by Toronto Star * Literary Hub * Esquire * The Washington Post * One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Summer * An...
The in-between bookstore : a novel
Underhill, Edward
Paper Book
"What would you tell your teen self if you could go back in time? Underhill's tender, innovative debut is the smartest take on this trope I've ever read. . . and for the record, I read it in a single sitting. A beautiful, thoughtful study of how we find our truest selves, and whom we choose to...
Colin gets promoted and dooms the world
Waddell, Mark
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! WARNING! Under no circumstances must employees strike a deal with unauthorized personnel on Dark Enterprises property. Such behavior could result in death...or the end of the world. Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a...
Murder by memory
Waite, Olivia
Good dirt : a novel
Wilkerson, Charmaine
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * 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 bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick "Engrossing . . . Wilkerson...
You've Changed
Williams, Ian.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 GILLER PRIZE NATIONAL BESTSELLER The eagerly awaited follow-up novel from the Giller prize-winning author of Reproduction, You've Changed is a daring and clever dissection of a crumbling marriage between two people who are morphing in ways...
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