Rave Reads of the Year – 7
Rave Reads of the Year – 7
This month I invite author friends to share one of their Rave Reads of the Year. Today’s choices come from Amanda Brittany, Daniel Aubrey and Sheila Bugler.
#RaveReads2025
Amanda Brittany’s Rave Read
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent (published 2023) is my top read of 2025. It grabbed me from the opening paragraph, when Sally puts her father ‘out with the bins’ when he dies. Brilliant, harrowing and heartbreaking, yet so cleverly written it still manages to be funny in places. I recommend Strange Sally Diamond to everyone I meet.
Amanda Brittany writes twisty psychological thrillers. Let Me Out is her latest novel.
Daniel Aubrey’s Rave Read
My standout read of 2025 is Whiteout by RS Burnett. It’s a survival thriller about Rachael, a researcher in Antartica who is alone in a flimsy shack hundreds of miles from the nearest people during a winter storm that has been raging for weeks. She’s lost radio contact with base; her only link with the outside world is a BBC World Service broadcast playing on repeat, saying the UK has been attacked with nuclear weapons. And her life gets worse from there…
Daniel Aubrey is the bestselling author of the Orkney Mysteries series, including the books Dark Island, and The Dying Light.
Sheila Bugler’s Rave Read
So Thrilled For You by Holly Bourne
As a crime fiction writer, it’s unusual for me to read books outside my genre. However, earlier this year several writer friends recommended So Thrilled For You by Holly Bourne. Beyond a doubt, this is my book of 2025! It is the rawest, funniest and most honest book I have ever read about pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood. It’s over twenty-four years since I was a new mother and this book brought me right back to those early, post-labour days when my world had changed so completely and I had to re-learn who I was and how I was going to parent this baby who had so utterly transformed my life. Oh, and as well as being hilarious, So Thrilled For You is also thought-provoking and deeply moving.
Sheila Bugler is an Irish crime writer living in the UK. Her new novel, The Stepmother, will be published in 2026 an is available for pre-order now.
Other Rave Reads of the Year Posts
#RaveReads2025
Linda Huber, Georgia Hill and Maggie Christensen
Michael Wood, Penny Batchelor and Terri Nixon
Fergus Smith, A.S. Andrejevic and Anne Coates
Della Galton, Brian Price and Gillian Walker