#john hendrix

For any St. Louis area folks who might be interested, I'll be at Left Bank Books later this month for a graphic novel roundtable with some wonderful local comic-makers. Honored to be invited to be in such company! There'll be discussion, Q&A, and book signing if you want to come say hi!

I can't narrow down a list of favourite books of 2025 (there are far too many!), so instead here are the great new authors I discovered this year.

Jen Lynning - Her 'Great Balance World', starting with 'A Lady of Truth', is steampunk-ish romantic fantasy with interesting, thoughtful world building and competent (but not infallible) characters.

Olivia Waite - In 'Murder By Memory' Dorothy Gentleman is on a 1920's flavoured ship traveling to a new planet. On a ship where it should be impossible to die, she has to find out how and why someone has been murdered.

E M Anderson - 'The Keeper of Lonely Spirits' was exactly the right book at the right time. Sad, sweet and heartwarming, this is the story of a man who can't die (and has withdrawn from life) becoming involved in the lives of some inhabitants of a town where he is trying to calm a supernatural threat. Everyone is hurting and grieving, yet trying their best.

Meredith R Lyons - 'A Dagger of White Lightening' starts with a 40 something woman being kidnapped from earth by a magic space elf. She cannot return to earth and is expected (and pressured) to marry the charming crown prince. She stands up to the expectations and comes to understand her new planet better and her unexpected family links. Sequel coming in March!

Naomi Kuttner - 'The Retired Assassin's Guide to Country Gardening' is a cozy mystery with slight paranormal elements set in New Zealand. Enjoyable, especially once Eleanor the 60 something mostly retired art thief (who figures out Dante used to be an assassin) enters the story. We also have Charlie, the gardener who can see ghosts, rounding out our trio of mystery solvers. The sequel was even better, and the third will be out in December 2026.

Antonia Hodgson - 'The Raven Scholar' was my book of the year (very rare for me to be able to narrow it down to one book), and I knew it would be impossible to beat when I read it in May. It's astonishingly good epic fantasy, lots of fun, with great characters, brilliant writing and many twists and turns. There were at least 4 revelations that made me re-contextualize the story up to the point I was at. Can't wait to see where this goes in the sequel (no release date yet).

Ruth Shaw - 'The Bookseller at the End of the World' is a memoir of the author's fascinating, varied and heartbreaking at times life. She's currently running a bookshop in rural New Zealand, and the book is interspersed with vignettes of bookshop life, including during Covid.

Barbara Truelove - 'Of Monsters and Mainframes' - what if the classic monsters (werewolves, vampires etc) keep ending up killing passengers on a spaceship? The spaceship AI and her frenemy the medical AI try to figure out whats happening and stop it.

Brigitte Knightley - I've never been a huge fan of enemies to lovers, but 'The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy' was so much fun. Great banter and the characters start as actual enemies (usually I find the authors make them have extreme misunderstandings instead).

John Hendrix - 'The Mythmakers' was a graphic novel (I think intended for Middle Grade readers?) looking at the friendship between Tolkien and CS Lewis. Extremely affecting, especially the chapter comparing and contrasting their WWI experiences.

Brian Eno - 'What Art Does: an unfinished theory' is a short illustrated book that blew my mind. Just read it!

Have you read any of these authors? What did you think? What awesome new authors did you discover in 2025?

Propaganda Under the Cut:

January

The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix

February

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (reread)

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

March

Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer (reread)

The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

This is an intense biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I hadn’t known that the German Lutheran church had embraced Hitler and his viewpoints. Bonhoeffer was a pastor in the Lutheran church, and, actually led a church that broke away from the Lutheran church (I know that this is supposed to be a serious blurb, because it’s most definitely a serious book, but, a Lutheran, breaking away from the Lutheran church, Martin Luther’s church. It cracked me up just a little bit). He even eventually was willing to sacrifice everything to go against the horrible hatred tinged beliefs that Hitler and his followers had.

I learned so much from the book, and, I liked how it was set up too, a little bit graphic novel, a little bit prose, and he kept the look so simple to let the story explain itself.

You may like this book If you Liked: Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales by Nathan Hale, White Rose by Kip Wilson, or King by Ho Che Anderson