January
The 2025 Read More Reading Challenge
A new year means new beginnings—and what better way to kick off January than by tackling your reading goals? Whether your resolution is to finally check off a book that has been on your TBR (To Be Read) list for over six months or to explore fresh voices with a debut novel, we’ve got the perfect picks to get you started!
Make this January the month you read more, explore more, and discover new favorites. Stop by Seymour Library to pick up your copy or peruse our online catalog and start the year off right! Have you read these selections, or are you looking for a specific book tailored to you? Search for your next great read on Novelist!
Debut Books
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
Genre: Fiction
Description: A novel about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future, and a young girl who spots two elderly visitors from across the border: the grieving parents of the boy she loves.
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Genre: Science Fiction
Description: A time travel romance, a spy thriller, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all.
The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
Genre: Fantasy
Description: When her favorite customer, a lonely yet charming old man, dies right in front of her, Cassie holds on to the last book he was reading, which turns out to be a rare volume that has great power and she is tasked with protecting it from those who will do evil.
How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
Genre: Crime
Description: When her favorite customer, a lonely yet charming old man, dies right in front of her, Cassie holds on to the last book he was reading, which turns out to be a rare volume that has great power and she is tasked with protecting it from those who will do evil.
Books on Your TBR for 6+ months
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
Genre: Fantasy
Description: While trying to settle into a life of piety, motherhood and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural, Amina al-Sirafi, one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, is offered a job she cannot refuse, but soon discovers this final chance at glory comes with a high price–her soul.
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Genre: Horror
Description: Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
Genre: Romance
Description: In the late 1950s–a hostile time for gay men–reporter Nick Russo forms an unlikely friendship with Andy Fleming, the son of a newspaper-tycoon father, and as they work closely together, they fall in love and must decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Genre: Fiction
Description: When she discovers a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, Vera Wong, a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands, calls the police but not before swiping the flash drive from the body, setting a trap for the killer that becomes complicated by unexpected friendships with her customers.