Favorite 25 Books of 2025! 🤩🎉📚🌈

Happy New Year, Friends!! 😍💕✨

I'm just under the wire for posting my 25 Favorite Books of 2025 before the end of January—whew! 

Before I go right into my post, I thought I'd share some of the lovely things happening in my life right now:

💙 Organizing the details of my April trip with Liz/Raspberry Tart to visit London for the first time! (Ahhh! 🤯 So excited! 🥳)
💙 Planning my trip to the BFF Sticker Club Camp in September with the BFF Sticker Group! (Yay!! 🤩🌈💫)
💙 Currently adoring White Holiday by Viola Bayley (a Children's Press edition 🥰) 
💙 Re-watching Downton Abbey with Ian
💙 Movie and knitting dates with Caro ☺️🧡 (Check out her 2025 favorite books!)
💙 Re-listening to A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie audiobook
💙 Setting up my cork B6 Traveler's Journal for 2026 with inserts for books read, my planner, to-do list and sketchbook.
💙 Trying not to collect too many Calico Critter figurines...but it's hard! 😂
💙 Reading as many winter vintage books as possible (and loving it!)  

Okay...FINALLY onto books!

This was another fantastic reading year with 240 BOOKS under my book belt. Woo-hoo! 

If you'd like to see some of more of My Favorite Books From Past Years, here are links to my Instagram posts:

24 Favs in 2024 

23 Favs in 2023 

22 Favs in 2022

21 Favs in 2021 

Here are the books that brought me the MOST HAPPINESS last year 🥰 

All were 5🌟 ratings and books that I will 100% read again! 

REPUBLISHED BOOKS:
🌟 The Man in the Dark
🌟 Under the Rainbow
🌟 At School with the Stanhopes
🌟 Mothers and Daughters
🌟 The Pink House
🌟 The Strange House

VINTAGE BOOKS:
🌟 A Flute on Mayferry Street
🌟 Pink Sugar
🌟 Taken By the Hand 
🌟 Rochester’s Wife
🌟 Silver Slippers

VINTAGE CHILDREN'S BOOKS:
🌟 Elizabeth of the Garret Theatre
🌟 Black Forest Summer
🌟 All Because of Gina
🌟 The Vine Clad Hill
🌟 It's Nice To Be Me
🌟 Guinea Pig Podge
🌟 The April Baby’s Book of Tunes
🌟 In the Closed Room

NON-FICTION BOOKS:
🌟 A Sense of Seasons
🌟 The Joy of the Snow
🌟 The Book of Stillmeadow
🌟 Audrey at Home
🌟 A Thousand Feasts
🌟 Just Being Audrey

BONUS!!! BEST CONTEMPORARY BOOKS:
🌟 The World at Home by Ginny Kubitz Moyer
🌟 Emma M. Lion Series (especially Volumes 4 & 5) by Beth Brower
🌟 The Rocking of the Ocean by Barbara Matteson 

FAVORITE VINTAGE AUTHORS OF THE YEAR:
💓 Agatha Christie
💓 Gladys Taber
💓 Jean Hersey
💓 O. Douglas
💓 Gwendoline Courtney
💓 D.E. Stevenson
💓 Susan Scarlett
💓 Elizabeth Goudge
💓 Mabel Esther Allan

Do you see any favorite books or authors in this list? 

What was YOUR favorite book of 2025? 🤩🌟 Comment your favs below...I'm dying to know! 

Much love and many warm hugs! 💕❄️🤗❄️💕 

50+ Vintage Summer Books Extravaganza! 🤩💛☀️🌼✨

Hello Friends! Happy Mid-September! 

Before the summer comes to a close, I wanted to share all of my Books with Summer in the Title. This post is just in the nick of time because Summer ends in just a little over a week! As always, I'll try to update this book list as I find (and read) more summer-titled books! 

What I Love About Summer 

☀️ Bright golden sunshine
☀️ Farmer’s market flowers, veggies and fruit
☀️ Queen Anne's Lace, roses and wildflowers
☀️ Reading at the beach
☀️ Sound of the waves crashing
☀️ Daylight until late
☀️ Not having to wear a coat
☀️ Bird song
☀️ Watermelon, corn on the cob and garden veggies 

What do YOU love about summer? 

 

(Note: If you're on Goodreads, you can read all of my summer-titled book reviews! Also, a some of the books on this list are not shown—either they were from the library, audiobook reads, or I donated them.) 

Maybe someday, I will create a Summer Book PDF with notes and suggestions, too. Would you be interested in that? Let me know in the comments!

 

Until then, here is my Summer-Titled Book List by STAR RATING 😄📔🌟 

5 STARS 🌟

• The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim
• Black Forest Summer by Mabel Esther Allan
• The Summer Book by Susan Branch 
• Summer Story (Brambly Hedge) by Jill Barklem 
• An Edwardian Summer by John S. Goodall

 4.5 STARS🌟

• Milestone Summer by Nicolete Meredith
• Holiday Summer by Decie Melwin
• Voices in Summer by Rosamunde Pilcher
• Stories for Summer by British Library Women Writers/Simon Thomas
• Barbie’s New York Summer by Cynthia Lawrence
• Showboat Summer by Rosamond du Jardin  
• Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden 

4 STARS🌟

• Summer Pudding by Susan Scarlett
• Summer at Fairacre by Miss Read
• Mrs. Lorimer’s Quiet Summer by Molly Clavering
• The Adventurous Summer by Mabel Esther Allan 
• The Tucker's Turnabout Summer by Jo Mendel 
• Summerhills by D.E. Stevenson
• The Summer House by Marcia Willett
• The Enchanted Summer by Grace Gelvin Kisinger 
• Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart
• Paris Summer by April Lynn Kihlstrom
• Blueberry Summer by Elisabeth Ogilvie 
• Sierra Summer by Doris Schroeder 
• Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright
• Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
• The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

3.5 STARS🌟

• The Swiss Summer by Stella Gibbons
• Barbie’s Candy Striped Summer by Eleanor K. Woolvin
• Showboat Summer by Rosamond du Jardin  
• Honey Bunch: Her First Summer on the Island by Helen Louise Thorndyke 
• In A Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor
• The End of Summer by Rosamunde Pilcher
• Champlain Summer by Marjorie Vetter
• Summer of Surprise by Helen Reynolds
• Deadly Summer by Francine Pascal
• Perfect Summer by Francine Pascal
• Malibu Summer by Francine Pascal
• What to Look For In Summer by Elizabeth Jenner

Photo from Dean Street Press Ltd.

3 STARS🌟

• The Growing Summer by Noel Streatfeild
• Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shin
• Patty’s Summer Days by Carolyn Wells
• Summer by E. Wharton  

Sadly, I wasn't able to find the credits for this book photo. All other photos are my own.

 

 2 STARS🌟

• A Poem for Every Summer Day by Allie Esiri

ROMANCE TBR:

1. The Most Marvellous Summer by Betty Neels
2. Uncertain Summer by Betty Neels
3. One Summer's Day by Catherine Airlie
4. The Summer Wife by Flora Kidd 
5. Summer in December by Essie Summers
6. A Summer in the Country by Marcia Willett
7. Seven Days in Summer by Marcia Willett 
8. Summer on the River by Marcia Willett
9. Indian Summer by Marcia Willett 

  

VINTAGE/HISTORICAL BOOK TBR:

1. Midsummer’s Eve by Philippa Carr
2. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
3. Summer Half by Angela Thirkell

MIDDLE GRADE TBR:

1. Laura’s Summer Ballet by Linda Blake
2. The Amethyst Summer by Bianca Bradbury
3. Fantasy Summer by Susan Beth Pfeffer 
4. Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson  

  

NON-FICITON TBR:

1. Mrs. Appleyard's Summer Kitchen by Louise Andrews Kent
2. My Summer in a Garden by Charles Dudley Warner 

If there are any wonderful summer-titled vintage books that you have enjoyed or can recommend to me, please comment below! I'm always searching for more! Thank you! 

 

I'm so grateful to all of my friends who gifted me summer books in the past five years...including Caro (@carosbookcase), Liz (@pony.books), Marjorie (@marjoriepaper), Beth (@littlebookbelle) and also my husband Ian (for the Barbie books!) and my daughter, Rose (for the Susan Scarlett books!)

 

Have a fabulous rest of the month and keep an eye out for a blog post including My Favorite Autumn Books. Many many hugs, friends! 💕🌸🤗🌸💕