The Best Independent Press Books of 2025

Set during Britain’s 1962 deep freeze, this portrait of rural life follows two neighboring families as their quiet routines fracture under snow and silence. Winner of this year’s Walter Scott Prize and just longlisted for the Booker, The Land in Winter is “beautifully atmospheric,” say the Booker judges. “Andrew Miller brings suspense and mystery to this seemingly inconsequential chapter in British history.”

Based on the real-life figure of a runaway nun turned conquistador, this wildly inventive novel blurs the lines between history and hallucination. Fleeing the convent and remaking himself as Antonio, the narrator recounts his wild transformations—muleteer, soldier, caretaker—in a lush New World teetering between ruin and hope. “Sensuous and searing,” declared Publishers Weekly. “Readers will be riveted by this queer anticolonial picaresque.”

Lily King is back with another literary triangle, as a college love affair reverberates into midlife. Decades after a brief, intense entanglement with two classmates, a woman is forced to confront the choices that shaped her life. “King is a genius at writing love stories,” said Kirkus in a starred review. “Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.”

As forest fires rage and guests disappear, two women form a tense, unexpected bond in a family-owned hotel on the brink of climate disaster. Publishers Weekly called this haunting story of trust, danger, and resilience “a work of psychological suspense” that imagines “a world that no longer offers respite.”

After meeting her birth family for the first time, a high school graduate runs from everything familiar and reenters the world on her own terms. “Nuanced and enthralling, profound and funny,” said Booklist in a starred review. “A gorgeously written modern fairy tale.”

At a London call center for luxury travel, an employee fields absurd complaints—from itchy tourists in Mykonos to infinity pool disputes in the Maldives—while office tensions and personal instability quietly escalate. “Highly original… gives pleasure on every page,” said Colm Tóibín.

The latest from the acclaimed Spanish artist and author of When I Sing, Mountains Dance, unfolds in the mystical Guilleries mountains of Catalonia, where a family curse tied to a 400-year-old devil’s bargain echoes through generations of women. “Solà blends lyrical retellings of legends with visceral descriptions of the characters’ maladies,” says Publishers Weekly. “Readers will be transported by this intoxicating tale of resilience.”

After moving to a remote Vermont farm, Helen Whybrow and her partner embrace the challenge of rebuilding worn-out fields and raising a flock of Icelandic sheep. "Whybrow suggests that we need to pay more attention to the world around us, and she does it—very effectively—through writing about sheep farming in Vermont," noted Esquire. "Spare prose, great storytelling."