Another year, another chance to share my favorite books of the year. Here are the top reads of 2025 (in my totally unique and unbiased opinion)! So many great books, but these were the ones I enjoyed the most. They are each 100% worth a read!
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy A woman washes ashore on a remote island, home to an isolated family. Storms, secrets, and savage landscape made this a stunningly beautiful, gripping story.
Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein As the daughters of a young single mother, the Lowe sisters grew up knowing the meaning of sacrifice. But life will push them so much further than they could have ever imagined.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach On the worst day of her life, Phoebe accidentally crashes a wedding and the bride makes it her mission to fix everything.
The Eights by Joanna Miller Four women form an instant friendship, despite their vast differences, when they become members of the first female class at Oxford University in 1920.
My Friends by Fredrik Backman Eighteen-year-old Louisa, struggling to find her way in the world, comes to possess a famous painting, and makes it her mission to learn the story of not only the artist, but the incredible friendships that played a part in his life, and the soul of his work.
Introducing Somewhere Stories—a published anthology created by the talented writers from The Writers Group. We are a gathering founded in 2023, that brings together writers of diverse backgrounds and genres, all at different stages of our writing careers, who meet at the Chelmsford Center for the Arts in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. We find encouragement and community through a love of writing and help one another to develop, workshop, strengthen, and share our work.
This newly published collection—the first for The Writers Group—centers on the idea of place. But “place” is more than location. It also symbolizes emotional or psychological places, places in our memories or event places in time. Our writers have contributed works of poetry, short fiction, personal essays, plays, and more. And we’re thrilled to share it.
I have contributed three works of poetry and a brand new short story to Somewhere Stories, and and very excited for their release! Somewhere Stories is now available for purchase on Amazon at the link below. All proceeds benefit the Chelmsford Center for the Arts.
This April I will be running the 2025 Boston Marathon with Team Brookline, supporting the Brookline Library Foundation. This race will be the end of a long journey my husband and I started almost 8 years ago when we decided to run the New York City Marathon, which happened to fall on our first wedding anniversary. At the time it seemed like a slightly crazy, but amazingly epic way to celebrate. After crossing the finish line, exhausted and elated, we swore we’d never do it again.
But it turned out we had caught the marathon bug and signed up to run the Chicago Marathon three days later. Since that day we’ve been around the world to run the Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo Marathons. Now we are back in our hometown with one World Major Marathon to go to earn our Six Star Medal*.
*Since we started our Marathon mission, Sydney has also been added as a World Major Marathon, but is not part of the Six Star Medal. One day, the World Majors intends to grow to 9 races, and will issue a 9 Star Medal. We plan to be well retired from running marathons by then!
Team Brookline
We are grateful and fortunate to be working with a wonderful organization, which raises money for a number of non-profits in the city of Brookline, MA. For anyone unfamiliar with the Boston Marathon, the majority of the race takes place outside of Boston itself. Starting in the suburb of Hopkinton, runners then travel through Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline before finally entering the city of Boston just before mile 25.
Every year these cities and towns host runners, spectators and fans, interruptions and crowds, and the cost and spectacle of the oldest Marathon in the United States. Team Brookline is a great example of the partnership between the Boston Marathon and the communities that host the race year after year. Runners selected for the team are able to raise funds that benefit one of the cities that makes the marathon possible.
Team Brookline supports six organizations — the Brookline Library Foundation, the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health, the Brookline Education Foundation, the Brookline Food Pantry, the Brookline Teen Center, and the Brookline Symphony Orchestra. We are incredibly honored to be running and raising money for the Brookline Library Foundation.
Brookline Library Foundation
Libraries are, of course, near and dear to my heart. As a life-long book fanatic, and now author, I can’t say enough about what libraries provide for every community, and the Brookline Library system is no exception. Even better, Brookline is part of the Minuteman Library Network, which consists of over 40 public libraries in Massachusetts including Acton, Bedford, Cambridge, Concord, Framingham, Millis, Somerville, Waltham, Woburn, and many more.
The Library Foundation uses funding to purchase books, run literacy classes and children’s programs, provide museum passes, technology and research materials, and so much more — all for free. We couldn’t be happier to support this great cause.
