Finalists have been selected by Southern independent booksellers for the 2025 Southern Book Prize, sponsored by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and representing booksellers favorites that are Southern in nature. Voting by bookseller and readers is now open and runs through February 1. Winners will be announced February 14.
The finalists:
Fiction:
Rednecks by Taylor Brown (St. Martin's Press)
Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca (Berkley)
James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
When the Jessamine Grows by Donna Everhart (Kensington)
Shae by Mesha Maren (Algonquin Books)
Tell It to Me Singing by Tita Ramírez (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books)
Nonfiction:
The Witch's Daughter by Orenda Fink (Gallery Books)
Sharks Don't Sink by Jasmin Graham (Pantheon)
A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings (St. Martin's Press)
A Really Strange and Wonderful Time by Tom Maxwell (Hachette Books)
The Barn by Wright Thompson (Penguin Press)
The Mango Tree by Annabelle Tometich (Little, Brown)
Young Readers:
Not Like Other Girls by Meredith Adamo (Bloomsbury YA)
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers)
In Praise of Mystery by Ada Limón, illustrated by Peter Sís (Norton Young Readers)
Millie Fleur's Poison Garden by Christy Mandin (Orchard Books)
The Secret Dead Club by Karen Strong (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White (Peachtree Treen)
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Waterstones has selected a shortlist for its Book of the Year:
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
James by Percival Everett
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson
Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 Days of Good Eating by Anna Jones
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives by Alice Loxton
The Siege by Ben Macintyre
Blue Sisters: From the Author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
I Am Rebel by Ross Montgomery
Cloudspotting for Beginners by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and William Grill
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Shakespeare's First Folio: All the Plays, A Children's Edition
Long Island by Colm Tóibín
Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton