Looking back on Virago’s 2025 with Sarah Savitt
Fiction
Virago is the home of some of the most exciting, acclaimed can this be Virago is the home of exciting, acclaimed and enjoyable contemporary fiction writers, ranging from bestselling novelists including Monica Ali, Sigrid Nunez, Caroline O’Donoghue, Sandi Toksvig and Sarah Waters to international icons such as Margaret Atwood and Marilynne Robinson. Virago fiction means brilliant storytelling with an edge – something new, something unexpected, whether that’s a perspective we’ve never heard before, a surprising voice or playing with genre.
Here are just a few highlights from this year, books which particularly hit the spot for readers and critics:
Rachel Seiffert’s ONCE THE DEED IS DONE, a story about the aftermath of WWII from the Booker-shortlisted author, was beautifully described as ‘A crime novel in the sense that TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a crime novel’ by the Financial Times.
It won praise from many other writers and critics, including:
‘Searingly beautiful . . . powerful . . . Seiffert’s writing beautifully captures this devastating moment of history’ The Spectator
‘Complex, intelligent, deeply compassionate . . . A brilliant piece of story-telling’ Andrew Miller, Booker Prize-shortlisted author
Marie Rutkoski’s ORDINARY LOVE, a sweeping story about a second chance at love, was adored by critics and readers.
Reviewers raved:
‘An immersive, glamorous, sexy and gripping modern love story to gulp down hungrily and quickly’ Sunday Times
‘This sexy, summer romance slips down as easily as oysters and champagne’ Daily Mail
‘An exquisitely tender portrayal of enduring love’ Observer
‘This book will break you then put you back together again’ Stylist, Book of the Month
And readers fell head over heels too:
‘I absolutely devoured this . . . Clear your afternoon to read this one straight through’
Five Star Amazon review
‘Boy did this pack a punch, have a box of tissues by your side – you will need these’
Five Star Amazon review
And we were so thrilled to see Maria Reva’s ENDLING – an unforgettable debut novel, about the journey of three women and one extremely endangered snail through contemporary Ukraine – on the Booker Prize longlist and the Gordon Burn Prize longlist.
Endling has also been chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the Guardian, Observer, Irish Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, NPR, Good Housekeeping, Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal.
‘Funny & tragic at the same time’
Margaret Atwood, via X
And finally everyone’s favourite Sandi Toksvig went on a twenty-three-city (!!) tour to promote the paperback of her Sunday Times bestselling novel FRIENDS OF DOROTHY, a touching, funny book about a family that is not biological, but logical; a story close to Sandi Toksvig’s heart. The novel was also shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction
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Non-Fiction
At Virago we specialise in brilliantly written narrative non-fiction with a feminist, political or activist edge. This year our non-fiction authors explored a huge range of subjects, from brains to beauty and birth, from work to wokeness.
A few highlights:
Deborah Frances-White’s SIX CONVERSATIONS WE’RE SCARED TO HAVE – her follow-up to her Sunday Times bestseller THE GUILTY FEMINIST – won acclaim from authors, actors and activists including Gillian Anderson, David Tennant, Emma Thompson and Tom Allen, was chosen by Waterstones as a Best Politics Book of the 2025.
Pria Anand’s THE MIND ELECTRIC: STORIES OF THE STRANGENESS AND WONDER OF OUR BRAIN had fantastic review coverage, including:
‘Superb’ Telegraph
‘The best book I have read for years’ Psychologist
‘The book fans of Oliver Sacks have been craving’ The i
Hilary Cottam’s THE WORK WE NEED: A 21ST CENTURY REIMAGINING was embraced by influential politicians and thinkers including:
‘An act of radical hope, radical listening and radical humility . . . I loved it’ Rory Stewart
‘Cottam is the humane revolutionary our turbulent century needs – and this book our roadmap to a better future’ Jonathan Freedland
‘Urgent, compelling and ultimately hopeful . . . Necessary and Inspiring’ Caroline Lucas
Philippa Snow’s IT’S TERRIBLE THE THINGS I HAVE TO DO TO BE ME: ON FEMINITY AND FAME also had rave reviews, including:
‘A brutal and brilliant study of female celebrity . . . a joy to read, fizzing with intelligence’ Telegraph
‘Wildly entertaining’ Dazed
‘Snow’s prose is beautiful, white-hot and breathless, like a sports car speeding through the canyon’ Observer
It’s also been chosen as a Best Book of the Year by Dazed and the Telegraph.
In major prize news, we were so proud that Sophie Harman’s SICK OF IT: THE GLOBAL FIGHT FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH was shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize.
And finally, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for the pregnant person on your festive shopping list . . .
Claire Lynch’s THE LITTLE BOOK OF POSITIVE BIRTH STORIES, a collection of thirty positive birth stories brought together in a beautiful book to offer positivity and confidence to anyone about to give birth, was praised as:‘glorious, uplifting and empowering’ by Giovanna Fletcher and readers online described it as ‘beautiful gift for anyone pregnant’ and ‘heartfelt, honest, and incredibly reassuring.
Virago Modern Classics
2025 was a fantastic year for the Virago Modern Classics list, which aims to rewrite the canon and expand the definition of a classic, bringing women’s stories into the spotlight and into conversation with each other.
In January we launched an elegant and iconic new design for the list, a love letter to the original ‘green spines’, reimagined for today’s reader, with ten titles including Muriel Spark, Gayl Jones and Patricia Highsmith, as well as the BookTok favourite Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, the Fran Lebowitz Reader and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Nettie Jones’s FISH TALES, a fierce, fearless modern classic for our own fragmented times, was acquired by Toni Morrison, championed by Gayl Jones and almost forgotten for forty years. We republished it this spring to huge acclaim, including perhaps our favourite description:
‘Nettie Jones’s voice is astonishing. It leaps off the page like a panther . . . Unlike anything I’ve ever read’
New York Times Book Review
Mary Chamberlain’s FENWOMEN: A PORTRAIT OF WOMEN IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE was Virago’s very first non-fiction book. We republished it this autumn as a Virago Modern Classic – and it’s been flying off the shelves. It’s been very moving and wonderful to see the book get into the hands and hearts of a whole new generation of readers.
Discover the entire Virago list on our website.
