BROKEN COUNTRY by Clare Leslie Hall appeared on my radar when it debuted on the NY Times bestseller list this week, along with several reviewers raving about it. At first, I was turned off by comparison to Owens’s WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (which I hated), but really, it’s nothing like it. Taking place on an English farm in the late 1960s, it is a gorgeously written story about love lost and the tragic fallout when that past love reappears. It is very moving and twisty, and while the main character, Beth, may annoy you with her actions, her husband, Frank, is the book’s star, and the ending is weep-worthy.

Readers who like literary fiction like Ann Patchett, Tracey Lange, Elizabeth Strout, Charlotte Ng, and Jodi Picoult may want to try this. It definitely has a place on my best of 2025 list.