Today, Amazon announces Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall as its Best Book of the Year in the UK for 2025. The emerging British author’s powerful novel was published in March this year and has since been picked up for film adaptation, quickly becoming a Sunday Times bestseller and attracting acclaim from Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. The book took the top spot over other shortlisted titles such as Intruder by Freida McFadden and nonfiction favourites, including the bestselling The Let Them Theory by award-winning author and podcaster, Mel Robbins.
Set amid the seemingly tranquil English countryside inspired by Hall’s own home, Broken Country follows Beth, whose life on the farm with her gentle husband Frank is irrevocably fractured by the return of Gabriel Wolfe, her passionate yet forbidden first love. It’s a gripping blend of romance and thriller that takes readers on a journey through love triangles, family tragedy, and courtroom drama, exploring themes of grief, infidelity, and the ultimate lengths people go to for love.
Clare Leslie Hall, author of Broken Country commented; “It is such a great honour to have Broken Country chosen as Amazon UK’s Best Book of the Year. It has meant the world to me to see readers connecting with Beth, Frank and Gabriel’s story and I am truly delighted.”
Jen Barrett, Amazon Books UK Editor commented; “Clare Leslie Hall’s sweeping, unputdownable novel expertly fuses the heartache of a great love story with the pace of a domestic thriller, making it a worthy winner of our Best Book of the Year for 2025. There was such a breadth of talent across this year’s shortlists, but Broken Country completely captivated us with its sophisticated, emotionally charged look at impossible choices and the lasting imprint left by a first love. Hall’s writing is lyrical and beautifully evocative, pulling readers deep into the Dorset landscape, which serves as a backdrop to simmering secrets and devastating betrayals. The narrative masterfully moves between past and present, building unbearable suspense as an old love triangle, grief, and jealousy culminate in deadly consequences and a murder trial. You’ll find yourself recommending it far and wide.”
This is the third time Amazon has chosen a Best Book of the Year in the UK, with Clare Leslie Hall joining established writers R.F. Kuang and David Nicholls, who won the title in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Each year, the shortlist is hand-selected by the Amazon Books UK team to celebrate the titles they’ve loved most. Alongside their expert editorial critiques, the team considers a range of factors during their decision-making, including reader reviews and Amazon Charts data.
Standout fiction titles included Florence Knapp’s acclaimed debut The Names and recent Booker Prize winner Flesh by David Szalay. The range was striking, from Frieda McFadden’s gripping psychological thriller The Intruder to Peter Burns’s debut children’s novel Shadow Thieves, and the much-anticipated return of Suzanne Collins with her YA bestseller, Sunrise on the Reaping.
Readers also embraced nonfiction, from The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins’s empowering guide to self-acceptance that became a cultural talking point, to Robert Macfarlane’s meditative Is a River Alive? Meanwhile, Tim Siadatan’s Padella was a celebration of simple, honest cooking and a standout within the culinary field. Finally, Ruth Jones and James Corden won the nation’s hearts once again with When Gavin Met Stacey and Everything in Between, a behind-the-scenes memoir of their iconic sitcom.
On Broken Country, one reader over on Goodreads said the book “a cinematic masterpiece waiting to happen”. Another said that “Clare Leslie Hall may have written a serious contender for many readers’ best book of the year”.
Amazon UK’s Top Ten Best Books of the Year
(across all categories, in no particular order)
- Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall – John Murray Press *winner*
- The Names by Florence Knapp – Headline
- Flesh by David Szalay – Jonathan Cape (PRH)
- The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins – Hay House (PRH)
- Padella by Tim Siadatan – Bloomsbury Publishing
- The Intruder by Freida McFadden – Poisoned Pen Press
- Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins – Scholastic Ltd
- Shadow Thieves by Peter Burns – HarperCollins Publishers
- Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane – Hamish Hamilton (PRH)
- When Gavin Met Stacey and Everything in Between by & James Corden – Bantam (PRH).
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