Introducing… 2025 Long List
Introducing our long-listed titles of the 2025 Shelf Unbound Competition for Best Independently Published Book.
Each year, the Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition celebrates the boldest voices in independent publishing — authors and small presses whose stories push boundaries, spark emotion, and remind us why books matter. The Longlisted titles represent the top tier of entries that captured our judges’ attention for their originality, craft, and storytelling power. These books stood out among hundreds of submissions from around the world, showcasing the creativity and resilience that define today’s indie literary landscape. Below, we’re proud to share the 2025 Longlist — a collection of works that prove great stories don’t need big labels to make a lasting impact.
1. The Moth
The Moth has bitten off more of East L.A. than he can chew, and is gnawed up himself by the neighborhood. On the fringes of serious crime, the Moth reveals himself as a man whose morals are largely good but whose ethics are shaky. He’s battered by local forces – from the all-women Arpías gang to a manipulative detective who’s forced him to fink out fellow crooks. It’s a dark world where all good intentions go astray. The Moth’s pawn-shop criminal schemes and his ambition to be the local Moriarty all tumble into disarray.
Each walk-in through his door is a chance at riches or death, each job a success or a lesson in abject humiliation. Stumble along with the Moth as he serves a tough, ironic world, never quite getting there.
About the Author
Scott Archer Jones
Scott is currently enmeshed in his eighth novel. He lives in northern New Mexico, after stints in the Netherlands, Scotland, and Norway, plus less exotic locations. He has five books out, through Southern Yellow Pine and Fomite.
2. The Third Estate
“A pulse-pounding journey filled with unexpected twists and turns that beautifully bring together mystery, suspense, and intrigue for explosive results” – K.C. Finn Readers’ Favorite
In a busy outdoor market, in broad daylight, an apparently ordinary woman is gunned down by a professional assassin. Twelve years later, the killer is back with a new target – and a mysteriously sinister employer…
Sophie Allard, a promising jet pilot cadet at a prestigious military academy, finds her world shattered when she’s summoned to the Commander’s office with devastating news-her estranged father has died in a mysterious lab explosion at their family estate.
What begins as a routine investigation soon spirals into something far more dangerous. As Sophie delves deeper into the secrets surrounding her father’s death, she uncovers hidden truths that threaten not only her career but her very life.
Unraveling a web of deception and betrayal, Sophie discovers that her father’s involvement with a powerful and shadowy organization-the Third Estate-could hold the key to both her survival and her downfall.
With an assassin hunting her every step and the enigmatic Grey Lady pulling the strings behind the scenes, Sophie must navigate a perilous landscape of secrets, lies, and danger.
Will Sophie uncover the truth-before it’s too late.
A gripping, fast-paced thriller that seamlessly blends espionage, mystery, and intense suspense, The Third Estate: Secrets of the Manor will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. It is perfect for fans of complex conspiracies, strong female protagonists, and unpredictable twists.
About the Author
D.R. Berlin
D.R. Berlin is an award-winning author, U.S. Army veteran, and General Surgeon with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Writing minor from MIT. A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, her career in high-pressure environments fuels the pulse-pounding suspense and authentic detail in The Third Estate: Secrets of the Manor. Berlin combines her scientific expertise and love of storytelling to deliver a gripping, intricate thriller that keeps readers on edge. Drafted as the unofficial photographer of her children’s sports teams, she has been affectionately dubbed the “Mamarazzi.”
3. The Pale Flesh of Wood
Burnout is as American as apple pie, baseball, and the 4th of July. Its foundations go all the way back to the first White folks who permanently settled in North America: the Puritans. Culture is made through the decisions and actions of everyone who lives in that culture. So if we all want to be less burned out and more balanced, we can be. It’s difficult, but not impossible -— and most importantly, it’s doable. Inside this book is a breakdown of why your exhaustion and your burnout are not your fault. Finally, pragmatic to its core, it also starts every reader on their own path to dismantle the culture of burnout and start working toward a culture of balance.
About the Author
Elizabeth A. Tucker
Elizabeth A. Tucker is a fiction writer, poet, playwright, and sixth-generation Californian living at 6600′ above sea level in the Sierra Nevada mountains with her husband and two kids. Her work, often rooted in the fault-prone landscape of Northern California, can be found in a host of national and international literary journals. Her debut novel The Pale Flesh of Wood published in 2025 explores the rippling effects of generational trauma, grief, and forgiveness following a WWII veteran’s suicide after he returned from the war and has won eight awards in literary fiction.
4. Matched in Merriweather
A fresh take on Emma set in 1930s Wisconsin—full of charm, mischief, and unexpected romance.
When vivacious college student Melody Merriweather is summoned home to run her family’s general store after her father suffers a heart attack, she’s convinced her life is over. The sleepy mining town of Merriweather, Wisconsin is a far cry from her exciting life in Chicago.
With the country deep in the Depression and the Mercantile on the verge of collapse, Melody must rally a quirky staff—including a sweet shopgirl, a cranky clerk, and a maddeningly handsome butcher—and try to keep the business afloat.
But small-town life proves more complicated than she imagined. As tensions rise and mysterious strangers arrive in Merriweather, Melody finds herself confronting more than just a failing business. She’ll have to face her own misguided assumptions about love, loyalty, and what it means to truly belong.
About the Author
Michelle Cox
Michelle Cox is the award-winning author of historical fiction, including the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series, The Fallen Woman’s Daughter, and The Merriweather Novels. Cox also pens the wildly popular, “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog chronicling the lives of Chicago’s forgotten residents. She lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago with her husband, an assortment of children who continually leave and then come back, and one naughty Goldendoodle.
5. The Secret Song of Shelby Rey
For fans of Gayle Forman and Sarah Dessen, a musically gifted teen in 2008 Los Angeles gets caught up in the tumultuous world of a narcissistic rock star and his brilliant but heroin-addicted bandmate.
A story of love, music, addiction, and self-discovery from the author of A Song For The Road
Eighteen-year-old Shelby Rey has a secret superpower: she can hear people’s deepest emotions and truths, in song form, just by touching them. But in a world where everyone guards their secrets, her gift feels more like a curse.
Life has been hard since she lost her dad, but it reaches a new low when she gets kicked out by her drug-addicted mom. Shelby’s life hits a turning point, however, when she meets Zac Wyatt, a chart-topping rock star with a hidden side only she can hear. Swept into his world of fame and music, Shelby forms an electrifying connection with Zac that she can’t resist.
But darkness lurks beneath the spotlight. Zac’s jealousy of his bandmate Stanford, a troubled musical genius, threatens to destroy everything—and when Shelby uncovers Stanford’s devastating truth, she faces an impossible choice that could shatter their world.
In a whirlwind of love, betrayal, heartbreak, and injustice, Shelby must find the courage to listen to her own inner song.
About the Author
Rayne Lacko
Rayne Lacko writes about emotions, creativity, and the healing power of music in Dream Up Now: The Teen Journal for Creative Self-Discovery and the YA novels, The Secret Song of Shelby Rey, and A Song For The Road, an Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist. A social-emotional learning specialist with a master’s in humanities, she lectures on writing and communication, and travels for inspiration.
6. The Murmur of Everything Moving
When Maureen and Steve met in their twenties, he’d left behind a difficult marriage and she had ended a troubled relationship. In each other, they found a passionate love and shared a dream of a living off the land in rural Michigan. Three years later, when Steve, at twenty-nine, was diagnosed with cancer, they embarked on an all-out effort to save his life. When Steve’s childhood friend, Joey, a drug addict, learned that Steve needed money for experimental cancer treatments that insurance wouldn’t cover, he offered to sell Steve’s pain medication, a synthetic opioid with a high street value, to help pay the costs; only one of the friends would survive.
The Murmur of Everything Moving chronicles a young, working-class couple’s odyssey through the medical mileu, as they navigate the terrain of illness and caregiving, of compassion and loss. This beautiful and aching memoir is ultimately a story of love―romantic, brotherly, and spiritual―in all its challenging but exquisite complexities.
About the Author
Maureen Stanton
Maureen Stanton is the author of three award-winning nonfiction books. Her essays have been widely published, and recognized with Pushcart prizes and prizes from the Iowa Review, Sewanee Review, and American Literary Review. Read more of her work at www.maureenstantonwriter.com
7. Measure of Devotion
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the American Civil War, this intricately woven novel delves into the life of Susannah Shelburne, a thirty-six-year-old woman residing in South Carolina with her older husband, Jacob. Their son, Francis, defies his parents’ wishes by enlisting in the Confederate army, sparking bitter familial discord. In October 1863, devastating news arrives: Francis has been critically wounded near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Susannah embarks on a perilous journey to bring her son home, finding Francis delirious with fever and haunted by the horrors of battle. Their reunion is overshadowed by the conflicts at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, culminating in Francis being captured as a prisoner of war. As the war exacts its toll and tensions escalate between mother and son, Susannah confronts impossible choices amidst harrowing revelations from home. This gripping narrative explores themes of sacrifice, resilience, and the profound impacts of war on family bonds, painting a vivid portrait of one woman’s relentless fight for survival and reconciliation in a time of unprecedented turmoil.
About the Authors
Nell Joslin
Nell Joslin is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina and a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. Over the span of five decades, she has been a public-school teacher, medical librarian, freelance journalist, and attorney, and about 20 years ago she became serious about writing fiction. Although she has published short stories and memoir pieces in various literary magazines, Measure of Devotion is her first novel. She hopes it is not her last.
8. Fox Creek
The year is 1843 when six-year-old Monette, the pampered and beloved daughter of a French Creole sugar planter, is taken to New Orleans and sold into slavery. Sold along with her is Cyrus, a boy big for his age, torn from his mother without a chance to say goodbye.
Together they go to Fox Creek Plantation in “English” Louisiana, home to the Jensey family. While Cyrus is sent to the fields, Monette becomes the childhood playmate of Kate, the planter’s daughter, and catches the eye of Breck, the planter’s son. It’s easier and safer for Monette to pretend life is normal. That she belongs. To forget her past, even to forget Cyrus, whom she’d loved. But as the years pass, it becomes clear that children of color do not belong in the world of the white elite—at least, not as equals. The brutality and powerlessness of slavery begin to take their toll upon Monette.
Who is she now? Who will protect her? And who is that big boy from the fields who keeps pestering her?
Fox Creek is a powerful novel set during one of the most turbulent times in American history. It is a story of race, privilege, the battle of wills, and the denial of freedom. But most of all, it is a story of love, a love that transcends all that threatens to tear it apart.
About the Author
M.E. Torrey
M. E. Torrey has worked in the children’s book industry for twenty years as an author, speaker, and teacher. Torrey is also a co-founder of Orphans Africa and served as Executive Director for seven years. Torrey is concerned about social justice and feels compelled to write about ordinary people faced with issues of moral complexity. Ultimately, she longs to bring healing and forgiveness to a divided world. Fox Creek is Torrey’s award-winning debut novel for an adult audience.
9. Thirty-Eight Days Of Rain
‘An engrossing and fascinating exploration of the complexity of identity and belonging’ Polis Loizou, author of A Good Year
“What matters more, your place as a daughter or as a mother?”
Androulla is twenty-four and newly married when she learns that she is infertile. In a bid for Cypriot citizenship she is undergoing adoption by her stepfather, and wondering if she will have to adopt a child one day herself.
As this reality sets in, Androulla’s marriage unravels. Between migration departments and doctors’ appointments, she must question what it means to be from somewhere, what it means to be a woman and, when an impossible choice presents itself, which of those things means the most to her.
About the Author
Eva Asprakis
Eva Asprakis is a contemporary fiction author whose acclaimed novels explore complex family dynamics, sexuality and womanhood, and the search for identity and belonging. Winner of the 2024 Ink Book Prize for Fiction and a 2025 International Impact Book Award, she lives in Nicosia, Cyprus and is currently writing her fourth novel.
10. Zephyr’s Flight
As a thousand years of peace shatters, a rebellious village girl and her dragon stand against an empire.
Astria’s only dream is to become a Dragon Rider, like her ancestors who once forced peace upon their warring neighbors. But when her father disappears, Astria is left unpartnered and untrained as the dragons leave the valley.
All but Zephyr. Crippled and flightless, he refuses to leave Astria’s side after she saves his life.
But the Council of Elders forbids their partnership, fearing a catastrophe foretold by an ancient prophecy. Defiance of their orders risks exile—and certain death—in the hostile highlands of the Wild.
Determined to fly no matter the cost, Astria is quickly embroiled in a renewed conflict between empires, where only one person understands her desires: a warrior from another land.
From award-winning author Ray Strong comes an exhilarating new fantasy series, where sacrifice and defiance collide in a battle for survival, and love may be the most dangerous risk of all.
Perfect for fans of Eragon and The Hunger Games.
Click ‘buy now’ to begin your adventure today!
About the Author
Ray Strong
Ray Strong is the award-winning author of The Dragons’ War, an epic fantasy series that launched in 2025 with Zephyr’s Flight. He began his writing journey with newspaper stories in Chicago before earning a graduate degree in engineering. He now lives with his wife and three kids, building rich worlds full of adventure, mythology, and magic.
[cm_page_title title=”Continue Reading” subtitle=” Shelf Unbound”]
Article originally Published in the December / January 2025 Issue: 2025 Indie Best Award Winners.