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The Best New Books Publishing in December 2024

December

2024

Use the drop-down menus to change the display. Yellow highlight = debut author.

We currently have previews of 43 December books.
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Trial by Ambush: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham
by Marcia Clark
Thomas & Mercer, 12/01/2024
 
Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse―offering ...more
True Crime
White Mulberry: A Novel
by Rosa Kwon Easton
Lake Union Publishing, 12/01/2024
 
1928, Japan-occupied Korea. Eleven-year-old Miyoung has dreams too big for her tiny farming village near Pyongyang: to become a teacher, to avoid an ...more
Historical Fiction
 Debut Author
A History of the Big House: A Novel
by Charif Majdalani
Other Press, 12/03/2024
 
At the end of the 19th century, a man is forced to flee his village after a quarrel. Starting over with nothing, the banished, audacious Wakim Nassar ...more
Historical Fiction
Alter Ego: A Novel
by Alex Segura
Flatiron Books, 12/03/2024
 
Annie Bustamante is a cultural force like none other: an acclaimed filmmaker, an author, a comic book artist known for one of the all time best ...more
Apartment Women: A Novel
by Gu Byeong-mo
Hanover Square Press, 12/03/2024
 
When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she's ready for a fresh start. Located on the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Ardent Violet and the Infinite Eye: The Starmetal Symphony #2
by Alex White
Orbit, 12/03/2024
 
Ultra-glam enby pop star Ardent Violet thought they could catch a break and enjoy some time with their new boyfriend August Kitko after defeating the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Bellevue: A Medical Thriller
by Robin Cook
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 12/03/2024
 
Twenty-three-year-old Michael "Mitt" Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic ...more
Berlin Atomized: A Novel
by Julia Kornberg
Astra House, 12/03/2024
 
Berlin Atomized begins in Buenos Aires of the early 2000s with the self-baptisms of Nina Goldstein. She bathes too frequently, washing with fervor and...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
 Debut Author
CABIN: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman
by Patrick Hutchison
St. Martin's Press, 12/03/2024
 
Wit's End isn't just a state of mind. It's the name of a gravel road, the address of a run-down off-the-grid cabin, 120 shabby square feet of fixer-...more
Biography/Memoir
 Debut Author
Deadbeat: A Novel
by Adam Hamdy
Atria Books, 12/03/2024
 
Peyton Collard was a good man once, but his life changed after a horrific car accident. Divorced, drunk, and severely damaged, Peyton is offered a ...more
Dust: A Novel
by Alison Stine
Wednesday Books, 12/03/2024
 
After her father has a premonition, Thea and her family move to the Bloodless Valley of southern Colorado, hoping to make a fresh start. But the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Gabriel's Moon
by William Boyd
Atlantic Monthly Press, 12/03/2024
 
Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a fire that took his mother's life. Every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his ...more
Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film
by Julie Gilbert
Pantheon Books, 12/03/2024
 
The stupendous publication of Edna Ferber's Giant in 1952 set off a storm of protest over the novel's portrayal of Texas manners, money and mores with...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
Havoc: A Novel
by Christopher Bollen
Harper, 12/03/2024
 
The war between age and youth has never been so vicious.

Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in...more
I Might Be in Trouble
by Daniel Aleman
Grand Central Publishing, 12/03/2024
 
A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Thrillers
 Debut Author
Kingdom of No Tomorrow
by Fabienne Josaphat
Algonquin Books, 12/03/2024
 
Nettie Boileau joins the Black Panthers' Free Health Clinics in Oakland in 1968 and is soon swept up in an all-consuming love affair with Melvin ...more
Historical Fiction
My Fairy God Somebody
by Charlene Allen
HarperCollins Publishers, 12/03/2024
 
The way Clae's mom tells it, her dad took off when Clae was a baby, end of story. Ever since, it's just been the two of them, living in the coastal ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Nobody's Hero: Ben Koenig #2
by M. W. Craven
Flatiron Books, 12/03/2024
 
The man who can't feel fear is back...
When a shocking murder and abduction on the streets of London leads investigators to open a safe in ...more
Rental House: A Novel
by Weike Wang
Riverhead Books, 12/03/2024
 
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru's strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection ("To use...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
Sister Snake: A Novel
by Amanda Lee Koe
Ecco, 12/03/2024
 
Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever
by Lydia Reeder
St. Martin's Press, 12/03/2024
 
After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Biography/Memoir
The Memory Library
by Kate Storey
HarperCollins Publishers, 12/03/2024
 
For forty-two years, Sally Harrison has been building a library.

Each year, on her daughter's birthday, she adds a new book to her shelves –...more
Literary Fiction
The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt: A Novel
by Chelsea Iversen
Sourcebooks Landmark, 12/03/2024
 
Harriet Hunt is completely alone. Her father disappeared months ago, leaving her to wander the halls of Sunnyside house, dwelling on a past she'd ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Rivals: A Novel
by Jane Pek
Vintage, 12/03/2024
 
Claudia Lin—mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major—has scored her dream job: co-running ...more
The Shutouts: A Novel
by Gabrielle Korn
St. Martin's Press, 12/03/2024
 
The year is 2041, and it's a dangerous time to be a woman driving across the United States alone. Deadly storms and uncontrollable wildfires are ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Voyage Home: Women of Troy #3
by Pat Barker
Doubleday, 12/03/2024
 
I never saw Cassandra as a victim. I saw a woman as focused on a single aim as any raptor stooping to its prey; but then, I had more opportunities to ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
The World With Its Mouth Open
by Zahid Rafiq
Tin House Books, 12/03/2024
 
From a shopkeeper's encounter with a mannequin, to an expectant mother walking on a precarious road, to a young boy wavering between dreams and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Short Stories
 Debut Author
This Plague of Souls
by Mike McCormack
Soho Press, 12/03/2024
 
Nealon returns from prison to his house in the West of Ireland to find it empty. No heat or light, no sign of his wife or child. It is as if the world...more
When the Mapou Sings
by Nadine Pinede
Candlewick Press, 12/03/2024
 
Sixteen-year-old Lucille hopes to one day open a school alongside her best friend where girls just like them can learn what it means to be Haitian: to...more
Critics' Consensus:

Poetry & Novels in Verse
When We Sold God's Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon
by Alex Cuadros
Grand Central Publishing, 12/03/2024
 
Growing up in a remote corner of the world's largest rainforest, Pio, Maria, and Oita learned to hunt wild pigs and tapirs, gathering Brazil nuts and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

History, Current Affairs and Religion
Woo Woo: A Novel
by Ella Baxter
Catapult, 12/03/2024
 
Woo Woo follows Sabine, a conceptual artist on the verge of a photo exhibition she hopes will be pivotal, as she plunges deeper into her neuroses and ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
A Monsoon Rising: A Novel
by Thea Guanzon
Harper Voyager, 12/10/2024
 
After a lifetime of war, Alaric and Talasyn were thrust into an alliance between their homelands that was supposed to end the fighting; however, being...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Mothers and Sons: A Memoir
by Theodor Kallifatides
Other Press, 12/10/2024
 
Theodor Kallifatides, an acclaimed Greek author exiled in Sweden for more than 4 decades at age 68, visits his 92-year-old mother, who still resides ...more
Biography/Memoir
No Place to Bury the Dead: A Novel
by Karina Sainz Borgo
HarperVia, 12/10/2024
 
 In an unnamed Latin American country, a mysterious plague quickly spreads, erasing the memory of anyone infected. Angustias Romero flees with ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
The Door-to-Door Bookstore: A Novel
by Carsten Henn
Hanover Square Press, 12/10/2024
 
Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff delivers his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
The Prisoner of Ankara: A Novel
by Suat Dervis
Other Press, 12/10/2024
 
Dreaming of a better life for her son, Vasfi's mother encourages him to attend medical school, so he can become a great doctor. But Vasfi's ...more
Critics' Consensus:

Literary Fiction
The Rest Is Memory: A Novel
by Lily Tuck
Liveright/W.W. Norton, 12/10/2024
 
First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy's motorcycle, fourteen-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines...more
Critics' Consensus:

Historical Fiction
What the Woods Took: A Novel
by Courtney Gould
Wednesday Books, 12/10/2024
 
Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it ...more
How to Be Heard
by Roxane Gay
Harper, 12/15/2024
 
All writing advice is terrible, Roxane Gay states early in How to Be Heard. And still, with her latest book, she steps forward with practical writing ...more
Essays
A Cruel Thirst
by Angela Montoya
Joy Revolution, 12/17/2024
 
Carolina Fuentes wants to join her family in hunting the bloodthirsty vampiros that plague her pueblo. Her father, however, wishes to marry her off to...more
Critics' Consensus:

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
After the Ocean
by Lauren E. Rico
Kensington Publishing, 12/24/2024
 
Thirty years ago, musicians Emilia Oliveras and Paul Winstead were married in Puerto Rico. Forty-eight hours later, Paul vanished from their honeymoon...more
Literary Fiction
Heavenly Tyrant: Iron Widow #2
by Xiran Jay Zhao
Tundra Books, 12/24/2024
 
After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself on the seat of power in Huaxia, but she has also learned that her ...more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Knife Skills for Beginners
by Orlando Murrin
Kensington Publishing, 12/24/2024
 
"Some people are natural dancers, others marvelous in bed, but—not wishing to boast—I'm good with a knife. Most chefs are."

The ...more
Mysteries
 Debut Author
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