Back again with my five most anticipated releases coming out this month. Publishing slows down as we near the end of the year, but I still managed to find 5 releases that I am excited for…releases that I hope you will be excited to read as well! Some of these are from beloved favorite authors – including a prequel to a most beloved series!!! – and some are new-to-me authors that I am looking forward to taking a chance on.
So here without further ado are the five books I am most excited about that will be published in December.
A HISTORY OF WILD PLACES by Shea Ernshaw
Pub Date: Dec 7th, Atria Books
Summary:
Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend.
Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it… he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.
Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.
Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.
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ONE NIGHT, NEW YORK by Lara Thompson
Pub Date: Dec 7th, Pegasus Crime
Summary:
Set over the course of a single evening, this literary thriller is at once a detective story, a romance, and a coming-of-age tale. It is also a story of old New York, of Greenwich Village between the wars, of artists and bohemians lighting up Manhattan as the Great Depression descends upon the city.
For the hundredth time since they’d made their promise, she wondered if she and Agnes were really going to go through with it, if she was brave and terrible enough . . .
A thrilling debut novel of corruption and murder set in the nightclubs, tenements, and skyscrapers of 1930s New York.
At the top of the Empire State Building on a freezing December night, two women hold their breath. Frances and Agnes are waiting for the man who has wronged them. They plan to seek the ultimate revenge.
Set over the course of a single night, One Night, New York is a detective story, a romance and a coming-of-age tale. It is also a story of old New York, of bohemian Greenwich Village between the wars, of floozies and artists and addicts—lighting up the world, while all around them America burned with the Great Depression.
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DARKNESS FALLS by Robert Bryndza
Pub Date: Dec 7th, Thomas & Mercer (Amazon Publishing)
Summary:
THE UNMISSABLE NEW THRILLER FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE GIRL IN THE ICE, NINE ELMS AND SHADOW SANDS, ROBERT BRYNDZA
Kate Marshall’s Detective agency takes off when she and her partner Tristan are hired to investigate a cold case from over a decade ago. Twelve years previously, a determined young journalist called Joanna Duncan exposed a political scandal that had major repercussions. In the fallout she disappeared without trace and was never found.
When Kate and her partner Tristan examine the case files, they find the trail long cold, but they discover the names of two young men who also vanished at that time. As she begins to connect their last days, Kate realizes that Joanna may have been onto something far more sinister than anyone first believed: the identity of a serial killer preying on the people who few will ever miss.
But the closer Kate comes to finding the killer, the darker things become . . .
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THE SPANISH DAUGHTER by Lorena Hughes
Pub Date: December 28th, Kensington Books
Summary:
Perfect for fans of Julia Alvarez and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, this exhilarating novel transports you to the lush tropical landscape of 1920s Ecuador, blending family drama, dangerous mystery, and the real-life history of the coastal town known as the “birthplace of cacao.”
As a child in Spain, Puri always knew her passion for chocolate was inherited from her father. But it’s not until his death that she learns of something else she’s inherited—a cocoa estate in Vinces, Ecuador, a town nicknamed “París Chiquito.” Eager to claim her birthright and filled with hope for a new life after the devastation of World War I, she and her husband Cristóbal set out across the Atlantic Ocean. But it soon becomes clear someone is angered by Puri’s claim to the estate…
When a mercenary sent to murder her aboard the ship accidentally kills Cristóbal instead, Puri dons her husband’s clothes and assumes his identity, hoping to stay safe while she searches for the truth of her father’s legacy in Ecuador. Though freed from the rules that women are expected to follow, Puri confronts other challenges at the estate—newfound siblings, hidden affairs, and her father’s dark secrets. Then there are the dangers awakened by her attraction to an enigmatic man as she tries to learn the identity of an enemy who is still at large, threatening the future she is determined to claim…
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A MAN OF HONOR by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Pub Date: Dec 28th, St. Martin’s Press
Summary:
The prequel to Barbara Taylor Bradford’s New York Times bestselling and dazzling saga A Woman of Substance.
Opening five years before the start of A Woman of Substance, A Man of Honor begins with 13-year-old Blackie O’Neill facing an uncertain future in rural County Kerry. Orphaned and alone, he has just buried his sister, Bronagh, and must leave his home to set sail for England, in search of a better life with his mother’s brother in Leeds. There, he learns his trade as a navvy, amid the grand buildings and engineering triumphs of one of England’s most prosperous cities, and starts to dream of greater things… And then, high on the Yorkshire moors, in the mists of a winter morning he meets a kitchen maid called Emma Harte.
In A Man of Honor, the true Blackie O’Neill is revealed. For the first time, readers discover his story: his tumultuous life, the obstacles facing him, the desire he has to throw off the impotence of poverty and move up in the world. Like his friend Emma, he is ambitious, driven, disciplined, and determined to make it to the top. And like Emma Harte, he is an unforgettable character for the millions who loved the book.
Do any of these sound good? Let me know!
