December 9, 2025

December 9, 2025

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of December 8th and December 15th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our current Word of Mouth contest. Let us know by Friday, December 19th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win THE AWARD by Matthew Pearl and THE HEIR APPARENT by Rebecca Armitage, the latter of which is Reese's Book Club pick for December and a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection.

Join Us Tomorrow Evening for Our
"Best of 2025" Reviewer Event!

This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Word of Mouth Contest
Win a Copy of THE AWARD by Matthew Pearl
and THE HEIR APPARENT by Rebecca Armitage

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

Here are two upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.

Wednesday, December 10th at 7pm ET: “Friends & Fiction”: Join “Friends & Fiction” for a conversation with Ace Atkins about his new novel, EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD. In this rollicking comedic thriller set in 1985, a suburban teen suspects that his mom’s new boyfriend is the ultimate bad guy --- a KGB agent.

Wednesday, December 10th at 8pm ET: “Bookaccino Live” Reviewer Event: Join us for a special “Bookaccino Live” evening event as some of our Bookreporter reviewers share their favorite books of 2025. We cannot wait to see which titles they select and why!

On Sale the Week of December 8th in Hardcover

December 9th

THE BIRDWATCHER by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Mystery) 
When she is convicted of a double murder, Felicity Wild, a brilliant grad student turned high-priced escort, declares, “I may not be innocent, but I’m innocent of this.” Reenie Bigelow never doubted it. A jury may have given Felicity a life sentence, but Reenie knows that her childhood best friend is not capable of murder. And so Reenie, a journalist, decides to use her deep connections to Felicity’s past to unravel the truth. The more she uncovers, the more Reenie is convinced that the story the prosecution told is wrong, despite the puzzling fact that Felicity said not one single word in her own defense. But there's one thing Reenie knows for certain: Felicity would never lie.
Mira | 9780778368670 

DARK SISTERS by Kristi DeMeester (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
In DARK SISTERS, horror meets historical fiction when a curse bridges generations, binding the fates of three women. Anne Bolton, a healer facing persecution for witchcraft, bargains with a dark entity for protection --- but the fire she unleashes will reverberate for centuries. Mary Shephard, a picture-perfect wife in a suffocating community, falls for Sharon and begins a forbidden affair that could destroy them both. And Camilla Burson, the rebellious daughter of a preacher, defies conformist expectations to uncover an ancient power as her father’s flock spirals into crisis.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250286819 

THE QUIET MOTHER: A Detective Konrad Novel by Arnaldur Indridason (Mystery) 
A woman is found murdered in her Reykjavík home, her apartment ransacked. On her desk lies a note with retired detective Konrad’s phone number. Days earlier, she had begged him to find the child she gave up nearly 50 years ago. But Konrad, reluctant to reopen old wounds, turned her away. Now, haunted by guilt, he vows to uncover the truth --- for her and for himself. As Konrad digs into her tragic past, he is drawn into a web of secrets, lies and betrayal. Each revelation points to a hidden life that connects her death to a decades-old murder --- and to shadows from Konrad’s own family history.
Minotaur Books | 9781250403766 

THE SEA CAPTAIN'S WIFE: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World by Tilar J. Mazzeo (History) 
Summer, 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, already had completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach. As their ship, Neptune’s Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination, was agitating for mutiny. With no obvious option for a new captain, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. Determined to save the ship, the crew and their future, she faces down the deadly waters of Drake’s Passage.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250352583 

SPASM by Robin Cook (Medical Thriller)
When Laurie Montgomery temporarily steps down from her position as Chief Medical Examiner at the OCME, she and Jack decide to embark on a weekend getaway. And the timing couldn't be better when they receive a call from Jack's old peer, Robert Neilson, MD, about two strange deaths and their potential association with the upswing in Alzheimer's cases in Essex Falls. Laurie and Jack agree to help. Robert tells them that the deaths are of two troublemakers, known to be white extremists, in their late 20s. Prior to their deaths, their behavior had been somewhat bizarre with both complaining of muscle spasms, nausea and off-the-charts anxiety. As Jack and Laurie get to work, they are led to believe that a dangerous bioweapon might be at play, which, in the wrong hands, could threaten the lives of the entire town...and maybe all of America.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217044931 

TAILORED REALITIES by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy & Science Fiction/Short Stories)
Spanning the genres of fantasy and science fiction, TAILORED REALITIES includes 10 works of short fiction from the ingenious mind of one of the genre’s most beloved bestselling authors. From futuristic detective thrillers to inventive space opera, superhero action, high-tech fantasy and beyond, these gripping stand-alone reads have never before been gathered into one volume, with many available here in print for the first time. Also including author’s notes and stunning interior illustrations for each story, this visionary collection is a must-read whether you’re new to Brandon Sanderson or a longtime fan.
Tor Books | 9781250410481 

On Sale the Week of December 8th in Paperback

December 9th

THE BOOK SWAP by Tessa Bickers (Romance)
Still reeling from a recent tragedy, Erin Connolly knows she needs to start living, but she has no idea how. When she accidentally donates her favorite book --- a heavily annotated copy of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD containing a memento she can’t be without --- to a local community library, she’s devastated. But then the book turns up a week later, back in the library with fresh notes in the margins, along with an invitation in a copy of GREAT EXPECTATIONS to meet her newfound pen pal. A life-changing conversation, written only in the margins of beloved classic books, begins between Erin and her Mystery Man. Following each other through the pages of their favorite novels as the book exchange continues, they both begin to open up, falling into a friendship…and maybe something more. But Erin and her pen pal have a shared history that neither of them has guessed.
Graydon House | 9781525800115

COLD STORAGE: A Thriller of the Near Future by Michael C. Grumley (Technothriller)
Technology never works well the first time. Or even the second. Army veteran John Reiff is living proof. John is revived in the back of a dilapidated ambulance, on the run from a shadowy organization that is desperate to take him back. He is the first one, their archetype, and they need to know what happened after his escape. What is happening to his body and his mind. And they need to know now. Because Reiff knows things he shouldn’t. About them and about what they are hiding. A secret that has been in cold storage for several hundred years. And the insidious, methodical plan that has been in motion for half a century. John Reiff is their key --- a problem and the solution. A lab rat gone rogue at the worst possible time. But they will find him. They have to. And they will stop at nothing to get what they want.
Forge Books | 9781250898777

EVERYONE IN THE GROUP CHAT DIES by L.M. Chilton (Mystery & Thriller/Humor)
Paperback Original
Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything: Her crumbling apartment in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its bucolic countryside and a second-rate serial killer from the ’90s). Her dead-end job. Her sleazy landlord. Her messy roommates. And, most of all, the terrible thing they all did. Luckily, that hasn’t caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up: Everyone in the group chat dies. It’s the first text that her ex-roommate, Esme, has sent in ages, but that’s not the really weird thing. The really weird thing is that Esme died 12 months ago.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668094174

GALAPHILE: The First Druids of Shannara by Terry Brooks (Fantasy)
One of the most iconic structures in the Four Lands is Paranor, the fortress home of the Druid Order. Legend holds that it was erected by an Elven leader known as Galaphile Joss. But who was this Galaphile, and how and why did he choose to establish this center of magic and learning? Within these pages we meet the real Galaphile, following him from a friendless teenage orphan stranded in the Human world to a powerful adult and master mage, studying under the infamous recluse, Cogline. Throughout it all, Galaphile’s goal is a noble one: to bring order to a chaotic world, and to make life better for those trying to survive it. To this end, he commences building the citadel that one day will be known as Paranor with the aid of the King of the Silver River. But there is one other who seeks dominion over the Four Lands --- and for far less virtuous ends.
Del Rey | 9780593129791

INVISIBLE HELIX: A Detective Galileo Novel by Keigo Higashino (Mystery)
The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident; Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi. But when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. When they learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight; she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation. But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association.
Minotaur Books | 9781250406033

ONLY STARS KNOW THE MEANING OF SPACE: A Literary Mixtape by Rémy Ngamije (Fiction/Short Stories)
ONLY STARS KNOW THE MEANING OF SPACE is presented as a literary mixtape. The A-Side, read as one narrative, tells the story of a soon-to-be 30-year-old aspiring writer navigating a complicated world. The B-Side, taken as a separate experience, features (seemingly) independent and unrelated short stories. There’s “Crunchy, Green Apples (or, Omo),” a story about loss told by the strangest of narrative devices: a shopping list. “Sofa, So Good, Sort Of (or, John Muafangejo)” is a first-person account of a family’s history and a long journey towards hope. A group of friends attempts to navigate a recent breakup in “From the Lost City of Hurtlantis to the Streets of Helldorado (or, Franco).” When read together, however, a third world emerges --- a complex, intergenerational and interconnected world exploring the universal gaping void of grief.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668012475

THE TIME HOP COFFEE SHOP by Phaedra Patrick (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
Greta Perks was once the shining star of the iconic Maple Gold coffee commercials, the quintessential TV wife and mom. Now fame has faded, her marriage is on the rocks, her teenage daughter has become distant, and Greta’s once-glittering career feels like a distant memory. When Greta stumbles upon a mysterious coffee shop serving a magical brew, she wishes for the perfect life in those past Maple Gold commercials. Next thing she knows, Greta wakes in the idyllic make-believe town of Mapleville, where the sun always shines and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and second chances fill the air. Given the opportunity to live the life she dreamed, Greta is determined to rewrite her own script. But can life ever be like a coffee commercial? And what will happen when Greta has to choose between perfection and real life, with no turning back?
Park Row | 9780778310907

On Sale the Week of December 15th in Hardcover

December 16th

THE RED SCARE MURDERS by Con Lehane (Historical/Noir Mystery)
July 1950: Mick Mulligan has just hung out his shingle as a private investigator in New York’s sweaty Hell’s Kitchen. A former Hollywood cartoonist who was blacklisted during a communist witch hunt, Mick is in need of a paying gig to make his child support payments. But maybe not this gig. Last year, universally reviled cab company owner Irwin Johnson was murdered. One of his drivers, an African American Communist Party member named Harold Williams, was arrested, tried and found guilty, despite scant evidence. Now his execution date is two weeks away. New York City labor leader Duke Rogowski asks Mick to find fresh evidence that might buy Harold a stay of execution. Lots of people might have wanted Irwin dead, but no one has any reason to help Mick exonerate Harold. Yet Mick can’t abandon a potentially innocent man to the electric chair. Can he pull off a miracle?
Soho Crime | 9781641297202 

W. E. B. GRIFFIN DIRECT ACTION: A Presidential Agent Novel by Jack Stewart (Thriller/Adventure)
Charley Castillo, the original Presidential Agent, is in Virginia Beach to visit his son when two gunmen appear. Charley is able to thwart a deadly mass shooting, but he is hit and badly injured. Meanwhile, Pick McCoy is at the Naval Academy catching up with some old friends. When news of the attack reaches him, he senses that this is no random event. While Charley clings to life, Pick searches for the men responsible and in the process uncovers a deadly plot that threatens to strike deep at the heart of American democracy.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217046386

On Sale the Week of December 15th in Paperback

December 16th

THE #1 LAWYER by James Patterson and Nancy Allen (Legal Thriller)
Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity. Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career. That’s when Penney makes a bold decision. He stops trading on his power-lawyer identity and creates a new one: lawyer lifeguard. Moonlighting at the beach, showing up to court in flip-flops, and mentoring a law student, the new Penney is at first unrecognizable. It’s said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But when Penney is accused of murder, the #1 Lawyer will find a way to triumph.
Little, Brown and Company | 9781538753125

BECOMING TED by Matt Cain (Fiction)
If Ted Ainsworth were to compare himself to one of the ice cream flavors made by his family’s company, it might be vanilla --- sweet, inoffensive and pleasantly predictable. At 43, Ted is convinced there’s nothing remotely remarkable about him, except perhaps his luck in having landed handsome, charismatic Giles as a husband. Then Giles suddenly leaves him for another man, filling his social media feed with posts about #newlove and adventure. And Ted, who has spent nearly 20 years living with, and often for, another person, must reimagine the future he has happily taken for granted. But perhaps there is another Ted slowly blossoming now that he’s no longer in Giles’ shadow --- one who is funny, sassy and more uninhibited. Someone willing to take chances on new friendships and even new love.
A John Scognamiglio Book | 9781496745958

A CURSE OF ASHES by Sariah Wilson (Fantasy/Romance)
Paperback Original
Princess Lia of Locris is the unlikeliest person to be Ilion’s defender. Once, she’d have gladly seen the entire adversarial nation burn. But much has changed. Ilion is home to too many innocents, including her sister. Besides, there is no escaping the goddess’s command. Lia is Ilion’s prophesied savior. With that mortal obligation come rules: She must never consummate her marriage to Xander, prince of Ilion, lest she lose her powers of divine magic when she needs them most. Physically bonded to share each other’s pain, these former enemies have grown from merely attracted to something more profound. But what future can they have when Lia’s destiny requires sacrificing her life? As enemies close in and war threatens everything they love, Lia and Xander must find a way to follow the goddess’s laws while also accepting the truth in their hearts.
Montlake | 9781662534195

THE FORGER’S REQUIEM by Bradford Morrow (Literary Thriller)
Assaulted and presumed dead by his longtime nemesis, Will, literary forger Henry Slader awakens in a shallow grave. He exhumes himself and sets out to exact revenge on his rival, orchestrate Will’s downfall, and make a fortune along the way --- armed with a devastating secret about Will’s past. Slader quickly draws in Will’s daughter, Nicole, wielding his threats against her father to blackmail her into forging inscriptions by such authors as Poe, Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. As Nicole’s skill grows, so does her devotion to --- and doubts about --- her father’s integrity, until she commits the ultimate betrayal for the sake of his freedom. She forges a suite of brilliantly convincing and surpassingly valuable letters by FRANKENSTEIN author Mary Shelley --- planting within them the seeds of Slader’s doom.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802166517

THE NEW INTERNATIONALS by David Wright Faladé (Historical Fiction)
Paris, 1947. Recovering from the Nazi occupation, the city suffers from an economy in shambles and an unraveled social fabric. Cecile Rosenbaum, from a bourgeois Jewish family that has lost everything, meets Minette Traoré, a feisty, French-born girl of Senegalese descent, on the bus to a Communist Youth Conference. There, she also meets Sebastien Danxomè, an aspiring architecture student from West Africa, and romance blooms. Back in Paris, Cecile and Sebastien find their budding love muddied by confused loyalties and unyielding cultural traditions. When Mack Gray, a charming African-American GI, sets his sights on Cecile, her complicated relationship with Sebastien, as well as her fierce dedication to her newfound political ideologies, are pushed to the brink.
Grove Press | 9780802166524

YOUR PRESENCE IS MANDATORY by Sasha Vasilyuk (Historical Fiction)
Ukraine, 2007. War veteran Yefim Shulman was beloved by his children, wife and coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow, Nina, finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces Nina and her children to reassess the husband, father and grandfather they thought they knew and the bonds they'd formed with him and each other. Following one family over the course of 70 years and three generations, Sasha Vasilyuk shines a light into the shadowy corners of a marriage marred by secrecy and the sacrifices people make to survive.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639737253

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