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December 2, 2025

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this holiday season. Read more about it, and enter our Holiday Cheer Contest by Wednesday, December 3rd at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of A SEA GLASS CHRISTMAS by Davis Bunn, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Week of December 15, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of December 15th include THE #1 LAWYER by James Patterson and Nancy Allen, which has this intriguing premise: Biloxi’s best criminal defense attorney has never lost a case. Then his client’s beautiful wife is murdered, and America’s #1 lawyer suddenly becomes its #1 suspect; THE FORGER'S REQUIEM, a gripping literary thriller from Bradford Morrow that brings readers inside the world of expert forgery, rivalrous fury and generations of dark family secrets, with Mary Shelley’s voice and life woven throughout; Matt Cain's BECOMING TED, a vibrant, joyful, universally relatable story about kindness, self-acceptance and blooming at any age; and the paperback original A CURSE OF ASHES, the breathtaking conclusion to Sariah Wilson's epic Eye of the Goddess trilogy.

Week of December 8, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of December 8th include GALAPHILE, Terry Brooks' triumphant return to the world of Shannara, which delves deep into the origin story of the druid order and its enigmatic creator that will change the face of the Four Lands forever; INVISIBLE HELIX by Keigo Higashino, a twisty, brilliant mystery featuring Detective Galileo, whose latest case involves hidden history and an impossible crime being linked by nearly invisible threads in surprising ways; Tessa Bickers' THE BOOK SWAP, a story of second chances and new beginnings, a love letter to books --- and a love letter to life; and the paperback original EVERYONE IN THE GROUP CHAT DIES by L.M. Chilton, a funny and thrilling page-turner about a TikTok true crime investigator, a ’90s serial killer who may not be as dead as everyone would like, a text thread from hell, and long-buried secrets that just won’t stay in the grave where they belong.

Week of December 1, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of December 1st include THE NOTE, a suspenseful story from Alafair Burke about a vacation in the Hamptons that goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history; ISOLA by Allegra Goodman, an epic saga of love, faith and defiance that finds a young woman and her lover marooned on an island; THE WOMAN IN ME, Britney Spears' brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith and hope; APRIL STORM, a riveting, much-anticipated posthumous novel from Leila Meacham, in which a seemingly perfect suburban housewife is being pursued by a private detective --- and hunted by a murderer; and the paperback original THE GALLAGHER PLACE by Julie Doar, a layered exploration of family secrets, sibling misconceptions and an unsolved murder set in New York’s Dutchess County.

Erin O. White, author of Like Family

Ruth and her wife, Wyn, are living with their four children on their small farm in Radclyffe, New York. It’s a sweet life, but there’s a secret at its center, one that not even Ruth’s best friend, Caroline, knows. What Caroline does know is that she loves and depends on Ruth, and on the bond between their families. More than anything, she wants her tenderhearted son not to grow up lonely the way she did. Unfortunately, no one can assure her of that, especially not her husband. He just wants things to be easy and drama-free --- which is impossible, as he has donated his sperm to his cousin, Tobi, and her wife so that they could have kids of their own. Now those children are asking unanswerable questions. After an unexpected death in their community, all three couples are forced to confront the tensions that have long been buried beneath the surfaces of their lives.

December 2025

December's Books on Screen roundup includes the films The HousemaidDiary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, 100 Nights of Hero, The Chronology of Water and Not Without Hope; the series premiere of Paramount+'s "Little Disasters"; the season premiere of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" on Disney+ and Hulu; the season finales of HBO's "IT: Welcome to Derry" and Apple TV+'s "Down Cemetery Road"; the midseason finales of "Tracker" and "Watson" on CBS; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Karen Kingsbury's The Christmas Ring and Black Phone 2.

November 26, 2025

This is the season for gratitude.

Let me start with you, our readers. Thank you for reading this newsletter and being a part of our Bookreporter audience. We appreciate you! We love pulling together weekly updates for you, as well as our lineup of events. But none of it would matter if it was not for you joining us each week to read our suggestions --- and watching and listening to the interviews and preview events that we produce. We truly love what we do and enjoy bringing it to you.

Anthony Hopkins, author of We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir

Born and raised in Port Talbot --- a small Welsh steelworks town --- amid war and depression, Sir Anthony Hopkins grew up around men who were tough, to say the least, and eschewed all forms of emotional vulnerability in favor of alcoholism and brutality. A struggling student in school, he was deemed by his peers, his parents and other adults as a failure with no future ahead of him. But, on a fateful Saturday night, the disregarded Welsh boy watched the 1948 adaptation of Hamlet, sparking a passion for acting that would lead him on a path that no one could have predicted. With candor and a voice that is both arresting and vulnerable, Sir Anthony recounts his various career milestones and provides a once-in-a-lifetime look into the brilliance behind some of his most iconic roles.

Kathy Reichs, author of Evil Bones: A Temperance Brennan Novel

Small creatures have been turning up throughout Charlotte, North Carolina, mutilated and displayed in a bizarre manner. But one day, Temperance Brennan gets a disturbing call. The perp is upping the ante. This find could be human. Tempe visits the scene and discovers that the victim is a dog. As one who has always found animal cruelty abhorrent, Tempe agrees to help apprehend the person responsible, and she acquires an equally outraged ally in semi-retired homicide detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell. Then a woman is found disfigured and posed in a manner that mimics the animal killings. Subsequently, people Tempe cares about begin to go missing until it becomes clear she is being taunted, the target in a sick game that has her and Slidell racing against a ticking clock and facing a terrifying question: “What is pure evil?”