As we near the end of another year, the number of books being published dwindles. But there are still a handful of debut adult fiction titles coming out this month. Here are a few of the more notable titles for December. These have all received positive reviews in library journals. For a (slightly) longer list, please visit our catalog.
“Learwife” by J.R. Thorp
Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear’s queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.
Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice — one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests.
“Without a Hitch” by Mary Hollis Huddleston & Asher Fogle Paul
When floundering and unlucky-in-love twentysomething Lottie Jones lands a new career as a wedding planner at a top-tier boutique event firm, she begins navigating a cutthroat workplace specializing in over-the-top details, unlimited budgets, and a broad spectrum of taste. Whether planning for parachute landings or wrangling intoxicated groomsmen, she has her hands full at every million-dollar wedding she helps organize.
After her boss announces he’s opening a new office, Lottie sees her chance to finally carve out her place — and earn an income that justifies her dating app subscription fees. The weddings get bigger, the clients get wilder, the mishaps get funnier, and the stakes get higher. And Lottie’s forced to discover what she’ll risk for love and how far she’ll go to find herself.
“Innate Magic” by Shannon Fay
Delightfully cheeky, unquestionably charming, and sometimes maddeningly naive, cloth mage Paul Gallagher is desperately trying to make a name for himself in a reimagined postwar London. But in a world where magic is commonplace, sewing enchanted clothes is seen as little more than a frivolous distraction. Paul is hiding a secret, however: he possesses a powerful — and illegal — innate magic that could help him achieve his wildest dreams.
Unfortunately, Paul confides in the wrong person — his latest crush, Captain Hector Hollister — and is drawn into a sinister plot that risks reigniting the machinery of war. To make matters worse, the pretty American gossip reporter Paul just met reveals her personal quest to expose a government cover-up may be related to Hollister’s magical goals. When Hollister threatens the life of Paul’s dearest friend, he realizes that his poor judgement has put not only his family and friends in danger, but also the whole world.
The only way to set things right may be for Paul to undergo the dangerous ritual to become Court Magician — the most powerful magician in the country. But is becoming part of the institution the best way to enact change in a terribly unjust society?
“One Night, New York” by Lara Thompson
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.
