The 16 Best New Book Releases This Week: Dec. 10-16, 2024

Here are the 16 best new book releases out this week: December 10-16, 2024. Don’t panic, as Douglas Adams once said. (He also said you should always bring a towel when you travel and by gosh, I’m traveling and have a super absorbent, small made-for-camping towel in my carry-on and it’s been a life saver many times. Thanks, Mr. Adams!) Maybe you’re panicking about relatives descending on your home! Or in-laws. Or the holiday party you’re throwing. Or New Year’s Eve. Or that project for work that is overdue and must be done before the break. Or maybe the gifts you haven’t bought yet.

But whether you need the perfect gift, some recipes to please your heart-healthy in-law, a reminder to pause and be thankful or just want a break from everything and escape into a book, I’ve got you. So let’s get reading. At the head of the Parade are…

The 16 Best New Book Releases This Week: Dec. 10-16, 2024

1. How To Get A Life in Ten Dates by Jenny L. Howe
2. A Monsoon Rising by Thea Guanzon
3. The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich

Three romances provide an ideal escape.

Author Jenny L. Howe gives us a heroine tired of the dating life (who isn’t) and proffers a challenge to family and friends: set me up on ten dates. What she doesn’t expect is to see her best friend nominate himself for one of the slots!

If you haven’t read writer Thea Guanzon’s The Hurricane Wars…stop reading! Go read that romantasy bestseller and then come back here. I’ll wait…. Done already? Okay, so this won’t be a spoiler. In the first book, Alaric and Talasyn went from enemies to married enemies, to stop all the fighting. Now they’re wed to each other, with Alaric’s side scheming to overthrow the throne (but keep her on it) and Talasyn’s side looking to defeat them once and for all and the unhappily married couple in the middle realizing that sparks are flying. Uh oh.

In The Rules of Royalty, we get a gay spin on The Princess Diaries. (No, that’s not redundant. Behave!) Jamie Johnson is the unknown heir to the throne of Mitanor, which admittedly is pretty low profile too, but in these times it’s nice to think there are Luxeumbourgian kingdoms nestled here and there in Europe, no? Erik Lindstrom is the spare heir to another kingdom and is thrilled to get away from his older brother’s wedding plans and tutor this rube in the ways of royalty. Jamie might have hoped for Julie Andrews, but Erik is awfully good-looking and the two young men realize they have a lot more in common than anyone expected.

How To Get A Life in Ten Dates by Jenny L. Howe ($18; St. Martin’s Griffin) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

A Monsoon Rising by Thea Guanzon ($32; Harper Voyager) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich ($14; Wednesday Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

4. End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami
5. The Rest Is Memory by Lily Tuck

No one debates the importance of author Haruki Murakami. But once you’ve delivered multiple masterpieces, any new book must meet impossibly high standards. To some, his new novel The City and Its Uncertain Walls is more proof of his greatness. To others, a mere repetition of ideas he offered in earlier, better books. Well, you can’t really debate the merits of it until you’ve also read his 1985 book End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland, which is also sometimes translated as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and End of the World. That novel contains much that is explored in his new book, but differently (or better, or worse, depending on whom you ask) so take a break between the two. And when will Murakami win the Nobel Prize? Every year I lay my money down with my bookie in England and every year, I get poor odds because surely this is the year he’ll win…and then he doesn’t. 

Author Lily Tuck tackles World War II and the death camps, though doubtless she didn’t think of it that way, for anyone with a sense of history would be paralyzed by the impossibility of the task. Instead, Tuck tackles the story of one girl, a Polish Catholic who winds up in Auschwitz and is dead within three months. The girl is real, but her story is imagined by Tuck in a spare, short novel that shines a light on the 6 million Poles who died during World War II. Critics say The Rest Is Memory is somehow shattering and hopeful at the same time.

End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami; translated by Jay Rubin ($30; Everyman’s Library) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble

The Rest Is Memory by Lily Tuck ($24.99; Liveright) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Related: Author Nora Dahlia on How A Big Sister Can Change Your Life

6. The McCartney Legacy Vol. 2: 1974-1980 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair
7. Sergio Leone by Himself by Christopher Frayling
8. They Shot The Piano Player by Fernando Trueba; illustrated by Javier Mariscal

Three works of pop cultural history.

Paul McCartney is a musical genius few can rival (Cole Porter? George Gershwin?) so when I see this massive bio is Volume 2 and only runs from 1974 to 1980, I know this is exactly the sort of obsessive biography I will happily get lost in. Hey, if LBJ can get five volumes from Robert Caro, surely Macca can get four.

The great film director Sergio Leone is celebrated with the coffee table worthy tome Sergio Leone By Himself. It pulls from extensive interviews and essays Leone penned himself to capture this artist throughout his career from the classic Clint Eastwood westerns (climaxed by The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) to his final masterpiece Once Upon A Time In America. Combine that with loads of photos and posters and you’ve got a fitting tribute to an artist who died too soon at 60, just when he was at his creative peak.

And the graphic novel They Shot The Piano Player stands as yet another in the burgeoning field of docu-comics. It’s based on the true story of a key musician in the samba-jazz movement. Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior was 34 when he was performing in Buenos Aires, stepped outside for a cigarette…and was never seen again. This book–and the animated film based on it and starring the voice work of Jeff Goldblum–tells the story of an American journalist who becomes obsessed with figuring out what the heck happened. You’ll know why they care, once you hear Francisco play.

The McCartney Legacy Vol. 2: 1974-1980 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair ($35; Dey Street Books) Buy now from Amazon, Bookshop.org

Sergio Leone by Himself by Christopher Frayling ($49.95; Reel Art Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

They Shot The Piano Player by Fernando Trueba; illustrated by Javier Mariscal ($34.99; SelfMadeHero) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

9. Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson
10. What The Woods Took by Courtney Gould
11. No Place To Bury The Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo

Three works of fantasy and sci-fi offer an ideal escape…assuming marauding beasts and post-plague America is your idea of escape. 

Best-selling author Brandon Sanderson returns to traditional publishing after a year or so of highly successful self-publishing various books. And just in time, since fans are dying to read the climax of the first arc in the Stormlight Archive. You will need to read books 1-4, but if you’re a Sanderson fan, you’ve already done that. This is classic epic fantasy storytelling.

What The Woods Took is a nightmare for any teen: the people in charge of your life decide you’re too out of control and take desperate measures. You are abducted from your home by strangers, taken into the wilderness along with other “uncontrollable” teens and told by some obnoxious counselors everyone must band together and survive in the wild for 50 days to prove they can be born anew. It’s a nightmare. Then the counselors disappear unexpectedly. Then the woods seem to come alive with monsters. And then it gets really scary. 

No Place To Bury The Dead uses a mysterious plague to shine a new light on the people who risk everything to escape war and violence and make a new life, no matter the cost. A mother takes her children to flee the mysterious illness spreading through Latin America. Somehow she ends up in a border town, protecting a cemetery that is both a burying ground and a refuge for the displaced. But the most powerful person in the area wants that land for himself. This is a sci-fi thriller/western that raised author Karina Sanz Borgo’s profile in Latin America as one of the strongest writers working today. Now it’s our turn to discover her.

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson ($39.99; Tor Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

What The Woods Took by Courtney Gould ($20; Wednesday Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

No Place To Bury The Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo; translated by Elizabeth Bryer ($26; HarperVia) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

12. The New American Heart Association Cookbook Centennial Edition

Ok, it’s almost the end of the year and you’re almost ready to make some resolutions or definitely ready to make some resolutions for the people in your life you love and want to keep around for years to come. So what better gift than a cookbook from the American Heart Association which promises to be delicious and healthy? And if you’re really smart, give it to someone who will happily make meals for you to eat. That’s a win-win. 

The New American Heart Association Cookbook Centennial Edition ($23; Rodale Books) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

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13. What The Wife Knew by Darby Kane
14. Assume Nothing by Joshua Corin
15. We Are The Beasts by Gigi Griffis

Three twisty thrillers to wrap your head around.

Best-selling author Darby Kane broke out with his hit Pretty Little Wife and finally decided he had the idea to follow it up. Hence, What The Wife Knew, a stand-alone thriller about the woman who marries a famed pediatric surgeon determined to ruin his legacy…only to have the man be murdered before she can put her plan into action. Now she’s widowed, rich, despised by the local community they lived in and desperate to prove her innocence and his infamy before someone makes her pay for a crime she didn’t commit. 

Assume Nothing gets very meta as a little girl worships the famed detective who solved her mother’s murder (awkwardly, it was her dad). The kid also loves the mystery series inspired by that detective. And ten years later, that little girl befriends the detective, eagerly accepts his offer to help him on a case…and slowly realizes everything she’s ever known about him and the crime and even the mysterious author who writes those detective novels may be a lie.

In France, the Beast of Geváudan is a well-known true story of terror.  An unknown creature or creatures roamed an area of the country from 1764 to 1767 and slaughtered anywhere from 60-100 or more men, women and children before disappearing for good. Author Gigi Griffis spins the idea that the slaughter of these almost mythical beasts was awful, but also an opportunity for two teenage girls. Having suffered for years from drunken fathers, brutal brothers, sexual assault and homes that felt more like prison, they seize on the attacks to get some revenge of their own. 

What The Wife Knew by Darby Kane ($18.99; William Morrow Paperbacks) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

Assume Nothing by Joshua Corin ($16.99; Thomas & Mercer) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org 

We Are The Beasts by Gigi Griffis ($19.99; Delacorte Press) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

16. Thank You, Everything by Icinori

Ahh, just…breathe. Take a moment. Stop. Look around and see everything you can be thankful for. In this meditative, lovely picture book, author and illustrator Icinori floats readers through all the things we can be grateful about. Filled with bold, bright and simple graphics, it travels through a day, thanking everything from the alarm clock (I suppose) to the bed (sure!) to the sink and the glass holding the water from the sink. It’s simple, yes, but the images are so smile-inducing and alive with pleasure, the text so disarming, you might just find this a good for the adults and teens in your life as much as the kids.

Thank You, Everything by Icinori; translated by Emilie Robert Wong ($29.95; Enchanted Lion) Buy now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org

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