Here are all the December 2023 Prepub Alerts in one place, plus a downloadable spreadsheet of all titles from every post.

Fiction

Mystery

Armstrong, Jess. The Curse of Penryth Hall. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Dec. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250886019. $28. MYSTERY

A U.S. heiress starting a new life in the Cornish countryside, where she purveys rare books with her octogenarian housemate, Ruby Vaughn finds herself at the home of former best friend Tasmyn following a book delivery. She ends up staying at gloomy Penryth Hall when Tasmyn’s husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth, is murdered amid rumors of a family curse. Winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Higashino, Keigo. The Final Curtain. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Kyoichiro Kaga, Bk. 4). 400p. tr. from Japanese by Giles Murray. ISBN 9781250767523. $29. MYSTERY/INTERNATIONAL

A woman is found strangled to death in a Tokyo apartment rented under a false name by a man now vanished. Is there a connection to another unaccountable death, the burning of a homeless man? And can Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga, whose recently deceased mother ran away 10 years ago, shed any light on the case? From Edgar/CWA Dagger finalist Higashino; with a 35,000-copy first printing.

Ryan, Annelise. Death in the Dark Woods. Berkley. (Monster Hunter Mystery, Bk. 2). Dec. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593441602. $27. MYSTERY

Bookstore owner Morgan Carter is an emerging cryptozoologist—on her first case, she solved the mystery of the monster in Michigan Lake. So naturally the conservation warden turns to her when a man is found dead, his throat jaggedly slashed, after the sighting of a Bigfoot-type creature in Wisconsin’s Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Following the LJ-starred A Death in Door Country.

Shelton, Paige. Lost Hours: A Mystery. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Alaska Wild, Bk. 5). Dec. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781250846617. $28. MYSTERY

Having settled in Alaska to elude a would-be kidnapper, Beth Rivers—known to her fans as thriller author Elizabeth Fairchild—is aboard a ship cruising among the glaciers when the captain spots a bloodied woman waving from a remote island. The woman claims that she was kidnapped in Juneau, where she’s in the witness protection program, and that her captor was killed by a bear. Another kidnapping, and Beth’s deft investigating, follow. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Spotswood, Stephen. Murder Crossed Her Mind. Doubleday. (Pentecost and Parker Mystery, Bk. 4). Dec. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780385549288. $27. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

It’s 1947 New York City, and Vera Bodine, an older woman with an icepick-sharp memory that’s served lawyers and FBI agents alike, has vanished. As they investigate, Det. Lillian Pentecost and wily assistant Willowjean “Will” Parker counter threats to their own integrity, Lillian from a millionaire who’s discovered a secret in her past and Will from thieves using her name and possibly her gun. Next in the Nero Award–winning series.

Thompson, Victoria. City of Betrayal. Berkley. (Counterfeit Lady, Bk. 7). Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593440605. $28. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

As a former grifter, Elizabeth Bates knows how to talk around any man, a skill that comes in handy when she joins a team seeking to persuade Tennessee to ratify the 19th Amendment (already rejected by other Southern states). But things are turning ugly, and she must devise a surefire con to protect her suffragist friends and their mission. From Edgar finalist Thompson.

Thrillers

Burcell, Robin. Clive Cussler The Serpent’s Eye. Putnam. (Sam and Remi Fargo Adventure, Bk. 13). Dec. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780593419618. $29.95. lrg. prnt. CD. ACTION & ADVENTURE

Husband-and-wife treasure-hunting team Sam and Remi Fargo are back at it, though who know where their adventures will take them this time. One of five best-selling Cussler series and one that the publisher sees as especially appealing to women readers.

Cook, Robin. Manner of Death. Putnam. Dec. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780593713891. $29. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER/MEDICAL

As New York City’s chief medical examiner, Laurie Montgomery thinks that pathology resident Ryan Sullivan needs to polish his skills and has him join her on a suicide autopsy. A few days later, Ryan arrives on the autopsy table, apparently a suicide himself, and Laurie is guilt-ridden until her medical examiner husband determines that this death could be murder. More medical terror from a pro.

Cooper, Helen. The Couple in the Photo. Putnam. Dec. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780593544907. pap. $18. THRILLER

Author of the LJ-starred The Neighbor Downstairs, Cooper introduces us to two couples, Lucy and Adam and their best friends, Cora and Scott. Spotting Scott with a mysterious woman in a colleague’s vacation photos, Lucy fears he’s cheating on Cora and is even more worried to learn that the woman has vanished. Then she begins unearthing secrets about both her friends and her husband that make her wonder what’s really going on.

Dumas, Luke. The Paleontologist. Atria. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781668018262. $27.99. THRILLER/PSYCHOLOGICAL

Paleontologist Simon Nealy surprises himself by returning to his Pennsylvania hometown to work at the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History—the very place his six-year-old sister disappeared decades ago under his care. Still closed owing to the pandemic, the museum is near financial collapse, but what’s worse is that Simons starts hearing eerie sounds and finds an animal’s bloody, unidentifiable tracks. Following the multi-starred A History of Fear.

Faulkner, Katherine. The Other Mothers. Gallery: S. & S. Dec. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781668024782. $28.99. CD. THRILLERS/DOMESTIC

Tash is thrilled to find a playgroup for her young son in a wealthy enclave near her home, even as a young nanny is found dead in the area. In rather macabre fashion, she starts investigating the death as a way to reignite her journalism career, but with another death she starts to suspect that she’s been accepted by the enclave’s polished moms so that they can watch her every move. Following the well-received Greenwich Park.

Frear, Caz. Five Bad Deeds. Harper. Dec. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780063091108. $30; pap. 416p. ISBN 9780063091115. $18.99. THRILLER/DOMESTIC

Raising a family, renovating her house, and job hunting, ever-conscientious Ellen Walsh is dumbfounded when she receives a note that states, “People have to learn there are consequences, Ellen. And I’m going to teach you that lesson.” What did she do? Nothing intentional, but she starts considering her missteps. A stand-alone from the Barry-nominated author of the “Cat Kinsella” series; with a 75,000-copy paperback and 25,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Kane, Darby. The Engagement Party. Morrow. Dec. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780063345072. $30; pap. ISBN 9780063225626. $18.99. CD. THRILLER/PSYCHOLOGICAL

Old college friends celebrate an engagement on a remote Maine island while recalling a classmate’s graduation-week death 12 years earlier and a campus loner’s subsequent suicide, which for the police explained everything. Sierra Prescott, the group’s only outsider, senses unresolved tensions around the two deaths, which proves prescient—a dead body is soon discovered bearing the note “Time to tell the truth.” Both LibraryReads picks, Darby’s Pretty Little Wife and The Replacement Wife have been optioned for television; with a 100,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Laskowski, Tara. The Weekend Retreat. Graydon House: Harlequin. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781525811456. $18.99. CD. THRILLER/DOMESTIC

Heirs to a fortune derived from copper mining, the glittery Van Ness siblings always blow out their birthday candles together, bringing their partners to the family vineyard in New York’s Finger Lakes region for a frolicsome weekend. This time, secrets plaguing all three couples bubble up, even as a stranger stands staring at the vineyard gates. Laskowski won multiple debut honors for One Night Gone and Anthony finalist honors for The Mother Next Door; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Parks, Adele. Two Dead Wives. Mira: Harlequin. Dec. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780778305293. $30; pap. 368p. ISBN 9780778333579. $18.99. THRILLER/DOMESTIC

Somewhere in England, a bigamist has gone missing, and her two husbands are suspected of a murder that can’t be proved without a body. Their story will come up clashingly against that of a young woman in a remote village is being nursed back to health by her father. Following the LJ-starred One Last Secret; with a 75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Rich, Roberta. The Jazz Club Spy. Gallery: S. & S. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781982191313. pap. $17.99. THRILLER/HISTORICAL

Cherishing big dreams while working as a cigarette girl in a Depression-era Manhattan jazz club, Giddy Brodsky is shocked to board a streetcar and spot one of the Cossacks who years earlier drove her family from their Russian village. As it happens, Ellis Island’s chief commissioner is hunting for the same man, and they team up—only to find themselves in the midst of a political conspiracy. From the author of the popular The Midwife of Venice.

Soloski, Alexis. Here in the Dark. Flatiron: Macmillan. Dec. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781250882943. $27.99. Downloadable. THRILLER/PSYCHOLOGICAL

Vivian Parry, a former actress who’s now a famously bristly-tongued theater critic in New York, grudgingly agrees to be interviewed as a ploy to get a promotion. Then she learns that her interviewer has disappeared and steps into the role of amateur sleuth to find out what happened. From New York Times theater critic Soloski.

Wilkes, Ally. Where the Dead Wait. Emily Bestler: Atria. Dec. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9781982182823. $27.99. THRILLER/SUPERNATURAL

Victorian explorer William Day once led a disastrous expedition to the Arctic that resulted in loss of life and cannibalism. Now, Jesse Stevens, his second-in-command on that venture, is lost on another Arctic expedition, and Day is determined to find him and bring him home (if only to redeem himself). Not surprisingly, as Wilkes is a Bram Stoker Award nominee, mysterious messages and rattling old bones soon figure in the plot, though this is billed not as horror but as a thriller.

Literary, Historical, Pop

Bradford, Barbara Taylor. The Wonder of It All. St. Martin’s. (House of Falconer, Bk. 3). Dec. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250187482. $30. CD/downloadable. HISTORICAL

In this wrap-up to Bradford’s celebrated “House of Falconer” series, self-made James Falconer returns from World War I wounded in body and soul. He seeks reconciliation with both old flame Georgiana Ward and estranged daughter Leonie, who mightily resists his efforts even as she embarks on a dangerous venture. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Christensen, Kate. Welcome Home, Stranger. Harper. Dec. 2023. 224p. ISBN 9780063299702. $28.99. CD. WOMEN

Returning home after her mother’s death to the New England working-class family she’s long avoided, independent-minded environmental journalist Rachel deals with more than just grief over the person who shaped her. Past troubles resurface, and she must face her errant sister, hard-drinking brother-in-law, and former beloved, now married. From the author of the PEN/Faulkner–winning The Great Man; with a 40,000-copy first printing.

Harvey, Samantha. Orbital. Atlantic Monthly. Dec. 2023. 193p. ISBN 9780802161543. $27. LITERARY

In this latest from the Betty Trask–winning, multi-award-nominated Harvey, the lives of six men and women converge in an unusual place: a space station circling Earth in one of its last missions before the program is dismantled. They come from Britain, Japan, Russia, and Italy, with two from the United States, and the narrative reveals both their team-building onboard and their lives back home.

Hunter, Lindsay. Hot Springs Drive. Roxane Gay: Grove Atlantic. Nov. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780802161451. $27. LITERARY

An emotional eater with a newly slimmed body, Jackie has shared the trials of marriage and motherhood with best friend Theresa. That doesn’t stop her from wanting more of Theresa’s picture-perfect life, including her husband. Now Theresa is dead, and what happened is at the corrosive core of this story of women’s desires and the false fronts of suburban life. Third in Roxane Gay’s inaugural list for Grove Atlantic.

Keegan, Claire. So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men. Grove. Nov. 2023. 128p. ISBN 9780802160850. $20. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

A Booker Prize finalist for Small Things Like These, Keegan won the Rooney Prize and the inaugural William Trevor Prize for her debut collection, Antarctica. This collection includes that book’s title story as well as “The Long and Painful Death” from Walk the Blue Fields and a revised and expanded version of “So Late in the Day,” originally published in The New Yorker in February 2022. An introduction (or reintroduction) to Keegan as a short-form master.

Korn, Gabrielle. Yours for the Taking. St. Martin’s. Dec. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250283368. $29. CD/downloadable. DYSTOPIAN

Living in 2050 Brooklyn as the world succumbs to climate change, Ava and her girlfriend can only hope they’re accepted by the Inside Project, an invitation-only series of weather-controlled, city-sized structures worldwide. But the Inside being built atop Manhattan is directed by an aloof billionaire and women’s rights advocate with some unconventional ideas of her own. A debut from the former editor in chief of Nylon, who also ran LGBTQ+ strategy at Netflix; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Lemmie, Asha. The Wildest Sun. Dutton. Dec. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593185711. $28. HISTORICAL

When tragedy forces Delphine Auber to leave postwar Paris just as she is coming into adulthood, she seizes the chance to find the father she never knew. The only problem: she’s been told that her father is literary lightning bolt Ernest Hemingway. So off she goes to New York’s Harlem, Havana, and Key West. From the author of the New York Times best-selling debut Fifty Words for Rain.

Platt, Christine & Catherine Wigginton Greene. Rebecca, Not Becky. Amistad: HarperCollins. Dec. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780063213593. $30; pap. ISBN 9780063213586. $18.99. COMMUNITY

Chair of the Parent Diversity Committee at her daughters’ school, crusading white woman Rebecca Myland is excited to meet new Black neighbor De’Andrea Whitman, their daughters having become best friends in kindergarten. But De’Andrea worries that Rebecca is befriending her just for a cause, and she herself wonders if she’s only bowing to her therapist’s advice to find a white friend as she adjusts to a new, notably white community. With a 75,000-copy paperback and 25,000-hardcover first printing.

Rivero, Melissa. Flores and Miss Paula. Ecco. Dec. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780063272491. $29. CD. LITERARY

Thirty-plus Flores and her mother, Paula, uneasily share a Brooklyn apartment, with Paula nudging work-focused Flores to find a husband and Flores nudging Paula to ask for a raise at her humdrum retail job. When forced to move, they confront their past together even as Flores finds a note Paula wrote to her deceased husband, asking for forgiveness. From the author of the New American Voices/International Latino Book Award–winning The Affairs of the Falcóns.

Social Sciences

Cowley, Robert. The Killing Season: The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War. Random. Dec. 2023. 656p. ISBN 9781400068524. $38. Downloadable. HISTORY

Founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Cowley spent 30 years researching what might well be the definitive account of the Battle of Ypres, a turning point in World War I that blocked German armies from pushing northward to capture the Channel ports and thus eliminate Britain from the fighting. The narrative rests on portraiture of individuals from King Albert of Belgium to a hard-drinking barge keeper named Hendrik Geeraert.

Flock, Elizabeth. The Furies: Women, Vengeance, and Justice. Harper. Dec. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780063048805. $32. CD. SOCIAL SCIENCE

Silver Nautilus–winning journalist Flock (The Heart Is a Shifting Sea) highlights three women who have countered violence with action: Brittany Smith, an Alabamian who killed a man she said raped her but was denied Stand Your Ground protection; Angoori Dahariya, who leads a group in Uttar Pradesh, India, that avenges victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a member of a multi-thousands, all-female militia that battled Daesh (i.e., the self-styled Islamic State) in Syria. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Gross, Michael. Flight of the WASP: The Rise, Fall, and Future of America’s Original Ruling Class. Atlantic Monthly. Nov. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9780802161864. $30. HISTORY

The New York Times best-selling Gross (740 Park) chronicles the power and tainted glory of 15 families belonging to the WASP ascendancy in the United States, from the country’s colonial beginnings through the Gilded Age to today. As he notes, “American society was supposed to be different, but for most of our history we have had a patriciate, an aristocracy, a hereditary oligarchic upper class, who initiated the American national experiment.”

Habib, Shahnaz. Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel. Catapult. Dec. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781646220151. $27. TRAVEL

In her first book, Calicut, India–born, Brooklyn, NY–based writer/translator Habib braids together a cultural history of travel with a personal account of her many trips as an immigrant whose family and loved ones have spanned continents, highlighting leisurely travel as a mostly European/American phenomenon. She also looks at future travel in light of postcolonialism and climate change.

Hersch, Matthew H. Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle. MIT. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780262546720. pap. $45. TECH/HISTORY

A Harvard associate professor of the history of science, Hersch revisits NASA’s Space Transportation System—that is, the space shuttle, grounding it in a decades-long effort to build a low-cost, reusable, rocket-powered airplane to militarize and commercialize space travel. He argues that in fact it was built merely to give the United States the appearance of a viable human spaceflight program until funding to eliminate evident flaws became available.

Jal, Emmanuel. My Life Is Art: 11 Pillars for a Positive and Purposeful Life. Counterpoint. Dec. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781646220380. $27. MEMOIR/ACTIVISM

Having served as a child soldier in South Sudan after witnessing atrocities against his family and community, Jal was rescued by an aid worker and became an international recording star and activist whose awards include the Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent and the Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Award. Here he offers insight into overcoming trauma and embracing life.

Raines, Howell. Silent Cavalry: How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta—and Then Got Written Out of History. Crown. Dec. 2023. 560p. ISBN 9780593137758. $35. HISTORY

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Raines, a former executive editor of the New York Times, introduces us to the First Alabama Cavalry, USA, 2,066 white Alabamian farmers who fought for the Union. As at least one of his forbears was among them, Raines offers family saga as well as history, plus a detective story of sorts as he reveals how he tracked down the First Alabama’s story and efforts of resistant Southerners to squelch it.

Russell, Gareth. The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court. Atria. Dec. 2023. 448p. ISBN 9781982169060. $29.99. HISTORY

From the commissioning of King James’s version of the Bible to the presentation of many Shakespeare plays to Queen Elizabeth II’s lustrous coronation ball, plenty of significant events took place at Hampton Court, as historian/novelist Russell explains here. Illustrated throughout, with a 16-page four-color insert, so great for armchair travel.

Old Bones

Keahey, John. Following Caesar: From Rome to Constantinople, the Pathways That Planted the Seeds of Empire. St. Martin’s. Dec. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781250792402. $30. HISTORY

Preston, Douglas. The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder. Grand Central. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781538741221. $30. Downloadable. TRUE CRIME/HISTORY

Somerville, Christopher. Walking the Bones of Britain: A 3,000 Million Year Geological Journey from the Outer Hebrides to the Thames Estuary. Doubleday. Dec. 2023. 448p. ISBN 9780857527110. $38.99. HISTORY

In Following Caesar, veteran journalist Keahey highlights ancient Roman history by traversing the Via Appia, built from Rome to Brindisi between 312 and 191 BCE and reconstructed by Caesar in the first century BCE; its sister road, the Via Egnatia, connecting Rome and Byzantium; and the Via Traiana, built in the first century CE to circumvent a crumbling portion of the Via Appia (30,000-copy first printing). The Lost Tomb, celebrated thriller writer Preston’s first historical nonfiction collection, travels from Italy and Honduras to Egypt’s Valley of the Kings and the mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that doomed the Cretaceous period to plumb some of history’s deepest mysteries (100,000-copy first printing). Times correspondent Somerville charts his Walking the Bones of Britain, covering thousands of miles of Britain’s surprisingly varied terrain to show how geography shapes history.

Arts

Jones, Dylan.Loaded: The Life (and Afterlife) of The Velvet Underground. Grand Central. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781538756560. $30. Downloadable. MUSIC

Mamet, David. Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood. S. & S. Dec. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781668026311. $27.99. PERFORMING ARTS

Patterson, James & Mark Seal. What Happens in Vegas. Little, Brown. Dec. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780316406901. $32.50. PERFORMING ARTS

Van Duyne, Emily. Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation. Norton. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781324006978. $28.95. LITERATURE

In Loaded, award-winning journalist Jones (the Guardian, GQ) offers an oral history of the Velvet Underground, the influential Sixties-onward group whose edgy songs revealed the underside of the shiny-bright Age of Aquarius (60,000-copy first printing). In Everywhere an Oink Oink, the now controversial Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and scriptwriter Mamet relates his years in Hollywood, during whichhewrote dozens of scripts and was fired from dozens of movies, directing 11 himself. Mega-best-selling novelist Patterson and Vanity Fair contributing editor Seal join forces to take us on a 24-hour tour of America’s glitter city, explaining What Happens in Vegas (200,000-copy first printing). In Loving Sylvia Plath, Fulbright Scholar Van Duyne writes empathetically about the poet as shaped by emotional abuse rather than depression.

Self-Help

Greger, Michael, M.D. How Not To Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older. Flatiron: Macmillan. Dec. 2023. 608p. ISBN 9781250796332. $39.99. CD/downloadable. HEALTH/FITNESS

Author of the million-copy-selling “How Not To Die” series, Greger, a founding member and fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, here seeks to show readers how to slow the effects of aging. His main focus is diet. As he explains, autophagy, the body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells, can be boosted by eating tempeh, mushrooms, and wheat germ, while “zombie” cells that prompt inflammation are nicely countered by onions, apples, and kale. With a 500,000-copy first printing.

Naidoo, Uma. Calm Your Mind with Food: A Revolutionary Guide to Controlling Your Anxiety. Little, Brown Spark. Dec. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780316502092. $30. Downloadable. MENTAL HEALTH

How to counter anxiety, an issue now much discussed? Nutritional psychiatrist Naidoo presents the six pillars of calming the mind, then goes further to explain the relationship between anxiety and inflammation, anxiety and gut bacteria, and the foods that stop inquietude dead in its tracks. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Otsuka, Tracy. ADHD for Smart Ass Women: How To Fall in Love with Your Neurodivergent Brain. Morrow. Dec. 2023. 304p ISBN 9780063307056. $28.99. CD. SELF-HELP

Though it is among the most diagnosed neurological disorders in the United States, adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remained critically underdiagnosed in women. Otsuka, who’s a certified ADHD coach, attorney, and podcast host, explains the impact of ADHD on women—it differs from the impact on men—while revealing its benefits, like increased creativity and empathy. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Souffrant, Jamila. Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Wealth and Happiness. Hanover Square: Harlequin. Dec. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781335007797. $25. CD. SELF-HELP

Founder of the Journey To Launch platform and host of its award-nominated podcast, which boasts 4.5 million downloads, Jamaican immigrant wife and mother Souffrant here offer realistic money-saving techniques that allow you to save for tomorrow while still living a satisfying life today. With a 125,000-copy first printing.