5 Hot New Titles for December 2019

Check out these five popular adult titles that hit the shelves in December. To see more titles, including new titles in popular series, check out the booklist New December '19 Books You'll Want to Read and our new titles page.

Summaries provided by the publisher.


Africaville is a stunning debut novel set in a small Nova Scotia town that depicts several generations of one family bound together and torn apart by blood, faith, time, and fate.


Structured as a triptych, Africaville chronicles the lives of three generations of the Sebolt family - Kath Ella, her son Omar/Etienne, and her grandson Warner - whose lives unfold against the tumultuous events of the twentieth century from the Great Depression of the 1930s, through the social protests of the 1960s to the economic upheavals in the 1980s.

Vibrant and lyrical, filled with colorful details, and told in a powerful, haunting voice, this extraordinary novel - as atmospheric and steeped in history as The Known World, Barracoon, The Underground Railroad, and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie - is a landmark work from a sure-to-be major literary talent.


A supernatural thriller in the vein of A Head Full of Ghosts and My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Dead Girls Club, is a terrifying thrill ride.


In 1991, Heather Cole was a member of the Dead Girls Club, a group of girls obsessed with the macabre and imaginary monsters much like the Red Lady, a spirit of a vengeful witch killed centuries before. Heather knew the stories were just that until her best friend Becca began insisting the Red Lady was real - and she could prove it. That belief got Becca killed.

It's been nearly thirty years, but Heather has never told anyone what really happened that night. She's done her best to put that fateful summer, Becca, and the Red Lady behind her... until a familiar necklace arrives in the mail, a necklace Heather hasn't seen since the night Becca died. Someone else knows what she did...and they're determined to make Heather pay.


Can you fall in love like they do in the movies? It's Evie Summers's job to find out in the new book, Would Like to Meet.


If Evie can't convince her film agency's biggest client, Ezra Chester, to write the romantic-comedy screenplay he owes producers, her career will be over. The catch? He thinks rom-coms are unrealistic - and he'll only put pen to paper if Evie shows him that it's possible to meet a man in real life the way it happens on the big screen. Cynical Evie might not believe in happily ever after, but she'll do what it takes to save the job that's been her lifeline . . . even if it means reenacting iconic rom-com scenes in public. With a little help from her well-meaning friends - and Ben and Anette, the adorable father-daughter duo who keep witnessing her humiliations - Evie is determined to prove she can meet a man the way Sally met Harry. 


From the author of the wildly successful Dexter series comes a new, mesmerizing bad guy we can root for in Just Watch Me.


Riley Wolfe is a master thief, expert at disguise, and not averse to violence when it’s needed. It’s no accident that Riley targets the wealthiest 0.1 percent and is willing to kill them when they’re in his way. He despises the degenerate and immoral rich and loves stealing their undeserved and unearned valuables. Riley aims for an extraordinary target in a heist that will make history: stealing the Crown Jewels of Iran. Stealing these jewels is absolutely impossible. The collection is guarded by space-age electronics and two teams of heavily armed mercenaries. No one could even think of getting past the airtight security and hope to get away alive, let alone with even a single diamond from the Imperial Collection.

No one but Riley Wolfe. He’s always liked a challenge.

But this challenge may be more than even he can handle. Aside from the impenetrable security, Riley is also pursued by a brilliant and relentless cop who is barely a step behind him. With the aid of his sometime ally, a beautiful woman who is a master art forger, Riley Wolfe goes for the prize that will either make him a legend - or, more likely, leave him dead.


The first in a new series set in Alaska from beloved author Paige Shelton, Thin Ice, will chill your bones.


Beth Rivers is on the run – she’s doing the only thing she could think of to keep herself safe. Known to the world as thriller author Elizabeth Fairchild, she had become the subject of a fanatic’s obsession. After being held in a van for three days by her kidnapper Levi Brooks, Beth managed to escape.

Beth’s new home in Alaska is sparsely populated with people who all seem to be running or hiding from something, and though she accidentally booked a room at a halfway house, she feels safer than she’s felt since Levi took her. That is until she’s told about a local death that’s a suspected murder. As Beth navigates her way through the wilds of her new home, her memories of her time in the van are coming back, replaying the terror and the fear -and threatening to keep her from healing, from reclaiming her old life again.

Can she get back to normal, will she ever truly feel safe, and can she help solve the local mystery, if only so she doesn’t have to think about her own?