The Best New Book Releases Out December 12, 2023

Samara Reynolds is a DEIA consultant who uses her expertise to advocate for diversity in the gaming world anonymously. When she records her critique of the popular game Legendsfall, she foresees there being a response to it, but not it going viral. And she definitely doesn’t foresee a job offer from Aron Galanis, the handsome CEO of the company that made the game. As Aron and Samara work together to improve the company — first as adversaries, then as more — the two have to decide how they want to handle their relationship publicly.

This is the final book in a popular Japanese detective series, the nature of which means you don’t really need to have read the other books. Here, a Tokyo detective reaches out to detective Kyoichiro Kaga about two cases — one involving a woman mysteriously far from home using a fake name and the other a houseless man. Turns out there is a connection to the death of Kaga’s mother, who ran away from her family and died over a decade ago.

Kalvin is a sophomore with a pretty solid, low-key candy-selling hustle at his high school when his crush, Sterling, comes crashing into his candy supply closet, dealing with a broken heart. Suddenly, after helping her, Kal, the son of two well-known therapists, becomes known as a relationship therapist himself. Now, he has a new hustle, a plan to keep his parents’ crumbling marriage together, and maybe even a path forward with Sterling. But he soon finds out that not everything is so easy, and his views around relationships — familial, romantic, and platonic — are due to be reevaluated.

In this sparkling YA romance, Remy has been wanting more than a just-friends relationship with Cam for a minute. When the childhood besties are on a winter break trip to Japan, Remy gets some bad news from a tea leaves reading: she and Cam are not meant to be together. Then clandestine back alley apothecary the two stumble upon grants them a soulmate elixir with damning consequences. Cam has forgotten who Remy is, and if she can’t help him remember her by midnight on New Year’s Eve, they’ll both forget each other forever.

Here’s another series continuer, this time involving cryptids. Since Morgan solved the case of the monster living in Lake Michigan, her life as a cryptid hunter has gotten better. When she hears of a man dying from a vicious attack in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin, she goes with her dog Newt to investigate. The lies and other nefarious activities she uncovers point to there actually being a dangerous creature living in the forest, and it may even be Bigfoot, as the rumors claim, but finding out has put her on a list of potential victims.

One more mystery! This time a gothic one set in the Cornish countryside. American heiress Ruby is running a rare bookstore in Exeter after the Great War when she gets a request to deliver books to a folk healer in Cornwall. The trip brings her right back to the last place she wants to be: Penryth Hall. Now, the hall’s bells ring for the first time in 30 years, the husband of Ruby’s friend Tamsyn is found dead, and Ruby has to get to the bottom of what the locals are calling a curse returned.