The Best New Book Releases Out January 2, 2024

In Malaya in 1945, Cecily Alcantara is walking on a tightrope trying to keep (what’s left of) her family intact during a brutal Japanese occupation. Her son is missing, her eldest daughter has to contend with drunk Japanese soldiers at the tea house where she works, and Cecily’s youngest daughter is kept in the basement to stop her from becoming a comfort woman. But Cecily can’t really complain because everything is kind of her fault…

With my love of sweet stories, graphic novels, and YA, I’m surprised I haven’t started this series yet. Listen, I’m slacking, alright? But that doesn’t mean you have to. The fifth installation of this mega-hit series finds Nick and Charlie in love but preparing to deal with a new challenge: University. Will Nick’s first year as a university student change everything?

Finally, finally, finally, the paperback edition of this funny romantasy is here. That cover is fire, and the title — though she be long — is pretty accurate. Cinnamon is just minding her business, enjoying a libation or five, when she comes across the demon Fallon Ozul, who needs her help. Soon, she’s roped into going on a quest to save demons from Myva, who is masquerading as a goddess but is actually preying on demons’ weakness. Also, Fallon keeps burning off his shirt, so…yuh.

“This is definitely not a ghost story.”

Doesn’t that grab you by the esophagus real quick? It did me. Whoever wrote that book blurb copy deserves flowers, okay? As I continued reading the book’s description to find out if, indeed, it is not a ghost story — and even if it is truly nonfiction (it’s not) — I realized instead that it is a story of mothers and daughters. The writer main character has a daughter made difficult by her struggle with substance abuse and a mother who was another kind of difficult. Past and present interlock to form the narrative, but — as with the title and the ghost story statement — it’s not clear whether the story being presented is actually what’s going on.

This queer rom-com navigates some tricky waters. When Tilly’s bestie Teddy first asks her to help him get the attention of the girl he likes — actress Katherine Cooper-Bunting — Tilly is only concerned about her lack of talent and the audition she needs to help with. But then she starts to like Katherine herself…and Katherine might like her back. She doesn’t want to hurt Teddy, and she’s not even sure she wants anything romantic since her grandfather’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis is still looming large over her family.

(content warning for mentions of self-harm)

Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s sister Angie has been missing for the past 10 years. Once her father dies by suicide, Teddy ends up falling down the same Reddit rabbit hole he had that was obsessed with Angie’s disappearance. And she keeps falling — falling into it with her boyfriend, her half-brother, and even with the elite school she teaches at. She also falls into amateur sleuth Mickey’s orbit, whose presence leads her to become more out of touch with her sense of morality. She’s either going to find out what happened to her sister all those years ago or totally wreck her life.

But if you’re in a different kind of mystery mood, and”underworld cabaret troupe that might be a dangerous cult” (!!) is more your speed, there’s Here in Avalon by Tara Isabella Burton.