Must Read Fiction for December 2024

She wrote her stories in his shadow. Now Daphne’s past is catching up with her…

In a beautiful house in the wilds of Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Tangled in a self-destructive love affair that threatens to unravel her marriage to a British army major, she is also increasingly worried about the man who inspired her writing career, whose shadow looms over her childhood: J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan.

Daphne tries to escape into writing her new book, but the line between fiction and reality blurs dangerously when her own characters start manifesting before her eyes – in particular a woman called Rebecca who looks suspiciously like her husband’s alluring ex girlfriend.

Daphne must confront the dark truth that lurks beneath the fantasy of Peter Pan and the secret life that has plagued her since she found fame. Unless she can solve these mysteries and reckon with who she truly is as an artist, her next great work may be lost to history . . .

A haunting and emotional tale woven across multiple timelines, The Mischief Makers explores the complex forces shaping a woman’s psyche, from duty to desire, and the contradictions at the heart of creating art.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. 

As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it, a task that she returns to over and over but somehow never manages to complete. 

Tormented by an unmarked gravestone in an abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, her childhood home begins to crumble as the past leads her down a path of self-destruction. But can art heal Marianne? And will her own future as a mother help her find peace?

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE NORTH WIND COMES A DARKLY REIMAGINED TALE OF FORBIDDEN LOVE, INSPIRED BY THE GREEK MYTH OF HERO AND LEANDER AND THE SCOTTISH BALLAD TAM LIN.

Brielle of Thornbrook has dedicated her life to the abbey. She spends her days forging iron and her evenings studying the Text, all in preparation of becoming an acolyte. Twenty-one years on this earth and she has never touched a man. And she never will. But when she finds an injured stranger in the forest, Brielle can’t resist the urge to help him. The encounter leads her to the realm of Under, where the air breathes rot, and the fair folk dance and whisper. Where she discovers that the man she helped is actually a god: Zephyrus, the West Wind, Bringer of Spring.

There are few Brielle can trust in Under, least of all Zephyrus. He is charming, dangerously so, and never has a man so thoroughly ensnared her. As she embarks on a journey through the eerie banks and caves of Under, Brielle finds herself in a perilous situation. For here is where faith and heart collide – and where she risks not only her future… but her life.

Beloved by readers on TikTok, The West Wind is a standalone fantasy romance sprinkled with Greek lore, the second in the Four Winds series. Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Scarlett St. Clair and Raven Kennedy.

A good deed can be deadly…

Hannah Barker’s actions undeniably saved the life of nine-year-old Sofia Arpels. Sofia’s mother, Alina, has everything she could ever dream of and declares herself forever in Hannah’s debt. Anything that Hannah wants, is hers. Alina has the wealth, power and status to grant any wish.

There are many things that Hannah desires. Edging closer to a role in the Momotaro Gallery is one of them, a goal she’s been pursuing for a while now, without success. But Hannah has another problem that’s even more pressing than her own career ambition.

What will Hannah ask for? And will Alina be able to give it to her? And what lengths will Hannah go to if she can’t?

A tense and gripping psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Jackie Kabler and Lizzy Barber.

The world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot – legendary star of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile – puts his little grey cells to work solving a baffling Christmas mystery.

‘The main danger, as I see it, is that you and I will be trapped here for the whole of the Christmas holiday!’

It’s 19 December 1931 and Hercule Poirot and Inspector Catchpool are called to investigate a brutal murder in a Norfolk hospital. Catchpool’s mother, the irrepressible Cynthia, insists that they stay with her nearby so that they can all be together for the festive period while Poirot finds the killer. Cynthia’s friend is being admitted to the same hospital and she is convinced he will be the next victim.

Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else – someone utterly ruthless – has other ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot…

The eagerly awaited sixth novel in the highly acclaimed Tuva Moodyson series soon to be on screens around the world!

ONE WAY IN. NO WAY OUT.

‘Deaf teenager goes missing in Esseberg. Mountain rescue are launching a search party but conditions hinder their efforts. The tunnel is being kept open all night as an exception.’

When journalist Tuva Moodyson reads this news alert she knows she must join the search. If this teenager is found, she will be able to communicate with him in a way no one else can.

Esseberg lies on the other side of a mountain tunnel: there is only one way in and one way out. When the tunnel closes at night, the residents are left to fend for themselves. And as more people go missing, it becomes clear that there is a killer among them …

Ice Town is an unputdownable new standalone Tuva novel, which will delight existing fans of the series.

Book two in the haunting Lost Bride trilogy – a tale of tragedies, loves found and lost, and a family haunted for generations.

In need of an escape from her ex-fiance’s betrayal, and the lucky recipient of a surprise inheritance, Sonya MacTavish leaves behind her life in the city and moves to a Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine.

The house is beautiful but comes with surprises – footsteps in the night, doors slamming, music playing – and in her dreams Sonya sees glimpses of the past and the brides who once lived there.

As the house reveals more of its history and the sad stories of the brides murdered there, Sonya discovers an antique mirror. She finds herself drawn to the mirror, sensing it holds dark secrets. What can the mirror tell her? Can it help her to understand how the seven brides died?

Sonya will need the help of her friends and family if she has any chance of breaking the curse and making this house her home.

Follow the bank of the Koitogawa river until you reach the beach. From there a path of white seashells will lead you to the Chibineko Kitchen. Step inside, they’ll be expecting you.

These are the directions Kotoko has been given. She arrives at the tiny restaurant, perched right by the water, early in the morning. Still reeling from the sudden death of her brother, she’s been promised that the food served there will bring him back to her, for one last time.

Taking a seat in the small, wood-panelled room, she waits as Kai, the restaurant’s young chef, brings out steaming bowls of simmered fish, rice and miso soup. Though she hadn’t ordered anything, Kai had somehow known the exact dish her brother always used to cook for her. And as she takes her first delicious bite, the gulls outside fall silent and the air grows hazy . . .

Soul-nourishing and comforting, The Chibineko Kitchen will help you remember what matters most in life.

Namibia’s Skeleton Coast.

A place of vast dunes and rusting ship hulks, where the cold Benguela current rises dense ocean fogs, and black-maned lions eke out the last of their subspecies.

It once seemed to Irish scientist Ailidh Conroy that she could find water there. But her search for an aquifer left her with nothing but a Russian military cap and a baby on the way.

Twenty-four years later, when Ailidh’s daughter Chalice is summoned to Africa, she seems likely to follow the same fatal path as her parents. Haunted by memoires of the Russian military cap that used to hang on her mother’s bedroom door, Chalice is forced to reckon with the same dangers and mysteries that her parents faced before her. And that’s all before Chalice finds, on the slippery ledges of the fabled underground aquifer, another set of human remains – those of her parents.

But as she discovers them, lions approach . . .

How will Chalice escape the twin threats, human and animal, that she faces? Is there a chance for her to lie to rest the mysteries of her past? And what does it mean for the lions, whether humans control the aquifer? These are the questions arising in a novel that continues Giles Foden’s project of investigating abuse of power in Africa.

An emotionally wrenching novel tackling key themes such as generational trauma and what it means to be Black British, surviving between the gaps of knowledge around familial migrant journeys, set in today’s London and Ghana in the mid-90s.

On the cusp of thirty, Ghanaian Londoner Whitney Appiah was born with a special gift. The massage therapist can physically sense where her clients’ trauma lies and heal them. But Whitney has no idea that she too is suffering. Tragic events from her youth have left a terrible, unseen mark.

When a dangerous encounter with the man she’s dating triggers a wave of fragmented recollections, Whitney embarks on a journey to reclaim her memories and the truth that is buried deep in her early years growing up in Kumasi, Ghana.

Spanning three decades, told through the viewpoints of Whitney, her aunts Gloria and Aretha, and their house help Maame Serwaa, The Rest of You explores what happens when we try to move forward through the lacuna of our past.

During a scorching August in Kyoto, our protagonist and his worst friend, Ozu, are locked in a glaring contest in a four-and-a-half-tatami mat room. Ozu has spilled Coke on the air conditioner’s remote control — the only AC in Shimogamo Yusuisuiso, their famously shabby sweatbox of an apartment building. Vengeful and despairing, our protagonist discusses countermeasures with his secret crush, the reliably blunt Akashi, when Tamura, a strange young man with a bad haircut, appears.

Tamura claims to be a time traveler from 25 years in the future, and shows off the time machine he uses to travel. Our protagonist has a brilliant idea: the sweetest revenge would be to go back one day in time and retrieve the functioning remote control. His simple fix is complicated by Ozu and several others who are also eager to take a ride back in time. But in attempting to alter the past, our protagonist foresees the world’s extinction. Even more troublingly, Akashi mentions she’s bringing someone to the upcoming bonfire . . . and it’s not him. Only one thing remains certain: it’s going to be a very long month.

Obliteration? Salvation? Coca-Cola? Castella cake? What does the time machine hold for our (not quite) heroes? It all depends on which one gets there first.

Translated from the Japanese by Emily Balistrieri

THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE…IS IF SOMEONE CONFESSES TO MURDER.

Seven people wake up in a remote mansion. The doors are all locked. They have no idea where they are. Who brought them there. Or how to escape.
Each knew the victims of a dreadful crime committed four years earlier but that’s all that links them.

Then a voice echoes through the house with a terrifying message.
They’ve been poisoned – and have less than 12 hours to live.
There’s an antidote on hand: but only if someone admits to being a killer.
And they all claim to be innocent.

The time for confession is rapidly running out.
How many – if any – of them will survive the night?

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson comes the final book in an epic series about a girl who will travel beyond the stars to save the world she loves from destruction.

Spensa made it out of the Nowhere, but what she saw in the space between the stars has changed her forever. She came face to face with the Delvers, and finally got answers to the questions she’s had about her own strange Cytonic gifts.

The Superiority didn’t stop in it’s fight for galactic dominance while she was gone, though. Spensa’s team, Skyward Flight, was able to hold Winzik off, and even collect allies to help with the cause, but it’s only a matter of time until humanity – and the rest of the galaxy – falls.

Defeating them will require all the knowledge Spensa gathered while in the Nowhere. But being Cytonic is more complicated than she ever could have imagined. Now, Spensa must ask herself: how far is she willing to go for victory, if it means losing herself – and her friends – in the process.

The final book in the Skyward series will free humanity, or see it fall forever.