November was chock full of books I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. 2020 being an odd year in publishing – and me being an awfully subjective soul – there are far fewer in the final weeks of the year. That just makes them all the more special. If There’s Always Room For One More, let’s see what you should make space in your stocking for…

It goes without saying that there are many more than 5 books coming out this month, but I don’t tend to get excited about mid-series releases for series I’m not already reading.

…except when I do.

I was vaguely aware of Hail Bristol, gunrunner royalty, but I didn’t give her my full attention until last month when author KB Wagers agreed to come take the Six Degrees of SFnal Separation challenge (and aced it). Now, I want to read everything they’ve written; it all sounds right up my street. Conveniently, There Before The Chaos kicks off the Farian War trilogy on December 10th – following on from the Indranan War trilogy, where Hail makes her first appearance. Mid-series? I guess so. But I want to get in on this action.

I haven’t yet read The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, which should keep When The Tiger Came Down The Mountain off this list – but with cover art like that, I am arrested literally every time it shows up in my browser. I have Empress on my Kindle; I intend to add Tiger when on December 8th and read the two back to back. Happy Christmas to me.

Kelly Powell’s haunting YA debut Songs From The Deep gets its paperback release on December 10th. I don’t know what appeals to me more: the accumulation of on-note points (a musician and a lighthouse keeper try to prove the deadly local sirens weren’t responsible for a young boy’s murder) or that gorgeous cover art.

Claire G Coleman is a Noongar (Aboriginal Australian) author who garnered high praise for her debut, Terra Nullius. Her new book The Old Lie is out on December 17th and promises to be another incisive look at modern Australian history in the context of an intergalactic war.

Entirely out of character for me, I’ll close with a non-fiction title that NetGalley swears is out on December 2nd, and Amazon says has been out for a month. Hey, it’s 2020. Professor Adam Roberts is here to explore our obsession with apocalypses – and given my acknowledged soft spot for the topic, I very much want to hear what he makes of it.

What releases are you looking forward to in December?

All release dates quoted are for the UK.