Emma Reads Books: December Preview

Hello Interwebs!

Happy December! I can't believe that 2020 is almost over and this is my last monthly preview for the year. I have a pretty extensive TBR for December since all my library holds came in at the same time. I've already finished a book for December and I've started a second but for the sake of continuity I'm going to put both on this TBR as well. So without further ado here is my weird and wonderful TBR for the month of December.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. This is the first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy and is a YA sci fi. This is an upcoming movie starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley and the latest trailer looked fantastic so I had a hold on it with the library and it came in. I finished it on December 1st and gave it a 3.5/5 stars.
A Promised Land by Barack Obama. This is former President Obama's latest memoir, published in mid-November. I bought the eBook and my boyfriend used an unused credit on Audible for the audio book version. We started listening to this on the way home from seeing family over Thanksgiving weekend.
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This is a young adult contemporary/romance with heavy LGBTQ+ vibes. You follow main character Felix, a transboy, who has someone who is harassing him with his pre-transition pictures and his deadname. It looks cute and everyone was reading it earlier this year so I'm glad to get a copy from the library.
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. This is a historical fiction/mystery about a young woman named Grace Marks who has been convicted and is serving a sentence for the murder of her former employer and his housekeeper/mistress. I watched the Netflix miniseries earlier this year and it was finally available from the library so it seemed like the time to read it.
Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams. This is the second book in the Bromance Book Club series. It follows Liv, the sister of the female protagonist from book one, and another side character, Braden Mack, another member of the Bromance Book Club. When she is fired and black listed for speaking out against the celebrity chef she works for, Liv enlists Braden's help to take him down. It sounds super cute and my mediocre feelings about the first book has more to do with the main male character than anything and as I loved Braden as a side-character in that one I am very excited for this book.
Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand. This is the first book in Elin Hilderbrand's Winter Street series. Since I read my first book by her over the summer I fell in love with her storytelling (and Nantucket) and I've been holding this series out for Winter/Christmas so here we are. Honestly I don't know much about this one except that it's Elin Hilderbrand and Christmas on Nantucket so I'm excited for it.
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. This is a mystery/thriller that I picked up earlier in the year but had to return to the library before I was finished so I put another hold on it and it just came in. It's about Lo who writes for a travel magazine and is given a week on a luxury cruise to write about it for the magazine. One night Lo sees a woman being thrown overboard but everyone's accounted for and the mystery unravels from there. I loved The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware which I read earlier this year and I'm excited for this especially with the Murder on the Orient Express/Girl on the Train vibes.
If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley. This is a nonfiction book about the history of the home and various rooms and how they came to be what we know today. I love Dr. Lucy Worsley's documentaries and I recently watched the documentary based on this book and I'm excited to dive into this.
Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life by Lucy Worsley. This is another book that I checked out earlier this year and never got to. Now that I'm on a nonfiction kick this seemed like a good time to give it another go.

So those are the books I plan on reading in December. After I finish listening to Obama's book I will probably find others to listen to either on Audible or from Libby.

Next I have my normal book club picks.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. This is the December Read with Jenna pick and it's one of Jenna Hager-Bush's all time favorites. This could be a gave bookish sin but I've never gotten around to reading a Toni Morrison book (I know, I know I'm so terrible) so I would really like to get to this one.
The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia. This is the December, Reese's Book Club pick. This is a contemporary fiction that features rival fried chicken restaurants in a small Kansas town and the legendary feud between the families that own them. It follows two sisters: Amanda who jumped ship at her family's restaurant to marry a member of the rival family and work there and Mae whose organizational career and life in Brooklyn has imploded and is coming back to Kansas. The two sisters end up involved with a reality TV restaurant competition show called Food Wars that fans the rivalry between the two. It sounds super cute and it was one of my add-ons for Book of the Month this month.