December Book Club: Hot Reads for Chilly Days

POPSUGAR Love & sex
POPSUGAR Love & sex

Source: December Book Club: Hot Reads For Chilly Days

A geeky guide to dating, a tragic and mystical love story, a Christmas-Eve-set romantic thriller, and a graphic novel about star-crossed lovers who are literally polar opposites are just some of the books out this month we can't wait to get our mittens on. There are tales that will warm your heart and sexy stories sure to steam things up as the days get colder. So whether you're on the hunt for good travel reads or looking for page-turning gift ideas, here are the December books you'll want to check out.

  • The Encyclopedia of Early Earth: Isabel Greenberg's debut graphic novel, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, is a series of imagined fables about our lost history, including the story of two lovers - one from the North Pole and the other from the South - who can't touch each other due to polar magnetization.

  • I Think I Am in Friend-Love With You: Comic-book artist Yumi Sakugawa explores that special bond between platonic friends who would prefer to swap favorite books over saliva in her sweet book I Think I Am in Friend-Love With You.

  • Raw: A Love Story: Satirist Mark Haskell Smith takes on the worlds of celebrity, modern publishing, and reality TV in Raw: A Love Story. It follows the "sexiest man alive" as he goes on a book tour for his ghost-written debut novel and ends up on a "sex-fueled road trip" with the woman trying to take him down.

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  • The Housemaid's Daughter: Barbara Mutch's debut novel The Housemaid's Daughter is the heartbreaking tale of an Irish woman who marries a man she doesn't love in Apartheid-era South Africa. In her isolation she befriends and loves as her own the housemaid's daughter but must make a life-changing decision when the girl disappears.

  • Innocence: Dean Koontz's mystical thriller Innocence tells a tragic love story of adversity bringing two exiled people together.

  • Hunted: Hunted is a romantic suspense novel by Karen Robards that follows a hostage negotiator who must decide which side she's on when a former flame (who's also a detective) holds her estranged father hostage.

  • One or Two Things I Learned About Love: Dyan Sheldon's diary-style YA novel One or Two Things I Learned About Love takes a funny and sharp look at a less-than-perfect Summer romance.


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  • The Apartment: You'll want to read Greg Baxter's captivating novel The Apartment with a warm blanket and steamy drink. It takes place over the course of one snowy day in an Eastern European city as an American war vet is shown apartments by a local woman.

  • The Geek's Guide to Dating: Eric Smith's The Geek's Guide to Dating sets out to aid geeky guys everywhere with humorous instructions on finding the Princess Peach to their Mario.

  • Handsome Heroes and Vile Villains: In Handsome Heroes and Vile Villains: Masculinity in Disney's Feature Films, author Amy M. Davis takes a closer look at the portrayal of men in Disney films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Tangled using masculinity studies and feminist film theory.