The publishers are finally giving us a break, a month to catch up on all those books from October and November. I think they know we’re all a little busy in December, so the list of books isn’t quite as long for the December Treasures in My Closet. As always, these are just the books I have at home, so I”m sure there are other books you’re anticipating in December. Let us all know about them, please.

So, as my friend, Kevin Tipple says, I”m now opening “The Vault of Knowledge and Treats”. Check it out.

Kimberly Belle has a novel for those who enjoy domestic suspense. In My Darling Husband, Jade and Cam Lasky seem to be a happily married couple. But their world is tipped upside down when Jade is confronted by a masked home invader. As Cam scrambles to gather the ransom money, Jade starts to wonder if her husband is keeping secrets from her. Cam may be a good father, a celebrity chef and a darling husband, but he’s kept another side hidden. The home invader has been watching, and is about to turn their family secrets into a public scandal. (Release date is Dec. 28.)

In 48 Hours to Kill by Andrew Bourelle, a prison inmate on furlough learns a terrible secret about his sister’s death, and descends back into the criminal underworld to uncover the truth. Despite his past, and his ten-year sentence for armed robbery, Ethan Lockhart hopes to one day become a law-abiding member of society. But, when he’s given a forty-eight-hour furlough to attend his sister Abby’s funeral, he learns her body was never found, just enough blood to declare her dead. Ethan decides to use his forty-eight-hour window to find out what happened, and he teams up with his sister’s best friend Whitney in a search for the truth. Suspects mount. When Ethan learns his old boss how heads a criminal empire, he begins to suspect the man is connected with Abby’s murder. In order to sole his sister’s murder, Ethan will have to become the criminal he swore he’d never be again. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

From domestic suspense to thriller to a cozy, there’s something for everyone in December. Witch Trial is Cate Conte’s second Full Moon mystery. Violet Mooney has problems as an apprentice witch. Violet offers healing stones for all kinds of ailments in The Full Moon crystal shop. The, they won’t help her learn to wield the magick she inherited from both sides of her family. They won’t help her with her tutors; her estranged mother, a sister she never knew she had, and her black cat familiar. They won’t help her prove to the Magickal Council that she didn’t imprison a reporter’s soul in a bottle, or that she didn’t kill one of her customers. It’s quite a Witch Trial. (Release date is Dec. 28.)

Charlie Donlea brings readers a standalone thriller, Twenty Years Later. Accused of the brutal murder of her lover, Victoria Ford made a final chilling call from the North Tower on the morning of 9/11, asking her sister to prove her innocence. Twenty years ago, no one listened. Now, Emma Kind hopes Avery Mason, host of a television show, can use her connections and fame to help her prove her sister wasn’t a killer. But, the twisted puzzle of Victoria’s private life belies a much darker mystery. And, as Avery investigates, she doesn’t realize other players in the game are interested in Avery’s own secrets. (Release date is Dec. 28.)

I already read Lyndsay Faye’s terrific anthology, Observations by Gaslight: Stories from the World of Sherlock Holmes. The new collection shows Holmes and Watson through the eyes of friends and colleagues, the people who knew him best. The letters and diaries, supposedly collected by Henry Wiggins, leader of Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, were found in a deposit box by one of his descendants. Those who wrote about unrecorded encounters include Wiggins, Irene Adler, Geoffrey Lestrade, and, of course, Mrs. Hudson. Fans of Sherlock Holmes stories will want to check out this one. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

The latest Blue Ridge Library mystery is Victoria Gilbert’s Renewed for Murder. Library director Amy Webber and her new husband, dancer Richard Muir, are settling into married life – and a new project. Richard and his dance partner, Karla, are choreographing a suite based on folk music and folk tales while Amy scours the library’s resources to supply background information. But, then an unknown woman’s body turns up in Zelda Shoemaker’s backyard gazebo, with a blackmail letter in her pocket. Amy’s aunt is Zelda’s best friend, and she begs Amy to use her research skills to clear Zelda’s name. But, Zelda won’t cooperate, and Amy’s research uncovers a long-ago tragedy that casts doubt on Zelda’s innocence. Amy enlists a lot of help from the community to exonerate Zelda, but a killer may have something to say about that. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

Set in the heart of Denver’s Black community, Robert Justice’s crime novel, They Can’t Take Your Name, pits three characters in a race against time to thwart a gross miscarriage of justice – and a crooked detective who wreaks havoc, with deadly consequences. Langston Brown is running out of time and options for clearing his name and escaping death row. Wrongfully convicted of the gruesome Mother’s Day Massacre, he prepares to face his death. His final hope for salvation lies with his daughter, Liza, a musician who left the prestigious Juilliard School to purse a law degree with the intention of clearing her father’s name. Just as she nears success, it’s announced that Langston will be put to death in thirty days. Desperate, Liza enlists the help of Eli Stone, a jazz club owner, But, Eli faces his own tragedies, the loss of his wife, and his own longing to join her in death. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

Cynthia Kuhn launches the Starlit Bookshop mystery series with How to Book a Murder. To help save her family’s floundering Colorado bookstore, Emma Starrs returns home, and agrees to plan a mystery-themed dinner party for her wealthy, well-connected high school nemesis, Tabitha Baxter. It’s a delightful evening, until Emma stumbles over the body of Tabitha’s husband, Tip. Tabitha accuses Emma and her aunt Nora, a famous mystery author, of killing her husband. Emma’s sure that’s the end of Starlit events, until a celebrated author Calliope Nightfall asks Emma to plan a Poe-related book launch for her. But, someone in the community has plans for murder, and, if Emma is to save herself and her aunt, she’ll have to find a killer. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

Espresso bar owner Lana Lewis returns in Tara Lush’s second Coffee Lover’s Mystery, Cold Brew Corpse. Perkatory is the hottest coffee shop in Devil’s Beach, FL, and much of the clientele pours in from Dante’s Inferno, the hot yoga studio next door. But, the day turns decidedly dark when the body of the studio’s owner turns up in a nearby swamp. Reporter-turned-barista Lana Lewis is too busy to go sleuthing, but when the editor of the local paper asks her to write about the murder, Lana’s dreams of getting back into journalism start to percolate. Lana digs into the grounds of the victim’s past looking for secrets that might have brought a killer calling. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

Alyssa Maxwell’s A Deadly Endowment is the most recent historical mystery in the Lady and Lady’s Maid series. The sleuthing duo of Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford search for a killer in the mystery set among the landed gentry of post-WWI England. The lean times following the Great War continue to require creative solutions for England’s noble class. But Lady Phoebe’s proposal to open up Foxwood Hall, the family estate, to guided tours for additional income strikes many in the family as a “vulgar enterprise”. Phoebe’s grandfather, the Earl of Wroxly, however, reluctantly concedes it’s necessary. The first tour group consists of members of the Historical Society, a magazine writer, and a flock of students. When a woman goes missing, Eva finds her dead in the library. The schoolchildren are sent home, but the rest of the group remains for interrogation. As the police zero in on a suspect, Phoebe and Eva weigh the clues, and they have to solve the widow’s murder before someone else becomes history. (Release date is Dec. 28.)

Abby McCree has to use her organizing ability to run a 5k charity run, and then to find a killer in Alexis Morgan’s Death by the Finish Line. She has help from Gil Pratt, a member of a veterans group and co-owner of a motorcycle repair shop. The event seems to be running smoothly until a city council member is found murdered in a ravine along the race route. Unfortunately, Gil’s brother Gary had a very public argument with the man just minutes before the race, making him the prime suspect. Now, the two race organizers must team up again to prove Gary’s innocence before the real killer makes a run for it. (Release date is Dec. 28.)

Paige Shelton’s Dark Night is the third in her Alaska Wild series. Beth Rivers has been hiding in Benedict, Alaska ever since she was kidnapped and held captive for several days. She never expected to have a visitor who tracked her down, her mother. Mill Rivers went underground after supposedly shooting at Beth’s kidnapper. Now, Beth worries. If her mother can track her down, who else can? And, someone in the small community seems to know her true identity as a bestselling suspense novelist. But, Beth doesn’t have a lot of time to worry about herself. After a battered woman stumbles into town, and her husband if found dead the next morning, the entire community rallies around. Do they really want to find the killer of an abuser? (Release date is Dec. 7.)

Friends raved about Stephen Spotswood’s first Pentecost and Parker mystery, Fortune Favors the Dead, and I still have to read it. He follows that book with Murder Under Her Skin. Will Parker had called Hart and Halloway’s Traveling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus’s tattooed woman, was her friend. When someone puts a blade in Ruby’s back, Will’s former knife-throwing mentor Valentin Kalishenko, is the primary suspect. To uncover the truth, Will and her boss, world-famous detective Lillian Pentecost, travel south into a snake pit of old grudges, small-town crime, and secrets worth killing for. (Release date is Dec. 7.)

Other Treasures are below.

Crosby, Polly – The Women of Pearl Island (12/7)
Nellums, Eliza – The Bone Cay (12/7)
Pellegrino, Amanda – Smile and Look Pretty (12/28)
Perry, Sylvie – The Hawthorne School (12/7)
Wallis, Ruth Sawtell – No Bones About It/Cold Bed in the Clay (12/27)