Romance · December 2026
7 New Romance Books Coming in December 2026
A prediction game breaks a friendship, fake dates become complicated, and a vampire needs help preparing for reality television.
Florence and Tom have spent years trying to predict each other’s futures. Now they can barely speak. In Every Future, It’s Us has a lot of shared history to untangle, while several of December’s other couples find themselves in arrangements they expect to keep firmly under control.
The Soul Mate’s lovers are wolf shifters, Villain Edit features a vampire prince, and the taxis in Just in Time can actually change the past. The other four begin with friendship, fake dating or relationships that do not stay within their agreed limits. The dates below refer to scheduled US releases.
At a glance
When these December romances arrive
The Soul Mate and In Every Future, It’s Us are scheduled for December 1. Compulsively Yours, Bedside Manner, Just in Time, Villain Edit and Meet Me at Midnight follow on December 8.
01 · Paranormal wolf-shifter romance
The Soul Mate
By Lana Ferguson
· US · Berkley
Ada Langley is a single mother and an omega wolf shifter who would rather forget a night with Levi Madden six months ago. Running into him at his tattoo shop makes that harder. Levi has returned home after an apprenticeship in New York, and he has not forgotten Ada either.
They end up working together to help save the gallery run by Levi’s aunt, where Ada is employed. He wants to get to know her beyond that first encounter; she has good reasons to be wary after an earlier relationship with an alpha. Their work gives them repeated contact without solving that difference in trust.
Ada and Levi’s relationship begins in this book. No earlier Ferguson romance is needed.
02 · Longtime friends and a broken pact
In Every Future, It's Us
By Katie Naymon
· US · Berkley
Every New Year’s Eve, childhood friends Florence Parker and Tom Sinclair write five secret predictions about each other’s coming year. The winner gets to make one big decision for the loser. The game lasts for nearly a decade, until one year’s letter leaves them no longer speaking.
They have not spoken for a year when both come home for the holidays and are expected to plan the family New Year’s Eve party together. Florence is about to move away, so avoiding the conversation has an expiry date. The story returns to the years of their friendship alongside the reunion, with decisions and feelings neither has been able to put behind them.
A standalone romance, with no earlier Naymon book required.
03 · Fake dating and mental health
Compulsively Yours
By Allison Raskin
· US · MIRA
Libi Newman finds serious dating difficult because of relationship OCD, and she is also grieving her mother. Her OCD support group is one place she can speak freely. Nate Keller, who attends for contamination OCD, has developed feelings for her, but they have remained friends.
Her grandparents’ anniversary celebration in Mexico has an awkward guest list: Libi’s widowed father has a new partner, and her cousin is bringing Libi’s ex. She asks Nate to come as her pretend boyfriend. The trip brings their different anxieties into an already uncomfortable family gathering, alongside feelings the arrangement was supposed to keep out.
A standalone story about Libi and Nate. Save the Date is another Raskin novel, not a prerequisite.
04 · Medical workplace romance
Bedside Manner
By Stephanie Archer
· US · Dell
Resident Linden Starling cannot stand Dr. Grant Cross, the pediatric plastic surgeon who makes her working life miserable. Financial trouble leads her to take work as a high-end escort. Her first client turns out to be Grant, and they agree to a paid arrangement that is supposed to leave feelings out of it.
Their professional lives make that arrangement more complicated. Grant’s lack of people skills is putting his fellowship at risk, and Linden starts helping him deal with others. In private, he makes time for her interests and encourages her to speak up for herself. The workplace hierarchy and the money remain part of the relationship as it changes.
Linden and Grant’s story stands on its own. The Vancouver Storm hockey romances are not required reading.
05 · Time-travel romance
Just in Time
By Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
· US · Berkley
Gwen Bailey can climb into a New York taxi, name a date from her past and go back to it. She uses that ability to correct mistakes until her life looks almost perfectly arranged. Ian Knox can travel too, but his attention is on helping his family and preventing things he cannot bear to lose.
Meeting each other complicates both approaches. Their attraction develops across visits to different moments in New York, while changes to the past affect what is possible together. Gwen’s wish to get everything right and Ian’s wish to keep everyone safe give them different reasons to keep looking backward.
A new story with its own time-travel setup; no earlier Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka novel is needed.
06 · Vampires and reality television
Villain Edit
By Rosie Danan
· US · Berkley
Harper Calloway loses her job producing a dating show after a male lead turns against her. While house-sitting for her grandmother, she discovers that the neighbor is an exiled vampire prince. Delivering Gabriel Hargrave to the network could get her career back on track.
Gabriel is supposed to prove he can control his thirst before returning home. He has little experience with either dating or drinking blood, which makes Harper’s television plan less straightforward than it sounds. She gets three weeks to turn him into a convincing lead. Her career depends on making him appeal to other people, even as their own attraction develops.
This introduces Harper and Gabriel in a standalone paranormal romance.
07 · A one-night stand and family ties
Meet Me at Midnight
By Sophie Sullivan
· US · St. Martin's Griffin
Kyra Grand begins the new year determined to leave her family’s business and build something of her own. She also spends the night with Ethan Reynolds, her brother’s best friend. Ethan is worried about that friendship and thinks keeping it to one night will prevent a much bigger complication.
An unplanned pregnancy brings them back together and forces them to deal with their families and the futures they had imagined separately. Kyra’s effort to become independent matters alongside the romance: making her own choices is difficult when the people closest to her already have a plan for her.
Love in Seattle, book 3. Kyra and Ethan are the central couple here. Earlier Love in Seattle novels supply connections around them, not the beginning of their relationship.
What brings these couples together
The reunion in In Every Future, It’s Us depends on years of friendship. Compulsively Yours and Bedside Manner start with explicit arrangements, while Meet Me at Midnight begins with a night the couple cannot neatly put behind them. The other three bring wolves, vampires or time travel into recognizable problems about trust, work and family.