A new book about presidential candidate Mitt Romney will hit shelves in January 2012, the very month that the first voters will cast their ballots for the GOP nominee.

The book, “The Real Romney,” is co-authored by Boston Globe deputy Washington bureau chief Michael Kranish and political editor Scott Helman, and is based on more than five years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, many of which were chronicled in the paper’s seven-part series published in 2007.

Set to be published by HarperCollins, the book is described by the publishing company as an exploration of ”Romney’s home life, his bond with his wife and how they handled her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, and his difficult years as a Mormon missionary in France, where a fatal car crash had a profound effect on his path.”

“In ‘The Real Romney,’ Kranish and Helman delve searchingly into the psyche of a complex man now at his most critical juncture,” reads the HarperCollins release.