New Books: 10 January 2023
The eight-minute version on YouTube:
Arnett, Mindee: Riven 
(HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray 978-0-06-305783-8, $19.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel inspired by Iceland. Adepts accidentally created Ice, a toxic magical substance that anyone can use, giving the wealthy full control of magic, as long as they suppress the adepts.
Baggott, Julianna: The Wick 
(Underland Press 978-1-63023-068-5, $13.99, 86pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
SF novella. Roon awakens in a glass box, in a room full of other girls in glass boxes, with no memory of her past beyond her name.
Bardugo, Leigh: Hell Bent 
(Macmillan/Flatiron 978-1-250-31310-2, $29.99, 496, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Fantasy/occult thriller novel, sequel to Ninth House featuring Alex Stern, a former drug dealer whose ability to see ghosts got her a Yale scholarship.
Dalglish, David: The Sapphire Altar 
(Orbit US 978-0-759557123, $18.99, 544pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Fantasy novel, the second in the Vagrant Gods trilogy. A usurped prince must master the magic of shadows in order to reclaim his kingdom and his people.
Elsbai, Hadeer: The Daughters of Izdihar 
(Harper Voyager US 978-0-06-311474-6, $28.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Fantasy novel, the first in a duology inspired by Egypt. Noblewoman Nehal is a waterweaver with elemental magic not approved of in woman, and becomes involved in a struggle for women’s rights.
Fawcett, Heather: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries 
(Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0-593-50013-2, $28.88, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Fantasy novel set in an alternate 1900s Iceland. A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers the real thing.
Johns, Jessica: Bad Cree 
(Penguin Random House/Doubleday 978-0385548694, $27.00, 272pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Horror novel. Mackenzie, an indigenous person of the Cree community in Canada, fears she’s a bad Cree due to her horrifying dreams — leading her family to try to save her from a dangerous spirit.
Jones, Valona: Snuffed Out 
(The Quick Brown Fox/Crooked Lane 1639102051, $26.99, 297pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Paranormal mystery novel, the first in the Magic Candle Shop series. Twin sisters who run a candle shop in Savannah Georgia are “energetics” who can manipulate the energy fields of people. They discover new powers that help them investigate when their store clerk becomes a suspect in a murder.
Kaley, Mary Baader: Burrowed 
(Angry Robot UK 978-1-915202-14-7, $17.99, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, January 10, 2023)
Far-future dystopian SF/YA crossover novel of a world where a “genetic plague” turns people into either weak, smart Subterraneans, or hardy, dim Omniterraneans.
Kaufman, Michael: The Last Resort 
(The Quick Brown Fox/Crooked Lane 978-1-63910-207-5, $27.99,272 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Near-future SF mystery novel featuring DC police detective Jen Lu and Chandler, her AI brain implant. A famous lawyer’s death reveals a conspiracy.
Lanza, Robert, Kress, Nancy: Observer 
(Story Plant 978-1-61188-343-5, $26.95, 380pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
SF thriller novel. Neurosurgeon Caroline Soames-Watkins goes to work for a dying great-uncle at a Caribbean medical facility that works on implanting computer chips in brains to offer a new, truer life, understanding the nature of reality and consciousness, but then murder intrudes.
Louise, Jean: Waking Fire 
(Harlequin/Inkyard Press 978-1335428578, $18.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Fantasy novel, the first in a duology. The hidden village of Lagusa, is attacked by an army of the undead led by a Mistress looking for something, and three teens work to stop her.
Maberry, Jonathan: Son of the Poison Rose 
(St. Martin’s Griffin 978-1-250-78399-8, $21.99, 704pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Dark epic fantasy novel, second in the Kagen the Damned series. The Silver Empire is in ruins and Kagen and his allies are on the run from the Witch-king.
Markley, Stephen: The Deluge 
(Simon & Schuster 978-1-9821-2309-3, $32.50, 896pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Near-future SF novel of people who work in different ways to stop climate change.
McBride, Amber: We Are All So Good at Smiling 
(Macmillan/Feiwel and Friends 978-1-250-78038-6, $19.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Young-adult fantasy novel in free verse, drawing heavily on fairy tales and folklore. A poet hospitalized with depression meets a Fae boy, and the two have a shared past neither can remember.
McGuire, Seanan: Lost in the Moment and Found 
(Tordotcom 978-1-250-21363-1, $22.99, 146pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Fantasy novella, eighth in the Wayward Children series. Antoinette (Antsy) loses her father, then gets lost herself in the Shop Where the Lost Things Go, with its doors to other worlds.
Schaeffer, Rebecca: City of Nightmares 
(HarperCollins/Clarion 978-0-358-64730-0, $18.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Young-adult dark fantasy novel. Dreams become real horrors in the city of Newham, and after a dream-related family tragedy, Ness joins a cult that helps those affected by Nightmares
Shepperson, Laura: Phaedra 
(The Quick Brown Fox/Alcove Press 978-1639101535, $17.99, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, January 10, 2023)
Feminist retelling of Greek myth. The minotaur’s sister Phaedra, unwilling bride to the hero Theseus, accuses her stepson of rape.
Worthen, Johnny: Of Civilized, Saved, and Savages 
(Flame Tree Press UK 978-1-78758-796-0, $26.95, 419pp, formats: hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, January 10, 2023)
SF novel, the second in the Coronam series, set on a colony world reverted to 16th-century European culture — with aliens.
