There are lots of beautiful new books coming out in 2023. Here are 10 of my most anticipated releases coming out in the first half of the new year!
New in January & February
The Stolen Heir by Holly Black (1/3)
Eight years after the Battle of the Serpent. In the icy north, Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth has reclaimed the Ice Needle Citadel, where she plots her revenge. Suren, child queen of the Court of Teeth, bides her time in the mortal world by releasing mortals from foolish bargains, until she is discovered and saved by Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame and her former betrothed. Now seventeen, Oak is charming, beautiful, and manipulative. He’s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren’s help. But if she agrees, it will mean guarding her heart against the boy she once knew and a prince she cannot trust, as well as confronting all the horrors she thought she left behind.
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (1/10)
Night after night, Mackenzie’s dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina’s untimely death. But when the waking world starts closing in, too, Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone. Traveling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she is welcomed back by her still-grieving family, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams—and make them more dangerous. What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina’s death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside?
Victory City by Salman Rushdie (2/7)
Fourteenth-century southern India. After witnessing the death of her mother, nine-year-old Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for the goddess Parvati, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city, Bisnaga. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s, as she attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception. Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic, Victory City is a saga of love, adventure, and myth that is in itself a testament to the power of storytelling.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi (2/14)
In Roshani Chokshi’s adult debut, Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada, the heiress to a fortune, marries a scholar of myths—with the promise that her bridegroom never pries into her past. But when the couple returns to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom is unable to resist the secrets lurking in the crumbling manor, even if learning them may destroy their marriage . . . or their lives. The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a spellbinding and darkly romantic page-turner about love and lies, secrets and betrayal, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
New in March & April
Flux by Jinwoo Chong (3/21)
After 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, his white father begins to gradually retreat from the family. 28-year-old Brandon suffers episodes of memory loss, which lead him to suspect that his employers are covering up something sinister. 48-year-old Blue, who can only speak with the aid of cybernetic implants, participates in a television exposé of Flux, a failed bioelectric tech startup whose fraudulent activity nearly killed him. The three lives intersect, intertwined with the saga of a once-iconic 80s detective show, to explore grief, trauma, and the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle (3/21)
The year is 1914, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, and forced her to flee her hometown of Redondo, California, in a hellfire rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging an enormous steamer trunk that’s locked at all times, she will be one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can cultivate it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing keeping her alive.
Linghun by Ai Jiang (4/4)
Welcome home. Follow Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs. in this modern gothic ghost story by Chinese-Canadian writer and immigrant, Ai Jiang. Linghun is set in the mysterious town of HOME, a place where the dead live again as spirits, conjured by the grief-sick population that refuses to let go.
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee (4/11)
After a manticore kills her mother and baby brother, Ester is left with her father’s painful silence and the overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Her path leads her to the King’s Royal Mews, where she is paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra. There, she finds purpose by devoting herself to a creature that will never return her love for the sake of hunting down manticores. Her path will lead her on the empire’s most dangerous manticore hunt—and a journey of perseverance and acceptance.
New in May & June
The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang (5/9)
An expert arms instructor, Lin Chong believes in keeping her head down and doing her job—until a powerful man with a vendetta rips away that carefully-built life away. Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice—for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats. Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire.
Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig (6/6)
When a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, Shek Young marries her husband’s second-in-command, agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet. But the Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, the have new plans for the area, and Shek Yeung’s cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life.
Let’s Chat
What new releases are you looking forward to in the first half of 2023?
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