New year, new fiction! 2023 gets off to a great start with a slate of engaging general fiction, mysteries, horror, historical fiction, and much more. What will be the first novel you read in 2023?
1/1: Hide by Tracy Clark
Chicago detective Harriet Foster is on the hunt for a serial killer who targets redheads. (mystery)
1/3: The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
Five years ago, Geeta’s husband walked away without a trace – but rumor in the village is that she killed him, and now other women are asking for her help getting rid of their husbands. (general fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/10: Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Mackenzie, a young Cree woman, begins to have dreams that seep into her waking hours, dreams that connect back to her sister Sabrina’s untimely death. She travels back to her rural Alberta hometown where she’ll try to figure out what happened at the lake before Sabrina died, and if it threatens the rest of her family. (horror)
1/10: Better the Blood by Michael Bennett
Auckland detective Hana Westerman investigates two ritualistic deaths, uncovering a connection to a crime from the bloody British colonization of New Zealand 160 years before. As Hannah tracks a serial killer, she reckons with her personal conflict between her police work and loyalty to her Maori identity. (mystery/thriller) A Peak Pick!
1/10: City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita
In a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single apartment building, detective Cara Kennedy arrives to investigate a murder and finds herself stranded on-site when a blizzard closes the only access point. (mystery) A Peak Pick!
1/10: The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
Set in a world inspired by Egyptian history, but filled with magic, aristocrat Nehal and bookshop worker Giorgina are drawn together by the Daughters of Izdihar, a radical group fighting for women to have access to the power of magic and control over their own lives, even as the threat of war looms. (fantasy)
1/10: Exes and O’s by Amy Lea
Romance novel-obsessed social media influencer Tara Chen decides to revisit the 10 men who have broken her heart, in hopes of finding a second-chance romance. She enlists her roommate, firefighter Trevor, to help her – but is he more than just the sidekick in her story? (romance)
1/10: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Alex Stern is settling into her role at Yale’s Lethe House, keeping the other magical societies on campus honest. But her real focus is rescuing her mentor, Darlington, from purgatory – and she’ll need the help of a team of allies and their magical knowledge. Sequel to Ninth House. (fantasy)
1/10: In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
The lives of two women converge at a Canadian location of the Underground Railroad. They barter a story for a story, stretching back along the length of the Underground Railroad, to the tensions of the War of 1812, and the intertwining histories of Black and Indigenous peoples. (historical fiction).
1/10: Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks
In 1957 the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama has voted to reject integration. Alice Young, recently arrived in town, falls in love with a man who seeks to overturn the status quo. How can Alice protect this town that she loves? (historical fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/10: Reef Road by Deborah Goodrich Royce
The lives of two women – a murder-obsessed writer, and a wife whose husband has disappeared with their children – collide in Palm Beach, Florida, in the early days of the 2020 pandemic lockdown, when a severed hand washes ashore. (thriller)
1/10: Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed
In this graphic novel set in a fantastical alternate Cairo, three people navigate trying to make their most deeply help desires come true in a world in which wishes are literally for sale. (graphic novel/fantasy)
1/10: Small World by Laura Zigman
Two newly divorced sisters move in together as adults, and find themselves having a long-overdue reckoning with the childhood death of their other sister. (general fiction)
1/10: The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley
In the wake of her parents’ death, Aretha, a Black lawyer, finds herself diverted from her path to making partner, instead moving in with her coffee entrepreneur boyfriend, Aaron, and his doomsday prepper roommates. (general fiction)
1/10: You Will Never Be Found by Tove Alsterdal, translated by Alice Menzies
A man found in the house of an abandoned town north of the Arctic Circle; the disappearance of a man 700 km away; and a high-level detective gone missing – police officer Eira Sjödin has her hands full. (thriller)
1/17: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Following her parents’ death, Louise returns to Charleston to clean out the house, dreading inevitable interactions with her brother Mark. But Louise and Mark have more to worry about, as this house is haunted and terror lurks behind the walls. (horror)
1/17: The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses
Won Lee, the first Asian American in the NBA, stuns with a seven-game winning streak prompting the media to dub him “The Wonder.” Won struggles to be seen for himself on one of the world’s largest stages, with sportswriter Robert Sung chronicling it all. (general fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/24: The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon
With the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Rafael Pinto finds himself catapulted into the trenches of World War I. He finds love and protection with fellow soldier Osman, and together they desert, avoiding spies and Bolsheviks, with their love propelling them. (historical fiction)
1/31: Exiles by Jane Harper
Headed to small town in Southern Australia for the christening of a friend’s baby, Federal Investigator Aaron Falk finds himself compelled to investigate the case of a missing mother, and finds long buried secrets threatening to rise to the surface. (mystery)
1/31: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
Like her parents before her, Destry works to terraform the planet Sask-E. But then Destry discovers a hidden city of people inside a volcano, and begins to question her mission. (science fiction) A Peak Pick!
~ posted by Andrea G.
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