The Best Releases of January 2023.

It’s Listicle time, once again!

This month, although I have read a MULTITUDE of amazing books, a lot of them are due for release in Feb, March or were released earlier. So, I’m keeping with the traditional monthly releases – other round ups will appear as and when.

1 – Holdfast Imperium – Christopher Mitchell – KU
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As Holdfast Imperium hurtles towards its final, cataclysmic, battle, you dread the end of the book. Falling back into the life of the Star Continent and The City is a wonderful escape from the harsh realities of real life. The amount of times I’ve found myself wondering if we don’t have an angsty Dream-mage rattling around the brains of our current leaders is actually quite frightening; and I’ve wished, more than once, that we had our own Daffers or Sable to take the reins and set things right. But I digress. I dreaded the end of Holdfast Imperium because I could feel that Mitchell was leading me headfirst into something seismic; that would would break my heart into a million pieces. And it did.

ARC from Author.

2 Harvest Day – Heidi Catherine and Tamar Sloan – KU
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Harvest Day is the first of a new series of books from the minds of Tamar Sloan and Heidi Catherine, and it’s immediately gripping. This isn’t just a New Adult Dystopian nightmare, it’s also part mystery and part thriller. Woven through the book is an under-current of something insidious; something terrible that is happening and that only Echo has the wiles to uncover. As with most of Sloan and Catherine’s previous novels, there’s a slow burning romance in there too; but will Echo be able to trust the Green-Born River enough to let him in?

Kindle Unlimited

3 Hive Mind – Heidi Catherine and Tamar Sloan – KU
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As with Harvest Day, this isn’t just a dystopian book aimed at the New Adult market. There’s the budding love story that’s building between Echo and River. There’s the mystery of what exactly the Sovereign is and what it means to the survival of humanity – and the edge of the seat thriller. Will they manage to evade Oren’s clutches – and what exactly is he planning

ARC from Authors.

4 Conqueror’s City – Graham G Porter – KU
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One thing that Porter has done well, is that he has loosely based the different tribes and nations of his world of Asfáleia from real historic tribes – mainly from the Grecko/Romano era’s of our own history. I think it’s what lands Conqueror’s City that edge of realism; you can almost imagine that this is a prehistoric Europe, from before the islands of Great Britain and Ireland fractured away from the mainland. 

Reedsy

5 – Dreams of Song Times – Amy Bernstein
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What Dreams of Song Tides does so well, is highlight the individual stories of marginalised people without preaching. It’s unequivocal in its approach about the plight of Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQIA+ and Black Lives. It handles, delicately, the way that societal expectations can have repercussions on the lives of immigrants, even within their own communities. One character is struggling against his parents demands for him to follow their dreams instead of his own. B

(Reedsy)

So, there you have it, folks. My round up of the best indie releases for January 2023. Some of these books, I received through Reedsy, some were kindly sent to me directly by the authors as ARCs, and some I read myself. Some of these books are also available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited (marked by KU).

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