11 exciting SFF book releases to kick off your New Year right this January

Winterkeep – Kristin Cashore

Winterkeep is author Kristin Cashore’s long-awaited return to the world of her popular Graceling series after an eight-year gap. (Fun fact: The story is also Cashore’s first novel in five years, period.)

The story is set four years after the events of Bitterblue, a time during which the queen has kept busy picking up the pieces of her kingdom after her disturbed father’s rule. Now, contact has been made with a new continent, known as Toria, whose closest country to Monsea is called Winterkeep.

An almost miraculous place, WInterkeep is a democratic republic where people keep telepathic foxes as pets, speak to sea creatures, and fly across the skies in airships attached to giant balloons.

The story shifts between multiple perspectives, including Bitterblue; Giddon, a character who originally appeared in Graceling; Louisa, a teen daughter of the Winterkeep president; and more. While the plot is perhaps a bit predictable in places, fans who’ve waited almost a decade for an update to the series they probably suspected would never come won’t care.

The official synopsis describes the novel in greater detail.

"Four years after Bitterblue left off, a new land has been discovered to the east: Torla; and the closest nation to Monsea is Winterkeep. Winterkeep is a land of miracles, a democratic republic run by people who like each other, where people speak to telepathic sea creatures, adopt telepathic foxes as pets, and fly across the sky in ships attached to balloons. But when Bitterblue’s envoys to Winterkeep drown under suspicious circumstances, she and Giddon and her half sister, Hava, set off to discover the truth–putting both Bitterblue’s life and Giddon’s heart to the test when Bitterbue is kidnapped. Giddon believes she has drowned, leaving him and Hava to solve the mystery of what’s wrong in Winterkeep. Lovisa Cavenda is the teenage daughter of a powerful Scholar and Industrialist (the opposing governing parties) with a fire inside her that is always hungry, always just nearly about to make something happen. She is the key to everything, but only if she can figure out what’s going on before anyone else, and only if she’s willing to transcend the person she’s been all her life."

Winterkeep is available on January 19.