As I put this together on December 31, I read 180 books during 2022, including ten of them that are February 2023 releases. We have some good books ahead of us in the new year. Anticipation! Tell me what you’re looking forward to reading in February, or even the 2023 titles that have caught your attention. I’m going to mention Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies, an April release. Put it on your TBR list now.

In the meantime, here are February releases, including the list that follows the annotations. Watch for those, too.

If you’re a fan of psychological suspense, maybe you want to try Julia Bartz’s debut novel, The Writing Retreat. Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she’s desperate to discover the truth and save herself. (Release date is Feb. 21.)

Ellie Brannigan’s Murder at an Irish Castle is the first in a new series that I’ll be following. Rodeo Drive bridalwear designer Rayne McGrath expected her thirtieth birthday to start with a power lunch and end with champagne, lobster, and a diamond engagement ring from her fiancé. Instead, flat-broke and busted, she’s on a plane to Ireland where she discovers that she’s inherited a run-down family castle. Uncle Nevin’s will contains a few caveats—for example, if Rayne doesn’t turn McGrath Castle around within a year, the entire village will be financially destroyed. Now the fate of the town is in her hands, and there are rumors that Uncle Nevin’s death wasn’t actually an accident. (Release date is Feb. 7.)

Wined and Died in New Orleans is the second Vintage Cookbook Mystery by Ellen Byron. It’s hurricane season in New Orleans and vintage cookbook fan Ricki James-Diaz is trying to shelve her weather-related fears and focus on her business, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop, housed in the magnificent Bon Vee Culinary House Museum. Repairs on the property unearth crates of very old, very valuable French wine, buried by the home’s builder, Jean-Louis Charbonnet. Ricki, who’s been struggling to attract more customers to Miss Vee’s, is thrilled when her post about the discovery of this long-buried treasure goes viral. She’s less thrilled when the post brings distant Charbonnet family members out of the woodwork, all clamoring for a cut of the wine’s sale. When one of those claimants is murdered, the police focus on Ricki’s boss, and Ricki is determined to save the woman and the estate. (Release date is Feb. 7.)

If a Poem Could Live and Breathe is Mary Calvi’s romantic speculative novel about Teddy Roosevelt’s first love. Studded with the real love letters between a young Theodore Roosevelt and Boston beauty Alice Lee—many of them never before published—If a Poem Could Live and Breathe makes vivid what many historians believe to be the pivotal years that made the future president into the man of action that defined his political life, and cemented his legacy. Cambridge, 1878. The era of the Gilded Age. Alice Lee sets out to break from the norms of her mother’s generation. Women are fighting for educational opportunities and exploring a new sense of intellectual and personal freedom. Native New Yorker, Harvard student Teddy Roosevelt, is on his own journey of discovery, and when they meet, unrelenting currents of love change the trajectory of his life forever. (Release date is Feb. 14.)

It’s been too long since we’ve had a Duncan Kinciad/Gemma James novel. Deborah Crombie’s A Killing of Innocents is the nineteenth in the series. It’s also not an easy book to summarize, even on the book sites. On a rainy November evening, trainee doctor Sasha Johnson hurries through the evening crowd in London’s historic Russell Square. Out of the darkness, someone jostles her as they brush past. A moment later, Sasha stumbles, then collapses. When Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his sergeant, Doug Cullen, are called to the scene, they discover that she’s been stabbed. Kincaid immediately calls in his detective wife, Gemma James, who has recently been assigned to a task force on knife crimes which are on the rise. Along with her partner, detective sergeant Melody Talbot, Gemma aids the investigation. But Sasha Johnson doesn’t fit the profile of the task force’s typical knife crime victim. Single, successful, career-driven, she has no history of abusive relationships or any connection to gangs. Sasha had her secrets, though, and some of them lead the detectives uncomfortably close to home. (Release date is Feb. 7.)

Mark Dawidziak’s latest book is A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe. It’s a biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes. It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and “in great distress” on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own? In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre. (Release date is Feb. 14.)

Before I Sleep is Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ twenty-fourth Bill Slider novel, a British police procedural for those of us who enjoy witty conversations, and even witty chapter headings. Felicity Holland is missing. She left her handsome West London house to go to her weekly pottery class and didn’t come back. She’s a mature, sensible woman with a stable home life and a happy marriage – no reason to abscond. Her distraught husband is convinced she must have been snatched, and he has the connections to pressure DCI Slider’s bosses. DCI Bill Slider and his team know that when a woman goes missing, you have to move fast if there’s to be a hope of finding her alive. But with no evidence of foul play – nothing to go on at all – where do you even start looking? (Released ate is Feb. 7.)

Anastasia Hastings introduces the new Dear Miss Hermione historical mystery series with Of Manners and Murder. 1885: London, England. When Violet’s Aunt Adelia decides to abscond with her newest paramour, she leaves behind her role as the most popular Agony Aunt in London, “Miss Hermione,” in Violet’s hands. And of course, the first letter Violet receives is full, not of prissy pondering, but of portent. Ivy Armstrong is in need of help and fears for her life. But when Violet visits the village where the letters were posted, she finds that Ivy is already dead. (Release date is Feb. 7.)

Three Can Keep a Secret is M.E. Hilliard’s third Greer Hogan mystery. Greer Hogan is a librarian turned sleuth, an avid reader of crime fiction who possesses an uncanny knack for deduction—and now, she’s drawn into another murder case as late autumn slowly turns to winter in the idyllic village of Raven Hill. When Anita Hunzeker, chair of the library board of trustees, is run off the road and killed, no one seems all that sorry. Anita was widely disliked, and the townsfolk would just as soon be rid of her. But when a local professor turns up dead as well, his connection to Anita and to other local residents leaves the suspect pool covering the entire county. (Release date is Feb. 7.)

The ninth book in Carlene O’Connor’s Irish Village mystery series, Murder at an Irish Bakery, is my favorite in the series. It’s for all of us who enjoy bakery competitions on TV. In Kilbane, opinions are plentiful, but everyone agrees the bakery in the old flour mill just outside town is the best in County Cork, well worth the short drive and the long lines. No wonder they’re about to be featured on a reality baking show. But, Garda Siobhan O’Sullivan watches events go wrong from the beginning. First, a protestor shows up, and has to be taken away in an ambulance. Then, stunts go wrong, and a contestant is found face-down in her dessert. For a garda who loves sweets, this case is not a treat. (Release date is Feb. 21.)

Sarah Rayne kicks off a new historical mystery series with Chalice of Darkness. In London, 1908, the Fitzglens are a theatre family. When they’re not on stage, though, they’re a family of thieves. Jack Fitzglen’s latest plan is to seek out the infamous Talisman Chalice, steal it and create a dazzling piece of theatre around it. He travels to Vallow Hall in Northumberland to find the mysterious Maude – the last known link to the Chalice – but uncovers something far darker. Scandal, secrets and danger lurk in every shady corner. Perhaps the legend of the Chalice has come true: that in the wrong hands, the Chalice drags a person into a darkness from which he or she can never emerge… (Release date is Feb. 7.)

Some of us are always ready to pick up J.D. Robb’s latest Eve Dallas adventure, even if Encore in Death is the 56th in the series. It was a glittering event full of A-listers, hosted by Eliza Lane and Brant Fitzhugh, a celebrity couple who’d conquered both Hollywood and Broadway. And now Eve Dallas has made her entrance—but not as a guest. After raising a toast, Fitzhugh fell to the floor and died, with physical symptoms pointing to cyanide, and the police have crashed the party. (Release date is Feb. 7.)

The Adventure of the Castle Thief is Art Taylor’s second collection of suspense fiction. The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, is a panoply of crime fiction—from the title story, a more light-hearted traditional mystery set during a study abroad trip to Ireland, to the noir-tinged, with glimpses into the darkest recesses of the human heart, and even venturing into the realm of speculative fiction. This collection shows Taylor’s versatility in the genre with something for all readers. The book contains two previously unpublished stories from this Edgar-award-winning author.  (Release date is Feb. 14.)

Other titles to anticipate:

Adebayo, Ayobami – A Spell of Good Things (2/7)
Asher, April – Not Your Ex’s Hexes (2/7)
Carr, Lakiesha – An Autobiography of Skin (2/28)
Compton, Johnny – The Spite House (2/7)
Croft, Rachel Koller – Stone Cold Fox (2/14)
Ehrhart, Peggy – Irish Knit Murder (2/21)
Florin, Daisy Alpert – My Last Innocent Year (2/14)
Head, Cheryl A. – Time’s Undoing (2/28)
Holding, Elisabeth Sanxey – Nobody Would Listen: The Collected Mystery Stories of Elisabeth Sanxey Holding (2/20)
Johnson, Sadeqa – The House of Eve (2/7)
Klump, Michelle Hillen – Murder Served Neat (2/21)
McDaniel, Tiffany – On the Savage Side (2/14)
Makkai, Rebecca – I Have Some Questions for You (2/21)
Moustakis, Melinda – Homestead (2/28)
Murphy, Catie – Death in Irish Accents (2/21)
Nnuro, DK – What Napoleon Could Not Do (2/7)
Popp, Misha – A Good Day to Pie (2/7)
Roberts, Katee – Radiant Sin (2/7)
Roth, Veronica – Arch-Conspirator (2/21)
Scott, Kylie – End of Story (2/14)
Sennett, Frank – Shadow State (2/21)
Sparks, Leanne Kale – Every Missing Girl (2/21)
Wees, Alyssa – Nocturne (2/21)