This Week in Indies - Welcome to 2024!
Welcome to 2024!!
This week we kick off the year in Indie Books. A Project pushing and supporting Indie books and Small Presses.
Each week I will post with links to each new Indie release to their respective stores on KayXavier.com.
If you are an Indie Author with a Book releasing this year, please input your info in the form below, or email me @ Kayoticreads@gmail.com.
Indie Release Spreadsheet 2024
This week in Indies!
Sunday Dec 31st:
Sunshine Kisses: A childhood best friends to lovers story
Abigail Briar has spent her life searching for approval, acceptance, and validation: from her parents, from academia, and from herself. The only person she feels entirely at ease with is her best friend.
Three things truly matter to Erik Larsson: the environment, his family, and his best friend since childhood. In a world that constantly places stress on his mind and body, Abby has always been his quiet haven from the noise.
Constant companions since they were born two weeks apart twenty-five years ago, it's always been them against the world. Through mental health issues, family struggles, and across large distances, they've always had each other's backs.
To everyone around them, they're a perfect match, although they've spent years insisting they're just friends.
When they spend a week in the close proximity of a holiday with their respective (and ever so slightly meddling) families, the connection that has always existed between them begins to heat up. But as the tension between them reaches boiling point, will ghosts from their long history threaten to tear them apart?
Sunshine Kisses is a spicy childhood best friends to lovers story with mental health representation, plenty of tension, and a dual-POV on a dual-timeline.
Mon, Jan 1st:
The Sundering Blade: A Thousand Li World Novel
A blade cuts both ways
Newly minted an Elder of the Verdant Green Waters sect, sword prodigy Elder Cheng Zhao Wan - the Sundering Blade - is forced to leave the sect to fulfil an old obligation. A benefactor from the past is injured and has demanded Elder Cheng locate his assailant.
Forced to listen to the ramblings of a dying old man, amidst a small and unfamiliar sect, who Elder Cheng can trust is unknown. Was the injury nothing more than happenstance, or is something more dire afoot?
For once, Elder Cheng finds that his skill with the sword might be the least of his gifts.
A Thousand Li: the Sundering Blade is a world of A Thousand Li novel, featuring a much younger Master Cheng before he meets Wu Ying. A xianxia fantasy novel, The Sundering Blade is a standalone prequel to the bestselling A Thousand Li series and features high flying martial arts, tense battle scenes and contemplations of the Dao and karma alike.
CW's:
the Author did not choose to give any.
Reconciling the Consequences: Ravager Knights MC Book 2: A Why Choose Romance
Make a choice. Consequences be damned.
Kara had made her choice, and the consequences of her choices had left her burned and beaten.
After her father’s hitman failed in killing her, and her ex-boyfriend carried her half-conscious body from her burning house, Kara wakes up in hospital… alone.
Knowing she doesn’t have a home to return to, and her father still wants her dead, Kara only has one choice left… beg for forgiveness from the three men whose hearts she deliberately broke.
Or die trying.
Will Johnny, Derrick, and Kevin accept her apology and move on? Or will Kara have to face the consequences for her choices and save herself from her father?
Reconciling the Consequences is book two of the Ravager Knights MC series. This is the second book in a series and book one must be read before this one. It will end in a cliff hanger with the HEA at the end of book 3. This is a Why Choose novel, meaning the main character will not choose between her love interests. This novel has BDSM themes and on page negotiations. If rough sex, praise and degradation, and angry alpha males that fly off the handle is not your cup of tea, please don’t read. This is a work of fiction intended for an 18+ audience.
Tues, 2nd Jan:
Go Find Less (Recovering Good Girls Book 1): A Curvy Girl Love After Loss Second Chance Romance
“If I’m too much, go find less.”
In the bingo card of life, Piper Delmonico did not expect to mark out the squares “widowed” and “sober” before her ten year high school reunion. Pushing 30, designing lingerie for a manager who wouldn’t know silk from satin, and constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, she finds herself face to face with someone who witnessed, first hand, the very public demise of her good girl reputation. Thrown together a decade later, Piper expects “Marble Man” Fitz Westfall, the golden boy with the stoic face, to be another person telling her she’s too much. But does recently-divorced Fitz, with his head in the sand, really know as much about Piper as he thinks he does? He realizes she may be just what he needs to know that he’s not truly made of stone.
Go Find Less is a first person, dual perspective contemporary romance that highlights the triumph of overcoming grief and loss while creating a new sense of self.
Tropes:
- Grumpy x Sunshine
- Second Chance Romance
- Slow Burn
- Plus Size FMC
- Plus Size FMC
CW's:
This book contains the following material that may be triggering to some readers: spouse/partner dying, death on scene (medical, no blood), terminal illness, hospital/medical setting (brief), cheating (not perpetrated by MCs), emotional and mental abuse, paternity questions/challenges, panic attacks, brief mention of sexual assault, homophobia, toxic family members, body dysmorphia.
E-Girl Unplugged: A Fast-Paced British Crime Thriller (Charlie Chan Crime Thrillers Book 1)
AN ADDICTIVE CRIME THRILLER SERIES PACKED WITH TWISTS, TURNS, HUMOUR & KICK-ASS GEN-Z PRIVATE DETECTIVES
After a very public meltdown on stage, pop diva Emefa disappeared from public view. The Internet was awash with conspiracy theories. But interest waned as soon as the tabloids began chasing the next celebrity story…
Nothing to investigate, right?
Right. That is, until Emefa drops her first track since her meltdown. It’s a pared-back, e-girl acoustic ballad, returning to her original sound from before the fame, boys, and brand management took over. Charlie and her team think there’s a cry for help hidden within the song—and they will not rest until they find the truth.
Add a serial killer targeting cougars, a cuckold seeking proof of infidelity, and a group of young, eager private detectives to the mix, and you get E-Girl Unplugged.
Murder and mystery are peppered with action and humour in this fast-paced crime thriller, set in Liverpool—a city where reputations can be won, lost or bought at the drop of a hat.
CW's:
the Author did not choose to give any.
Woodpusher (Azaes Realm Book 2)
Erika Edens finally had everything she wanted. The girl. The quiet life. The stable job. But even the best situations can be turned upside down by powers well beyond our control.
Now Erika finds herself in another universe full of gods, guardians, and advanced technologies. Along with her girlfriend and four other humans, they must undertake a plan to save Earth from a rogue deity. But for all the skills and talents this team has, one critical component is out of place. Will Erika be able to overcome her lack of skills - and her demons - to learn what she needs to save the world? Or will she trip herself up along the way?
CWs:
Acephobia, alcoholism, anxiety, body horror, death, gun violence, homophobia, intrusive thoughts, mental illness, strong language, transphobia, violence
Thurs, 4th Jan:
Lust for Tomorrow
Submission is freeing… Love is a trap.
Pacific Northwest Writers Association Finalist for Best Romance, 2023
I’ve never seen his face. But I ache to feel his body.
My fellow soldiers call him Alpha. It’s an insult, mocking his macho bravado, his aggressive arrogance. I’ve heard the snark, seen the rolled eyes. Alpha. It’s a joke. But when I hear him speak…
His rich, deep voice. His lush British accent… I guess the joke’s on me.
Since the zombies came, civilization fell, and new social structures arose, I’ve known that my independence relies on my disinterest in any particular man. The powers that be haven’t resorted to forced procreation… at least not yet; they still expect we’ll fall in love and walk into the trap willingly.
My resistance requires that I avoid emotional connections. My existence requires that I avoid distractions, that I stand and fight. But every time this man speaks, I want to fall to my knees, offer myself to him. However he’ll have me.
Lust is a distraction I can’t afford, but it’s not love. As long as I don’t fall in love, I’m safe. And who could possibly fall for Alpha?
Lust for Tomorrow is a dystopian sci-fi romance set in a near-future zombie apocalypse. See the author’s website for content notes. Expect an HEA and very high heat.
CW's:
Discussion of loss, implied threat of SA (not by any major character)
Fri, 5th Jan:
Shadows of Memory
A scientific breakthrough. A twisted motive. A chance to regain everything that was lost.
Everyone in New Ancadium has been having the same dream. Nobody knows what caused it, or what it means. But the more time that passes, the more apparent it becomes that it was anything but ordinary.
Holly Beckett, an up and coming scientist, is pulled into the investigation against her will. In a desperate attempt to uncover the truth, she seeks help from trusted friends and dangerous criminals alike.
Oliver Cahill, an ordinary accountant, may be the key to solving the case—if Holly can help him before his brain, and his reality, is torn apart.
As the mystery unravels, new feelings blossom, old wounds are reopened, and reality is threatened.
The past might just destroy the future.
