ARKANGELSK is a fascinating and exciting exploration by author Elizabeth Bonesteel, of the consequences among an insular Space colonization, the lengths to which those in charge will reach to maintain order, the incipient paranoia and rampant conspiracy, "fear of the Others" (other humans, exiled), terror of the inhospitable planet of which only a small (underground) portion has been colonized, and the real terror when a new generation ship arrives with orders to construct a space transmitter. Now with the potential for other ships from Earth, bringing who knows what cultures, the outlaw outcast Exiles are no longer the sole threat, and far from the scariest.

**Thank you to NetGalley and House Panther Publishing for the free ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

I had such high hopes for this one based on the synopsis. I imagined a fast-paced action/thriller with aliens and spaceships whipping about. While there was some delivery in that department, the story lacked the thrill that I hoped for. The character development was great, and the universe was well-built - especially if you like post apocalyptic themes.

Unfortunately, this wasn't one that I raced through to see what would happen next. I found myself losing interest multiple times and kept having to come back to it. Overall, there were a lot of really cool concepts here and some wholly original ideas. I ruined it for myself by going in with high expectations for an author I have never read before.

I will absolutely check out more from this author in the future because I did enjoy the world-building and character development!

This was a great atmospheric post apocalyptic read! The characters as well as the plot gripped me. It was exactly what I was wanting to dive into this winter. If you’re into sci-fi/post apocalyptic/space themes, you’ll love this! I’ll definitely be interested to read more from Elizabeth Bonesteel.

This really was an amazing book, and even months later I can still remember it clearly. Beginning with a diary entry, this is a very scary and raw story about humanity trying to escape itself by splitting up and starting fresh on a completely new planet. I absolutely loved it, and here’s why.

Though the world is a lot different than our own, it was very easy to imagine and get right into. Covered in a thick sheet of ice, and the mostly Russian speaking planet is very weary when a generational ship from Earth appears in their sky. But people have been going missing more and more on the planet, blaming the ice for taking them, and they can use all the help they can get. However, the ship isn’t in the best of shape either.

As it is, the people surviving on the ship are dwindling too. And they can’t believe that humans have lived on this planet at all, let alone for generations. And caught between it all is Anya, a planetary peace officer just trying to figure out what’s really going on between everything, and everyone. After all, people just keep going missing, and the generational ship in the sky is threatening that more ships will be appearing soon, and they’re not going to be gentle with them.

As someone who’s had an extremely hard time getting into books the last year or so, I couldn’t put this book down, and that’s really saying something. As a huge fan of scifi and mysteries, I really couldn’t get enough of it. Every twist and turn was completely unexpected for me, and the writing really sucked me in from the very first pace. The characters were very lifelike, and I overall couldn’t get enough of it.

Highly recommend for mature readers, who want a chilling scifi world filled with surprises, and of course crimes.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed Bonesteel's Central Corp series very much, and when I learned about Arkhangelsk, I immediately hopped onto NetGalley to get my paws on a copy. It has many of the elements I enjoy: sci-fi, mystery, strong female characters. I like the author's writing style and looked forward to more.

And while all those elements are indeed present, there was just not quite enough suspense to pull me through the book. When life got unexpected busy and stressful I guess I forgot I was reading it and wandered off to find books that held my attention better. It's a terrible thing to say about a project someone worked so hard on, but that's the honest truth.

On the other hand, I didn't hate it. I will most likely buy a copy so that I can finish it.

Arkhangelsk is an adult sci-fi novel that I requested on Netgalley months after it had been published. It as also dystopian and we are following two main perspectives. One is head peace officer Anya Savelova who lives on a hostile planet in the ice-bound city of Novayarkha, another is the captain of a starship from Earth sent to check on and set up on their colony of the planet. Anya and her people had long believed that Earth is dead and they were the last surviving humans. The arrival of the crew makes Anya question some of the things that has been happening in her city.
This took me a while to finish because of how dense it is. It is a dissection of humanity as well, our tendencies individually and as a community even outside of the world we know now. I enjoyed following Anya as she is a character that has a lot of responsibilities, looked up to but is also loyal to their leader. She is someone who has innate protective instincts towards her people alongside her nurturing nature. She is like a parent in a lot of ways. This is the kind of book that will make you pause and reevaluate your own view of life, future and the world.

This is an amazing post apocolyptic SF space opera. I've never read anything by Elizabeth Bonesteel before but will certainly be blind-buying everything she's written!

I don't read a lot of science fiction, but the synopsis for Arkhangelsk sounded intriguing and I am so glad that I gave it a chance. It is a great sci-fi thriller that I could not put down. I enjoyed it from the start, but it really picked up around the middle and didn't let up until the end. There were several twists and some I didn't see coming.

The characters felt real, and nothing felt over-the-top. There were some characters that I didn't like, but I think that helps make a book good and feel more real. I liked how the backstory was provided throughout the book as mission logs.

I would recommend this book to sci-fi fans as well as thriller fans.

Thank you to NetGalley and House Panther Publishing for the eBook in exchange for my honest review.

An Amazing book by an amazing author loved it alot the characters are great be an Anya or Maddie, it's partly political, part pycholgical thriller and part good old Sci fi similar to old Asimov books

Anya and Maddie, leaders of two societies that have the same origin but are so different...each is seeking for the best possible outcome despite their differences. I was witness their journey in a SciFi setting that kept me guessing right until the end.
An enjoyable story.

The occupants of a lost colony, far from Earth, believe themselves to be the last remnants of humanity - until a spaceship from the planet they left on the verge of destruction shows up, beginning a cascading series of revelations about their history and their present that change their world forever. <i>Arkhangelsk</i> is a novel brimming with themes from what we do to survive to the necessity of hope, through parenthood and the meaning of family. While it is slow-going at first, Elizabeth H. Bonesteel wraps these various themes into a solid story that builds to a satisfying conclusion. Did I see a couple of twists coming? Sure, but not all of them. Plus, that's also a sign of a world that works.

I have mixed feelings about the decision to tell this story from multiple first-person perspectives. On the one hand, being inside the head of someone from the colony and someone from the spaceship so thoroughly gives Bonesteel the opportunity to show their contrasting perspectives and experiences; furthermore, that perspective allows the revelations as they dawn to feel genuine. On the other, it leaves many of the background characters feeling flat compared to Anya and Maddie, our narrators. But those two, a few others, and the world in which they live work so well together that it's difficult to complain - this is a solid science fiction story with much to say about political and social organization and how those things change.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley.

Ebook/Science Fiction:. This was a cross between Logan's Run, Wool, and Demolition Man where everything you believe in your semi-perfect society is wrong.
Without giving away the plot, I will say that I liked this book a lot. There were points that weren't explained to the reader as well as they should have. I felt myself drifting away at times because I kept trying to figure out what the governor was hiding. The backstory to the ship in the archives wasn't as clear as it should have been and I wanted to know more about the insurrection that launched the ship.

This is a science fiction book about the interplay between a planetary colony and the crew of a spaceship that arrives from Earth a few hundred years after the colony was established. Instead of a straight linear narrative, the book is crafted as a series of short chapters alternating among the points of view of some of the main protagonists. Interspersed between these chapters are two other sources of information: dispatches from the ship's captain back to Earth, and snippets of ship's logs and other archives. These latter two gradually build a context that illuminates the action taking place in the chapters.

The result of this structure is to leave the reader somewhat bewildered or in the dark about aspects of the situation in the early stages. Persevere though, and you will be rewarded with increasing clarity. I almost wanted to go back and read it again once I had the context fully established.

This book is beautifully written but also painfully slow. It’s nice to have some middle aged women as our main characters and they each had a very distinct voice. This was a sci-fi but mostly a study of the human condition. I would recommend this to anyone who loves being immersed in amazing writing.

An sci-fi dystopian set on an icy planet, where descendants of a human colony has settled. They have been isolated on this unforgiving planet with not contact with earth and things are not going well for them. When a human spaceship enters their airspace, tension of invasions from the home planet long believed to have been destroyed comes to surface. This has mystery, intrigue, tension, secrecy... It was such an interesting read on human colony developments believing the home planet are evil.

This turned out to be an average sci-fi mystery although there could've been more scifi for my tastes. I did like that the author chose to include older female characters, which I really appreciated, but the ot, dialogue and writing was just meh. Not bad, but not amazing either.

I'd recommend this to mystery readers that like to dip their toes into science fiction. There are no aliens involved or heavy scientific jargon.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an extraordinary tale of a future that is both dystopian and optimistic. The story is all too believable as humans escape an uninhabitable Earth and expand to the wider universe. Mystery after mystery is unraveled as the main characters discover so much about themselves and those around them. The characters are identifiable, lovable, deplorable and simply human. The pacing is extremely engaging with the continuous promise of another shoe to drop. Well written, well pace and hard to put down.

This is one of those novels that have strong characters that you become greatly invested in. Anya is a peace officer on the icebound, hostile planet she was born on. Her people are a remnant of a ship that fled disasters on Earth over 200 years ago. When a ship appears in their orbit she forms a friendship with the Captain, Maddie. Together they uncover secrets on her planet that reveal thing and expose people who have been living a double life and not exactly an honest one.

I always feel a little out of my depth when I read a science fiction space story, but this one just drew me in and made me want to keep on reading. Yes, a very good read.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me an arc in exchange for my honest review.

Arkhangelsk grabbed my attention because I was looking for a book similar to 'The Martian" by Andy Weir. This novel did not disappoint! Every moment felt as if I were in the alien world of Novayarkha, but Bonesteel still managed to create the atmosphere of that planet being a real place.

There was a variety of character dynamics within the novel, and I felt Bonesteel did a fantastic job of showing us readers how we change depending on who we are with and the situations we are in. Anya is a law abiding citizen and says "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" when confronted by her superior Governor Orlova. When she is around her childhood friend, Costa, we see a softer and friendlier side. With Aleksey, Anya becomes the commander in chief.

One of the features I enjoyed most about this novel was Bonesteel didn't go out of her way to explain the rules of this new world. She intertwines details of how society functions, laws to abide by, and who each character is and what role of importance they play. Too many novels I've read have suffered from trying to make sure the reader understands the world they are presenting, and gets lost in those details the plot can't move forward. In "Arkhangelsk' we don't get lost. We are fed detail in pieces at a time to be able to put them together for ourselves. There may be questions we have along the way, but eventually we learn the answers. This is also a brilliant way to write because it engages the reader further. We have to pay more attention to the hidden details quietly and efficiently laid into place among the writing.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this novel. I never felt like I was missing information or events taking place were shortsighted. I was satisfied with the conclusion of the novel, and I didn't feel as if any storylines were left unfinished or questions I had were left unanswered.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I liked this book, the first quarter of the book was a bit slow for me, but then the last quarter had me reading non-stop! I really loved where the story went- the plot was unique and really well thought out. I wish the story had been a little bit easier to get in to from the start but this could easily just be me and my frame of mind at the start. I would definitely recommend this book to any sci-fi lovers!