January 2026 Reads

 

Happy 2026! The start of a new year is always filled with promise, but what a pity the weather doesn’t support that feeling. I was fortunate to have a week booked for some winter sunshine, fully intending to spend the week reading. Unfortunately, I caught a terrible bug and spent half the holiday (and the subsequent five days) feeling very under the weather. As a result, I didn’t manage quite as much reading as I’d hoped.

My first read of the month was for my book group, Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce. Alison is a barrister whose personal life is spiralling out of control. Alison is finding the cycle of self-destruction difficult to break, resulting in her husband leaving her. The storyline is dark and disturbing, with a shocking ending.

I loved Nightwatching, the debut novel of Tracy Sierra, so I was really happy to get a review copy of Warning Signs. Young Zach finds himself stranded in the snowy Colorado mountains with his father and some of his business associates. Danger lurks, but is it from the unpredictable terrain, a mysterious creature, or something closer to home? From the ominous opening through to the nail-biting conclusion, you are on the edge-of-your-seat.

I took part in the Readalong of Behind Her Smile by Caroline England. The opening chapters hint at lots of possible directions the story could take: a new romance, a psychological thriller, a possible stalker, an organised crime thriller, or a horror story. Once the different threads began to coalesce, I began to take an interest in what was happening to the characters, particularly the love interest, Finn.

My second Readalong of the month was Sleep No More by Guy Hale. This is the concluding book in the Shakespeare Murders series. Set in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1972, Oliver Lawrence is on a murder spree to avenge the death of his father and his own failed career. As the police net slowly tightens, Lawrence becomes more extreme. You begin to wonder who his next target will be.

I’ve put off reading All The Colours Of The Dark by Chris Whitaker for so long. My recent holiday seemed the perfect time to dive in. This starts off with the abduction of a young boy from a small southern US town. Rather than a standard crime thriller, this becomes a tale of devotion and obsession as the young boy and his friend spend twenty-five years searching for answers. The boy wants to find the girl who was held captive with him, while his friend wants to bring the captor to justice. It is difficult not to become engrossed in the lives of everyone concerned.

In A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford, we meet twelve-year-old Janey and her Grandmother, Maggie, who live among the tenements of Glasgow in the 1970s. Janey stumbles across the mutilated body of a murder victim. As Janey struggles to come to terms with what she has seen, Maggie treads a fine line between keeping her granddaughter safe and appeasing a local crime lord. Filled with distinctive characters and a sense of community despite the obvious deprivation.

The tagline on the cover of Adrift by Will Dean reads “Three of them aboard. Mother, son, and wickedness,” describes the book perfectly. Husband and wife Drew and Peggy, along with their son, Samson, are reduced to living on a narrowboat. Both Peggy and Samson spend most of their time tiptoeing around Drew, doing everything in their power to placate him. Peggy simply wants to protect her son, who has problems of his own he hasn’t told his parents about, but she begins to lose her grip on reality. Drew is one of the most loathsome characters I’ve come across in a while.

I approached Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward with a little trepidation. The book is classified as horror, and I’m a complete wimp. Fourteen-year-old Riley and her young brother, Oliver, escape an abusive situation and find themselves at Nowhere. The property, which used to belong to a film star who died in a fire, is now populated by children who will do anything to protect their way of life. Intertwined with narrative from other characters, this is more suspenseful than horror, giving a vague sense of unease the more you read.

The only audiobook I managed to get through this month was The Mudlarkers’ Club by Jane Riley. A gentle and uplifting tale about a woman who turns to her unusual hobby of mudlarking to distract her from the end of her marriage. Along the way, she makes new friends and together they support each other through their personal problems.

Publication dates to watch out for:-

Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra will be published 12/2/26 in hardback, ebook and audio format.

The Mudlarkers’ Club by Jane Riley will be published 12/2/26 in paperback, ebook and audio format.

A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford will be published 12/2/26 in hardback, ebook and audio format.

Adrift by Will Dean will be published 19/2/26 in hardback, ebook and audio format.

Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward will be published 19/2/26 in hardback, ebook and audio format.