January 2026 Book Reviews, Booklandia Commentary, And A Look Forward
January got 2026 off to a decent start, with 16 books on the month. I’m also getting ready to head out on a (very cold!) Bahamas cruise from Port Canaveral as this blast goes out on January 31st, so hey, it is also ending in a quite fun manner :) I also even had one commentary post to share this month, about a concerning change Goodreads recently made to discriminate against ARC review and reviewers. I hope you enjoy, and I’ll see you in your inbox again next month! :)
The Book Reviews
Book Review: She Took My Baby by Steena Holmes
Twisty Mind Bender Will Put You In The Minds Of Its Main Characters. This is one of those books that works best when you don’t try to fight it. Take yourself out of the story and just flow with what is presented here and what you get is one hell of a trippy mind bender where not everything is as it seems... and yet some things may be *exactly* as they s…
Book Review: The Memory Thief by Kayla Eaden
Phenomenal Story. Absolutely HORRID Storytelling. In the hands of someone with the skills of a Roth (DIVERGENT) or a Collins (HUNGER GAMES) or a Rowling (HARRY POTTER) or a Dashner (MAZE RUNNER) or a Robinson (THE LAST HUNTER) or a Phillips (RHO AGENDA) or a Harrison (INFINITY) or or or or or... this could have been an absolutely PHENOMENAL story that w…
Book Review: The Hunted by Steven Max Russo
Solid Thriller Uses Guns Both Effectively And Not So Effectively. Seriously, this is one book that uses one particular gun *phenomenally* - one of the best uses I’ve ever seen of this particular gun, easily. But revealing that particular gun gets into spoiler territory.
Book Review: The Naysayers by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke
Moralistic Romance Goes Nearly As Heavy On Preaching As Romance. Maybe Moreso. First, there are a lot of similarities here to scifi that runs the gamut from literal child stories to ultra violent (depending on incarnation) scifi. Just the base set up here, you’ve got something that at times feels like the DIVERGENT world (particularly by the time of ALL…
Book Review: The Secret Twins Of Paris by Suzanne Kelman
Solid Penultimate Book In Series. This is one of those entire series where you’re going to want to read the entire series before this point - including the short story prequel that sets everything up - before you get here. Even though this one stands alone (*ish*), you really need that deep understanding of all that is going on here to fully appreciate …
Book Review: Without A Clue by Melissa Ferguson
More Mystery Than Romance, Still Technically Works As Both. This is one of those types of mysteries where the author tries to tap in to Agatha Christie or perhaps even the board game Clue... and hits that kind of tone relatively well, while still also playing into her cruise setting particularly well at the same time. For me, I think the absolute funnie…
Book Review: The Great Shadow by Susan Wise Bauer
Interesting Take On The Subject With Writing Reminiscent of Rachel Held Evans. I suspect Bauer would have admired much about the late great Evans, even if they didn’t agree on every particular. Here, Bauer approaches the history of sickness the same way Evans, particularly in the last few books before her death, did various Biblical topics - with a fair…
Book Review: The Price Of Mercy by Emily Galvin Almanza
Leftist Language Will Annoy Some Readers. Read This Anyway. Straight up, Galvin Almanza is absolutely a product of her time - in this case, “her time” being 2010s Harvard and Stanford and then abolitionist activism. So the words she chooses - “latinx”, apologizing for being white, etc - are going to annoy at least some readers.
Book Review: Country Life In Georgia In The Days Of My Youth by Rebecca Latimer Felton
Fascinating Look Into A Bygone Era From A Truly Remarkable Woman. Rebecca Latimer Felton was born in 1935 in DeKalb County, GA. She died in Cartersville, Ga - my own hometown - in 1930, just 53 years before my own birth. Her grandparents witnessed the American Revolution. Mine were small children, mine were children when she died - one of them a small c…
Book Review: The Unwritten Rules Of Magic by Harper Ross
Strong Tale of Multi-Generational Grief Marred By Preachiness On Certain Topics. First off, let’s clear the air about one thing: Harper Ross isn’t a debut author. This is “Ross” debut *under that pseudonym* and *in this specific genre* of magical realism, but Ross is actually a well established author that I’ve read and reviewed many books from over the…
Book Review: Citizenship by Daisy Hernandez
Ironic Downfall. Seriously, how much more ironic can you get than a book about citizenship being felled by... *a lack of documentation*????
Book Review: It's Not Her by Mary Kubica
Solid Mary Kubica Thriller. That’s really all long time fans of Kubica need to know - she’s written yet another thriller that will have you breathlessly up way too late in the evening because “just one more chapter” keeps being repeated. One where the twists are coming almost literally until the very last word of the text.
Book Review: What Tomorrow Will Be by Julianne MacLean
Proof That The Greatest Romances Don’t Always Involve HEA. Oh that title is sure to roil up oh so many in booklandia, but this tale really is, at least in some ways, proof of something I’ve personally long held, that the greatest *romance* stories known to humanity don’t always involve a happily ever after.
Book Review: Adrift by Will Dean
What If Carrie Never Developed Superpowers? Seriously, that’s the kind of vibe I got from this book, particularly with the way Carrie is set up with such an abusive and controlling parent and is mocked so heavily at school, both of which are features here.
Book Review: Feed The People by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg
Food - Like Reading - Is Not Political, Despite Authors’ Claims. I came into this book expecting a more science/ tech look at why industrial food is good (it is, and the authors are correct on this) and how it can be made better... and instead got a book focused almost entirely on the politics of the food industry and why the authors think that the smal…
Book Review: I Told You So by Matt Kaplan
Interesting History That Can In Fact Comes Across As Extended Ad For Author’s Day Job. I was perusing the existing reviews on Goodreads as I sat down to write this review, as is my custom, when I saw a 2 star review mention that this book felt, to that reviewer, at least partially like an extended ad for the author’s day job as a science reporter for Th…
Booklandia Commentary
Goodreads Is Doing Exactly As I Feared.
In case you, my reader, weren’t aware, 90% of my reading since becoming a book blogger in the summer of 2018 has been Advance Review Copies of books. Jeremy Robinson first got me into this space reviewing several of his books over the years even before that, and Emily Bleeker more fully brought me into the ARC space when Lake Union was running a Faceboo…
And Now, A Look Forward (By Release Date):
February 2026
All The Ways You Break Me by Melissa Wiesner
Trust No One by James Rollins
Where The False Gods Dwell by Denny S. Bryce
March 2026
The Greatest Scientific Gamble by Michael Joseloff
Chosen Land by Matthew Avery Sutton
Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips
Sing Down The Moon by Robert Gwaltney
Strangers In The Villa by Robyn Harding
Once And Again by Rebecca Serle
The Feather Wars by James H. McCommons
Nine Missing Girls by Steena Holmes
Open Space by David Ariosto
Two Kinds Of Stranger by Steve Cavanaugh
Who Needs Friends by Andrew McCarthy
A Spell For Saints And Sinners by Emily Carpenter
Nightfaring by Megan Eaves-Egenes
The Object by Joshua T. Calvert
April 2026
A Cruise To Die For by Heather Graham
Dog Person by Camille Pagan
Meet Me In Italy by Brenda Novak
This Land Is Your Land by Beverly Gage
Witness Protection by Robert Whitlow
Blue Power by Stuart Schrader
Handle With Care by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
The Missing Ones by A.R. Torre
The Rules That Make Us by Oliver Sweet
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
May 2026
Body Electric by Manoush Zomorodi
Five-Star Summer by Sarah Morgan
American Rambler by Isaac Fitzgerald
The Cupid Dilemma by April Asher
The Players Club by Rachel Mills
The Shippers by Katherine Center
Bad Boy Era by Amy Daws
June 2026
The Hardest Longest Race by Eric Moskowitz
The Magical Game by Addy Baird
A God-Shaped Nation by Brook Wilensky-Lanford
Beach Thriller by Jamie Day
Off The Record by Sara Goodman Confino
July 2026
Destination Funeral by Paige Harbison
The Story Keeper by Kelly Rimmer
August 2026
The Woman In White by Sarah Pekkanen