January 2026 reading wrap-up

It’s a brand new year, so let’s talk goals.

I usually set a reading goal on Goodreads — my goal for this year is 35 books. Now, I usually end up reading a lot more than that, but when I try to bump up my goal, I immediately start to feel anxious. And since there’s no point in stressing yourself out over something that you enjoy doing, I keep it at an easy-breezy number. At least this way, I know I have one goal that I’ll breeze past — win, win!

I’ve already read 54 books this year, which puts me 2 books ahead of schedule. How cool is that? 😉

This year, I’m also keeping an eye on the seasonal challenges on Goodreads. I want to see how many of those bookmarks I can collect. So far, I’m acing it!

I’ve also given myself a goal of reading at least 5 literary fiction novels this year. I’ve been avoiding them in recent years, because…

But I do want to read something a bit more serious this year, and I’ve already made a solid start on that, with 2 literary fiction books this month alone!

Reading wrap-up for January

This month’s reading took me to war torn Nicosia, had me sorting seeds on Shearwater island, sitting in on a psychotherapist’s session with a silent patient, and racing through a mirror world. Two of the four books I read were for the Book Bingo challenge — the prompts are mentioned in brackets.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (A touch of magic (magical realism)

Set in Nicosia and London, this is the story of two teenagers, Kostas, a Greek Cypriot and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot. In a land torn by civil war, the two youngsters meet and fall in love. In a taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, their forbidden love grows.

A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof of the taverna, and bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures.

The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish.

Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a fig tree grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited, her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

It’s a beautifully told story of love and loss, of the mindlessness of war and the lives it cuts short, of ecology and nature.

Alternating between the past and the present, interspersed with perspectives from the fig tree that bore witness to it all — to love and loss, secrets and desires, and more importantly to what happens to countries when neighbours become enemies and borders are redrawn. This is Shafak is at her masterful best. Highly recommended!

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Nominated for the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards)

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets.

As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late, and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

Beautiful writing brings the majesty and the isolation of Shearwater to life, along with the wildness, fragility, and resilience of nature; the fierce protectiveness of parents; the gaping maw of grief and the redemption of hope.

It’s been a long time since a book has brought me to tears, but the ending of this one did. Beautifully narrated, with multiple first person POVs interspersed with stories of seeds and how they travel, unforgettable character arcs, perfectly built mystery, and slow-burning intensity leading to a brilliant twist. This is a must-read!

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas.

One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

She’s convicted for her husband’s murder and sent to the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations and a search for the truth that threatens to consume him.

Theo’s starting point is a painting titled Alcestis that Alicia painted just after she murdered her husband. From there, he contacts key people in Alicia’s life, to try and get to know her better, and to find a way to get her to speak.

The story weaves together Theo’s quest to understand Alicia, snippets from Alicia’s diary, and Theo’s story of his troubled childhood and unravelling marriage.

With the two stories — Alicia’s and Theo’s — as well as Alicia’s diary entries, the book could have become somewhat heavy and meandering, but Michaelides does a fantastic job of keeping everything flowing smoothly.

And the twist, when it comes — and the way that it’s done — is brilliant! If you enjoy psychological thrillers, do pick this one up!

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save— seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.

This dark retelling of **Snow White by Nebula award winner T. Kingfisher is expertly crafter. The world building is inventive and magical, and the main characters are compelling.

I absolutely loved the main character, Anja. She’s smart, funny, forthright and very relatable. But my favourite character was the one-eyed sarcastic cat, Grayling, modeled after the author’s cat! The humour is subtle and though the story takes some time to build momentum, it keeps you hooked from the get-go. Highly recommended!

Over to you: What was on your reading list this month? And also tell me your reading goals for this year!