January is already over and this month unexpectedly flew by. We started the year of wintery, with cold and snow, so the first week of the new year I immediately had to fully work remote. After this, the month went by quite uneventfully. This also aplpies to my reading, 2026 hasn’t been going so well thus far. Whereas I usually start off strong in January, I just finished 5 books this month. I’m not behind on my reading challenge – advantage of setting my goal a little low – but I got not much reading done. It took me a while to both finish a book and pick up a new one. But let’s check out what I did finish!
Books read
1. Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
I started the year off with a book I was highly doubting to pick up. I tried this one in 2024, but had to DNF it. Now it was the monthly read in a bookish server and I stumbled upon the Dutch audiobook, so I decided “why not”. Although I finished it and it’s quite a decent read, I still wasn’t fully captivated. The author put her own experiences with living with OCD in main character Ophelia, but both characters and plot weren’t too memorable. In fact, the book is absolutely unoriginal, it feels like if Caraval and Kingdom of the Wicked got a baby. It relies heavily on vibes and the atmosphere as this is magical and set in New Orleans, a very popular place for fantasy novels to be set in.
- Set in: New Orleans, USA
- Backlist or newly acquired: Backlist, I already owned an English ebook copy
- Read format: Audiobook as I wasn’t planning on rereading it at all, and definitely not so soon
- Language read in: Dutch
- Read from: 01/02 to 01/06
- Rating: 3/5
2. Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry
I decided to knock a book off of my TBR that has been on there for a longer while. This book was pretty much unavoidable last year and I therefore sat the hype out for a bit. I’m not doing the greatest with hyped books, but I was still curious nonetheless. Furthermore, the Dutch translation was due to be published soon, so I just wanted to figure out what this was all about. I didn’t wait and read from my owned copy though. However, I switched between both ebook and audiobook, because the latter was more convenient when doing household chores et cetera.
- Set in: Kallandra, a fantasy realm
- Backlist or newly acquired: Backlist copy
- Read format: Both ebook and audiobook
- Language read in: English
- Read from: 01/07 to 01/15
- Rating: 4,5/5
3. Pictures of You by Emma Grey
After all these big romantasies I was in need of something lighter and in a different genre. Late last year this second chance romance crossed my path, only to quickly forget about its existence. However, I still was aware of it as it resurfaced in my mind when I was looking for a new book to pick up. I tried the audiobook, but I had a hard time focusing on it, it went by too slowly. Oh well. I broke one of my 2026 goals for it LOL.
- Set in: Sydney, Newcastle and Adelaide, Australia
- Backlist or newly acquired: Newly acquired
- Read format: Started with the audiobook, switched to ebook
- Language read in: Dutch
- Read from: 01/16 to 01/19
- Rating: 3/5
4. Als bittere sinaasappels by Milena Palminteri
This book is not translated to English, but has been on my “I want to read this as soon as possible” list for a while now and now was the time to pick it up. I thought that this was historical fiction, but it isn’t. Yes, it is set in both 1920s and 1960s Sicily, but in the author’s note, Palminteri explicitly states that this is no historical fiction. However, I wasn’t really vibing with this book. In fact, I was confused most of the time. There are so many characters who are all important to the story, but the amount of characters made it pretty confusing. Also, in Italian it’s very common to use nicknames or shortened names for people, so you can already guess my further confusion. Furthermore, the writing was a bit too much, I think this is an Italian thing too. There were so many words to describe everything and it sucked the pace out of the story. I needed the audiobook to get familiar with the story before I was able to grab my ebook copy. If I didn’t find an audiobook, it would probably have been my first DNF of the year as it was too confusing when just reading the ebook. When looking up reviews, I definitely am not the only one out here, because literally everyone said this. Mind you, these were all Dutch reviews and reviewers.
- Set in: Sicily, Italy
- Backlist or newly acquired: Backlist
- Read format: Audiobook and ebook
- Language read in: Dutch
- Read from: 01/22 to 01/26
- Rating: 2,5/5
5. The first to Fall by Kristina Moninger
This book isn’t available in English either, and also has been on my TBR for a while. It’s originally written in German. This is romance, a genre that never lets me down when I’m in need of a quick read. This book delivers on multiple aspects, but somehow I was missing some kind of connection. The romance blew off a bit too fast which makes it a bit unbelievable. However, the premise of the story is good and the author kept me hooked with the mysterious element of the plot. The ending had me gagged, because this was quite unexpected and I want to find out more. I hope this will be cleared up in the sequel.
- Set in: Austria, Italy
- Backlist or newly acquired: Backlist
- Read format: Ebook
- Language read in: Dutch
- Read from: 01/29 to 01/30
- Rating: 3,5/5
Bookhaul
- Pictures of You by Emma Grey
- When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ritzén
- De roadtrip by Khalid Bhoudou
- Discontent by Beatriz Serrano
- Ashes in the Snow by Oriana Ramunno
- Woman Down by Colleen Hoover
So far, my first wrap up of 2026, I really hope February is a better reading month for me.
How was January for you?
