In the first ten days of January, I’ve managed to finish six books. They weren’t long, but still. That’s a lot of books in ten days. I’d told myself I was going to slow down a little bit in 2026, but here we are. Reading a lot already. It’s a longstanding habit, and habits are hard to break. So. Ten days, six books.
1. The Curious Case of the Village in the Moonlight by Steve Wiley I heard about this novella on a friend’s blog, Volatile Rune, and though it’s been a while since Frances read it, it’s been in the back of my mind ever since. I got a three month, $.99/month trial of Kindle Unlimited for New Year’s, and lo and behold, The Curious Case of the Village in the Moonlight was available. It’s the story of a fictional version of the town seen in Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’. This particular starry night is the last one that Lucas will be lighting the streetlamps, for the town will be getting wired for electricity the next day. Before he heads out for his last night on the job, Lucas goes to the local pub where he drinks a little too much absinthe. When he heads out work, he finds the town has radically changed. The streetlamps aren’t where they’re supposed to be, and Lucas has a series of fantastical encounters as he searches for the lamps. This story has a wonderful charm thanks to its fantastical elements, and while some of them seem rather English for a story set in a French village, I didn’t mind. This little book has a lot to say about imagination, grief, hopes and desires, and a longing for a time when we could all see the brilliance of the stars every night.
2. A Ruse of Shadows (Lady Sherlock #8) by Sherry Thomas This is the last book (so far?) in this series, though it leaves plenty of space open for further adventures of Charlotte Holmes and Co. In this outing, Charlotte finds herself under suspicion of murder thanks to an investigation she was finagled into beginning by Lord Bancroft Ashburton. His underling, a Mr. Underwood, has disappeared, and Lord Bancroft wants Charlotte to find him. The investigation leads Charlotte and her friends into dangerous circles and brings up a decades-old murder. But when Lord Bancroft turns up dead, Charlotte emerges as the chief suspect. This series has been mostly entertaining, though I have had some quibbles with the storytelling techniques– mainly that Thomas will tell the story out of order, often flashing back to earlier points of the story to show how everything has unfolded to the current point. This works well with movies like Oceans 11, but I find it a little frustrating in books. Aside from that, though, I enjoyed this book and if we won’t be seeing anything else in the series, it’s a good place to end it.
3. Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season: Selected Poems by Farough Farrokzhad, translated by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. Iranian poet Farough Farrokzhad’s literary and film career was cut short by her tragic death in a car accident in 1967, when she was thirty-two. She burned brightly, though, and left behind a compelling body of poetry. This collection features some of her most well-known poems like ‘Sin’, as well as the entirety of ‘Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season’. I started this on New Years Day and read a handful of the poems each day. They range from being optimistic about life, to being about love and sex, to being bitter about the state of the world. Regardless of their topics, these poems are compelling and I will certainly be revisiting this collection in the future.
4. On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred Fifty Years of Photography by Sarah Greenough and David Travis In 1989, a group of American art museums collaborated to create a major exhibition devoted to a century and a half of photography. This book is the catalog and companion to the exhibition and features four essays devoted to the history of the medium, as well as images of many of the photographs that were featured. The introduction admitted that, due to the nature of the collection and the vastness of the topic, it was focused primarily on the history of photography in the United States and Europe (primarily France and the United Kingdom). I learned a lot about the early decades of photography, but I was left wanting a bit more about female photographers, who were often just mentioned once or given a few paragraphs of discussion at most. It also reflects the last years when color photography was considered lesser because “serious photographers and critics” thought black and white was the superior side of photography. This is a book I will keep thanks to the pages devoted to the photographs themselves. If you’re looking for a good introduction to the history of photography that doesn’t just focus on the US and western Europe, I’d recommend Tom Ang’s Photography: The Definitive Visual History.
5. As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel Miriam Richter is a creature of darkness created by foolish people who wanted a servant, but were not careful enough in her creation. In the centuries since then, she has wandered among humanity, making deals and devouring souls until one day in the late 1500s, she comes across Cybil Harding, whose soul burns brightly despite the family curse that eventually destroys everything she cares about. When Miriam offers Cybil a deal to save her from danger, she finds a way to subvert the agreement, beginning a chase across the centuries as Miriam endlessly seeks Cybil in order to claim her for her own. This book has all the toxic sapphic elements that Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil was aiming for but failed to achieve, as well as having elegant writing (though with a few too many ‘mayhaps’ and ‘perchances’ in the first part), and a well-paced plot that kept me turning pages. I was recommended this book on a bookish Discord I’m part of, and it did not disappoint.
6. The Bookbinder’s Secret by A.D. Bell I managed to get an advance ebook copy of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, and I also won an advance paperback copy from a Goodreads giveaway, so I am well-stocked with this book. It’s the story of Lillian Delaney, an apprentice to and English bookbinder in 1901. While visiting a client who is commissioning a new binding for a gift, she finds a partially-burned book that contains a secret letter within the binding. This letter tells part of a tale of love, danger, and murder that took place some fifty years earlier. Lily realizes that there are other books that contain more parts of the hidden story and sets out to find them. But she’s not the only one looking for the books, and the other searcher is willing to kill to find them first. This was a great, atmospheric historical thriller that I didn’t want to put down and left me guessing right up to the end. It’s full of interesting characters and feels fully grounded in its time and place, in addition to having a compelling plot with plenty of twists and turns. There were a couple of plot threads that felt like they were left hanging, but they weren’t critical to the story. I would have just liked that extra bit of closure for them. But given how Bell left things open-ended enough to continue on in another book, it’s conceivable that those threads could be picked back up in further adventures. The Bookbinder’s Secret is due out this Tuesday, January 13, in the US. Traveling in Books is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Traveling in Books that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Sunday, 11 January 2026
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