Tantalizing Tales — January 2026 — Part One

Happy New Year, readers! I hope you had a delightful celebration ringing in a year that is hopefully no worse than the last… tho given the state of the country I live in and the absolutely infuriating refusal of large swathes of it to take note of history’s lessons, who even knows any more.

Apologies for being so glum. Let’s cheer ourselves up not only by looking forward to some excellent books coming out soon, but also, ahem, going over some of the 2025 novels that I still haven’t had time to cover (I got SO MANY books last year, y’all, and feel like I only really figured out how to properly run this column a few months into it.)

First up is definitely my most anticipated read this introductory week of January, Maude Royer’s The Bloody Brick Road. Originally written in French by its Quebecois author, this installment of the Forbidden Tales series is a retelling of The Wizard Of Oz. And hey, did you know that Frank Baum’s original fairytale is often considered a subtle critique of the US politics of the time? Ms Royer switches the setting to turn-of-the-21st-century Montreal, for her impactful dystopian thriller.

1994: Dorothy Noroit is 19, pregnant and on top of the world. Her boyfriend is hard-working, her home is beautiful and she gets to work with her best friend. But a seemingly freak accident puts Dorothy — and five other mothers-to-be — in the hospital. When she leaves days later, she no longer has a boyfriend, job or golden path laid before her.

Twenty-four years later and Montreal is plagued by an extremist group called The Winged Monkeys. Lieutenant Henri Duhaime and his partner Detective Emilianne St. Gelais are investigating the gruesome murder of a young man when the killer strikes again, leaving desecrated corpses and organs scattered around their city. The investigators must race against time to find and stop a brutal serial killer, in this homage to an Oz that’s been twisted and soaked in blood.

Half of the fun of TBBR lies in discovering the connections between Ms Royer’s 21st century tale and the 1900 original. You know I love a good mythological/faiy tale retelling, so I’m super looking forward to finding the time to dive in!

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If something cozier is more your speed, check out Sara Fox’s Definitely Maybe Not A Detective. I’ve really enjoyed several other of Ms Fox’s mysteries, but am very excited about this latest one, which leans into the rom-com aspect of the cozy mystery genre.

Our heroine Emersyn Gray isn’t actually a detective. But in order to get her money back from the cheating, lying ex who stole her life savings, she’s not above pretending to be one… with the help of a hot stranger whose name just happens to be the same as the fake agency she invented, Wyatt Investigations. All Emersyn wants is to scare her ex into giving back the money that she needs in order to keep raising her beloved niece, even if they are saving money by living in the cheapest place she could find: an apartment complex for senior citizens that was so desperate for tenants that they let her live there, too.

Complications arise when the superintendent of her apartment complex is unexpectedly found dead. Worse, her neighbors have discovered one of her fake business cards, and want to hire her and Wyatt to investigate. Unable to blow their cover by saying no, Emersyn and Wyatt take on the case, even as they fight to stay professional amidst their growing attraction to one another.

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And now let’s take a look back at some of the books that I wasn’t able to get to this past year, despite really wanting to. The first of these is Paulette Kennedy’s The Artist Of Blackberry Grange, a domestic gothic novel set in the Ozarks of the 1920s.

Sadie Halloran is living in a desolate Kansas City boardinghouse during the summer of 1925. She’s still reeling from the double whammy of her mother’s death and a cruelly broken engagement, when she learns that her Great-aunt Marguerite needs a live-in companion. It’s thus almost with relief that she packs her bags and heads for Blackberry Grange, Marguerite’s once-grand mansion that perches on an Arkansas bluff.

Marguerite was once a vibrant woman, and is still renowned as an artist. Dementia has turned her into a fading shell of herself, but she’s still compelled to paint strange, hallucinatory portraits of lovers past. Some of the paintings are beautiful, some of them beastly — all of them are haunting.

The more time Sadie spends at Blackberry Grange, however, the more time seems to fall out of step with the real world, choosing instead to adhere to the shadows of the mansion. As truth and delusion begin to blur, Sadie will have to figure out why Marguerite is so beholden to the past, before reality, and even Marguerite’s life, slip away entirely.

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This next book is catnip to a puzzle fiend like myself. K. A. Merson’s The Language Of The Birds follows seventeen year-old Arizona as she tries to unravel the (literal) riddle of her mother’s disappearance.

Arizona isn’t too worried when her mom goes missing while the two are on a family trip. But returning home to find their Airstream ransacked puts a frightening perspective on what might’ve been a mere misunderstanding. The note on the counter solidifies the chilling truth: Arizona’s mom was kidnapped, and if Arizona wants her back, she’s going to have to pay a really bizarre ransom.

The kidnappers are convinced that Arizona’s dad took an important secret with him to his grave, and want her to uncover it for them, puzzle by puzzle. Luckily for her, Arizona is as into codes and ciphers as her deceased dad was. She soon realizes that she’s going to have to head west to the peaks of the Sierra Mountains in order to uncover the truth behind the strange quest laid out for her.

But she isn’t going to solve this treasure hunt for the benefit of her mom’s captors. She’s going to get her mom back on her own terms. And while she’s oddly comfortable with cracking obscure codes, poring over dusty tomes and exploring forgotten corners of US history, it’s her discovery that maybe the outside world isn’t as awful as she thought that really surprises her. Perhaps finding people who understand her won’t be the impossible task that she’s always thought it to be after all.

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Brendan Slocumb’s The Dark Maestro is another book that is highly relevant to my personal interests as a musician!

Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy whose combination of talent, determination and hard work has helped him claw his way out of the worst parts of Washington DC and onto the stage as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic. Sure his dad Zippy might still be a mid-level drug dealer, but his dad’s girlfriend Larissa makes sure to give Curtis all the maternal support he needs.

Everything changes when Zippy decides to turn state’s evidence against his bosses. Curtis must give up what he loves most in order to go into Witness Protection with his family. He’s obviously not happy about this, but things get even worse when Zippy’s bosses elude the feds. Soon, Curtis, Larissa and Zippy himself must figure out a way to use each of their unique talents to take the fight back to the cartel that wants them dead. Will it be enough, tho, to help keep their family alive?

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Finally, we have the sequel to a 5-star favorite of mine, and one I’m really hoping to find time to actually read in the coming weeks. Michelle Gagnon’s Slaying You is the follow up to the terrific first book in the Amber Jamison series, Killing Me. Part of my review of that latter, sans byline, is even the top blurb on its Bookshop page, lol.

Former grifter Amber and elusive serial killer hunter Grace had the world’s weirdest/worst meet-cute when they both escaped the clutches of a psychopath. Fate (or something) kept bringing them back together. But once they’d put away their latest murderer, they figured it was best to part ways so that they could each go back to having a normal life.

And now I’m just gonna quote the (hilarious) publicity materials: “Surprise: neither of them is very good at being “normal.” Despite their best efforts, they both feel an irresistible pull toward the dark side.

“So when they reunite for a Vegas wedding and discover that an even more dangerous killer is targeting their friends, it’s time to get the gang back together. Grace and Amber have outrun a murderer before . . . but can they do it again?”

I’ve managed to read two other highly anticipated follow-ups to some recent five star reads in the past few weeks, so I’m optimistic about getting to Slaying You soon too! Bonus: neither of the other books disappointed, and I’m confident this won’t either.

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All these books are either available or available for pre-order now, so let me know if you’re able to get to them before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!