Briarpatch Bests: January

Where we recap a month's worth of things we read, watched, listened to, and bought.

Hello friends!

Happy February! Happy belated Groundhog Day. Side-eye at the groundhog predicting 6 more weeks of winter. Buckle up because there’s a lot on the calendar this month—the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, the Year of the Fire Horse, Mardi Gras and more.

If you’re new here, welcome to our monthly recap of things we got into. We consider it a monthly diary entry of the things we read, watched, listened to, cooked or bought.

Back in January, we soft launched 2026 with gentle conversations about goals, words of the year and more. This month we are jumping back into friendship, which we discussed last February too!

You can join us for alllll of the fun for less than the cost of a fancy coffee:

An Encouraging Note from the Paid Tier:

What a delight to look around and find out there were so many new friends still to be made, so many “you too?!” moments left to exalt in with the community Kristin & Betsy have built.

-Friend of the Briarpatch

📚 Reading

KNW: Guess who set up a Goodreads account and also read 4 books in January?!?! Prioritizing reading over doomscrolling—check!

• I technically finished Heart the Lover by Lilly King in January and it might be the best book I will read in 2026. I saw a friend post that she had read it and I immediately DM’d her to gush about it. It’s one of the most tender, emotional books I’ve read in a long time. Be warned that I sobbed my way through the last hour of the story.

• The House in the Cerulean Sea delivered as promised by everyone who flooded my DMs to tell me how much they loved it. I listened to the audio and found the production quite charming—Team Chauncey forever. While incredibly different in plot, it gave me Remarkably Bright Creatures vibes.

• The Heir Apparent gets 4 stars as a new fictional book about the British royal family. If you liked The Royal We, I think you’ll like this newest dip into things from a female royal perspective.

• Betsy managed to get us ARCs of Omid Scobie’s new novel, Royal Spin, and I promptly finished it in less than 48 hours. Think Emily in Paris meets the British royal family, with less fashion and more Washington D.C.?

BKS: Very pleased with January roundup of titles. I hope this is a good omen for my 2026 reading year!

• The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage: Loved this royal family adjacent tale of duty and palace intrigue. The Royal We is my 5-star gold standard royal book and this cousin gets a solid 4-star rating with its slightly more literary bent.

• Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson: I feel like I was supposed to like this book more than I did. People have raved about it and Kevin Wilson is beloved, but it was just OK for me?! I liked all the siblings but their dad was the worst and it didn’t feel like there was any resolution for anybody.

• Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston: This was a fun, frothy thriller with maybe a plot hole or two but I didn’t care, lol. Imagine my surprise at finding it on the NYT bestseller list. (Listened on Libro.fm)

• Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven: I was so excited to read this book about a family in the 1960s who star on a television show together. I really enjoyed it. My only critiques are that it was a little long and we didn’t need as much exposition on the side characters—4 stars.

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📺 Watching

KNW: The People We Meet on Vacation was a win for me as a standalone nod to romcoms of yesteryear. I hold book-to-movie adaptations very loosely, so I wasn’t disappointed. This is a safe space, so I will admit I watched The Royal We—the movie and book are not related at all. Think low-lift Hallmark movie, and don’t expect an Oscar-worthy plot or performance. I also started Finding Her Edge because Netflix told me I would like it. Given the approaching Winter Olympics, I figured it was worth a shot. We spent most of our other available TV time getting our hearts crushed by the Bills, the Bears and college basketball. I also reallocated some of my TV time to learning to play Mahjong. In case no one has told you, it’s Rummikub-adjacent, with more rules, less board manipulation and prettier ($$$$) tiles and accessories.

BKS: We watched a few things this month that I’ve been excited to share as I’m always lacking a bit in this category. We watched the latest Knives Out movie and LAS and I both thought it was fantastic! There were themes of faith and doubt and hypocrisy woven throughout, it might be our new favorite of the three films. We also watched The Seven Dials on Netflix, which is based on an Agatha Christie book. It’s only three episodes and very fun in that way British mysteries are. All 5 of us have been enjoying Behind the Attraction on Disney+.

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🎧 Listening

Executive decision to leave ‘audio’ books in the ‘reading’ section; we’re choosing to define listening as podcasts or other auditory content consumed.

KNW: Pretty pleased with my Olivia Dean recommendation from a few months ago. She won a Grammy for Best New Artist Sunday evening and her new album is just good. While I’m biased to our little podcast, if you aren’t catching Good Hang with Amy Poehler, I fear you need to add it to your queue. The episodes with Jennifer Lawrence and Claire Danes are both a delight.

BKS: Is this an Olivia Dean Substack? Kristin and I have both recommended her music and she won a Grammy for Best New Artist which should be the only other plug you need. Also, if you have watched Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man, I highly recommend this discussion about it. Also, this is so niche, but did you watch soap operas with your mom like me? This conversation between Kelly Ripa and Susan Lucci recounting their days on All My Children was a delight!

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🍳 Cooking

KNW: The winter has been wintering in North Carolina which has led to me making so much soup: creamy chicken lemon soup + chicken and sun-dried tomato soup (pizza soup) + creamy chicken tortilla soup + lasagna soup. The groundhog saw his shadow, so I anticipate the soup making frenzy to continue into February. Saving a few new recipes to try out this next month. Betsy has also inspired me to attempt bread-making. She swears it’s easy—my first task will be buying yeast that’s not expired.

BKS: We’ve been deep in our baking era over here. Making this bread and this one on repeat. I got Jenn Lueke’s cookbook and made this recipe and several others. I also made this meatball soup which I am happy to add to my repertoire.

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🛍️ Shopping

The three best things we bought in January.

KNW: January was a low-lift month in terms of purchases, ingredients for hot chocolate and soup notwithstanding. Our credit card needed a little breather after the holidays but I did snag three things that are making 2026 a smidge brighter. It feels like an exaggeration but the Nodpod has changed my life. Sleep has been a little tricky for me the last few months and this weighted eye mask is doing the work to help try to get things back on track. These $3 Valentine’s balloons went up the last day of January over our kitchen island and I ran out of this drugstore moisturizer which I immediately repurchased (along with the milky toner that I swear makes me look like a glowy princess).

BKS: Like Kristin, I wasn’t going hard in the paint on purchases in January but I did grab a couple things that I think are worth sharing. One, my oldest has been running through the washcloths for her skincare and I decided to buy these face cloths that I heard were great. I know they’re disposable but it’s supposed to be better for your skin because towels can trap bacteria, etc. As we discussed on the live this month, I got interested in self-tanning and I grabbed this Coco + Eve product at KNW’s suggestion. More on this later but I would repurchase. Lastly, I got my kids new curtains for their rooms and this set in particular is still blowing me away with the quality and the look.

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January Snaps

Catch up on the archive of Briarpatch Bests from the last 12 months and add The Correspondent by Virginia Evans to your TBR pile. It’s our February Briarpatch Book Club pick.

Join us on Wednesday, February 25 at 9 p.m. EST for a Substack Live and book discussion. As always, the live is open for all subscribers! A replay will be shared with paid subscribers on Friday the 27th.

Both of us are eager to move into February. We’ve pulled out the Valentine’s decorations and are gearing up for a month of wearing pink and red on repeat.

Happy almost Super Bowl weekend! Who are you pulling for? We are rooting for the Drake Mayes—errr, we mean the Patriots. Good luck to Drake and our fave follow, Ann Michael. KNW will be making this and BKS will be throwing this together on location with her fantasy football girl gang. Last football game of the year, let’s go!

Love,

Kristin + Betsy