Wyrd & Wonder-ful reading plans

Huzzah! It’s my second year participating in Wyrd & Wonderful – a celebration of all things fantastical 🙂 If you want to know more about this event, check out the introduction posts from Imyril @ There’s Always Room for One More, or Annemeike @ A Dance with Books. And if you want to join in – there’s still plenty of time! Readalongs, daily post prompts and so much more…!

My ‘best laid plans’

This year’s ‘extra’ theme is all things magic, which ties in really nicely with my current read – Sebastien de Castell’s The Malevolent Seven. Loosely inspired by The Magnificent Seven and The Seven Samurai, we get a fresh take on magic systems, wars between heaven and hell, and the ‘wonderists’ (magicians) from either side. Full of dry humour, irreverent tone, and just a heapload of fun so far, I’m thoroughly enjoying this one already. Review should be up this week.

Before that, however, I’ll cheat a little and kick off the month with a couple of slightly-delayed reviews from April reads. First, Laura Lam’s excellent Dragonfall. First in a new trilogy, this pits one dragon in human form, trying to save the rest of his species from exile and extinction, against a thief trying to reclaim her heritage and find a position in a world ruled by magics. I’m not the biggest fan of romance, really, but if you are then there are plenty of sparks here, and if you’re more like me then there’s still plenty of excitement, intrigue and danger!

I also read and will soon review March’s End by Daniel Polansky, which is a darker, grown up take on a Narnia-like portal myth. Plenty to recommend, and raises a lot of interesting questions about how ‘magical’ such an adventure would really be.

Another semi-cheat might be pushing myself to finish the audiobook of The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart. Don’t get me wrong, the story is great and I’m really looking forward to finding out how this great trilogy will end. But, audiobooks are tough for me, so it’s slow going, even as I remain excited to see how Jovis will escape his unwilling servitude, or if Lin can save an entire empire!

My stack of ARCs this month have been very accommodating genre-wise, lining up an excellent set of reads for fantasy month:

Next up will be The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence, which I am hugely excited about. Libraries the size of cities, yeah? By the author of Red Sister? I am surprised I’ve held off this long! 🙂

Also super excited for Martha Wells’ Witch King, the first fantasy I’ll have tried by the author of my eternally beloved Murderbot. “After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.”

And last but not least, Kill Your Darlings by LE Harper, which is described as “Inkheart meets Inception” and features an author awakening in her own fantasy world… is that thought appealing, or terrifying?!

Now, that looks like a great month’s reading – and reviewing! – to me! And I have no doubt that all the other Wyrd & Wonder posts will only make my TBR grow arms and legs – and I’m thoroughly looking forward to it all 🙂 Come join in the fun!

Art Credits

Isn’t the artwork just GORGEOUS?! All credit to:

• Tithi Luadthong for the Magic Portal artwork (top of the post)
• astromoali for the Flying Witch artwork above

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