imyril @ There's Always Room For One More Giveaways, Wyrd and Wonder, Wyrd and Wonder 2019

Quest Log The Second: in it to win it

Text banner: Wyrd and Wonder: Celebrate the Fantastic (1-31 May) - plus a gorgeous stylised dragon glyph

Our intrepid party has split up and ventured out into the realms of fantasy in search of adventure. Some seek out dragons. Some swim with mermaids. Some dance with shapeshifters in the ruins of familiar cities. But all have a stash of books in their backpacks and a story to share around the fire…

Wyrd and Wonder is going strong: just under halfway into our journey, and there are no reports of orcs or mysterious disappearances. If some of us have chosen to stay in the tavern that just means they’re keeping the fire blazing ready to hear our tales when we get back at the end of a long day. And such tales there have been to share!

Giveaways

I am a few days late in announcing the winner of the Sign-Up Giveaway, but never fear – I haven’t forgotten. I was just blown away by how many people have joined us for Wyrd and Wonder – I needed to get a bigger hat for all the names! And I’m delighted to announce that the name is BookwormAhn, First of Her Name, Devourer of Books and Winner of The Near Witch by VE Schwab.

There’s plenty more treasure to be claimed this month…

  • Deanna will send one lucky winner a book of their choice (up to $25) from the Book Depository. Enter using the Rafflecopter before May 31st
  • Zezee is offering a book of the winner’s choice (up to $30) from the Book Depository. Enter using the Rafflecopter before May 31st
  • Nikki is gifting a copy of one of the books they read this month via the Book Depository. Enter using the Rafflecopter before May 31st
    • Plus Nikki has bonus prizes for Habitica users!
    • Five gems for one hero who takes part in The Ninth Rain read-along and completes the tasks on Habitica.
    • Five more gems are on offer for a winner who takes part in the Trail of Lightning read-along and completes the associated tasks on Habitica
  • …and watch out for Tammy’s giveaway coming up later this month

There’s some other treasure too: Annemieke of A Dance with Books has put together some fab Instagram Story and Twitter templates for all your Wyrd and Wonder book bingo feels – check them out and tag us in if you play along!

The Wyrd and Wonder Challenge

This year I find myself in the uncomfortable position of being too busy at work to take any photos so far (although if you’ve got a time turner I can borrow, I’d love to talk). However, I’m loving what everyone else is doing with the daily prompts:

The prompt for May 8th was Can’t Wait To Read in honour of Wishful Thinking’s Can’t Wait Wednesday, so you know what that means: time for another mini Trial of the TBR!

Check out #WyrdAndWonder on Twitter, Instagram, or Litsy (which has now gone beyond the app, oooooh) to enjoy the rest of the challenge goodness.

Reviews

So many tales being told, so many stories to share – here’s this week’s round-up if you missed them first time around…

Features

For every review, there’s some other bookish goodness being created for Wyrd and Wonder this year! The daily prompts are only one source of inspiration: I adore a fantasy map, so I loved Anouk’s #MapMonday post celebrating some favourites at Time for Tales and Tea.

In other celebrations, Lisa at Way Too Fantasy celebrated her love of the genre. Author Cam Johnston stopped by Lisa’s blog to talk about six fantasy tropes he loves – while Lisa of Dear Geek Place was a special guest over at Deanna Reads!

Many of us are straying from the path by devising our own fantasy-themed Top Ten Tuesday (now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) topics. Charlotte of Mug Full of Books considered her Top Ten Witches and Wizards (shout out to Mildred Hubble!); Annemieke of A Dance with Books has been dreaming about Top Fantasy Transport (I’ll never look at my commute the same way again); co-host Lisa and Beth of Beth’s Bookish Thoughts treated us to a tour of their favourite fantasy cities; while Lisa and I both sang the praises of our favourite sidekicks. This week’s official topic was a doozy though: what would you like to see make the transition from page to screen? Annemieke and Caitlin of Realms of My Mind both had thoughts to share…

Five is another popular number for lists this week. Brittany of Perfectly Tolerable chose five fantasy books with red covers (red! my favourite!); Zezee  with Books took at look at five of the coolest magical creatures; and Jess(ticulates) has five Beauty and the Beast retellings on her TBR! Anouk has three magic systems in the spotlight (but three is a magical number in fantasy, so I think that’s okay).

Lynn put Mercy Thompson back in the spotlight for Throwback Thursday. Annemieke helped you out with that Rick Riordan shaped hole in your 2019 reading. Brittany took a look back at the first four seasons of Game of Thrones (don’t tell me about season seven, I’m waiting for the book. Ahem).

I’ve never heard of Galavant (I should fix that), but Susy’s Galavant Book Tag has me all intrigued. Deanna has been putting temptation out there too: she focused on podcast The Axe and the Crown for her monthly Deanna Listens feature. Meanwhile, Jess has been examining her conscience in some fantasy Shelf Control. The things we should have read by now is a bit of a theme: I’ve been enjoying Susy’s weekly Series Maniac feature at Susy’s Cosy World too – who doesn’t have a few unfinished series to get round to?

Lynn now hosts the Friday Face-off (created by Books by Proxy) at Lynn’s Books and is rocking fantasy covers this month! The first week’s blue theme saw Lynn featuring the awesome artwork for Jen Williams’s The Iron Ghost while Tammy and Brittany celebrated blue fantasy books (no, not like that. Cover art, remember?). Last week, Lynn and Brittany found the celebration prompt a trickier topic than expected (can you think of any fantasy covers featuring a good party?)

Read-alongs

Our read-alongs are now in full flow. Some of us are pacing ourselves, some of us have raced ahead to finish – so if you’ve read the book, feel free to pop over to our blogs to join in the conversation (please, no spoilers for future weeks!)

Trail of Lightning

The Ninth Rain

Recap: Weekly chapter breakdowns for each read-along.

One last thing

If I’ve missed you in this Quest Log, I’m so sorry. Work has been inconveniently intense (working weekends, about to fly across the world for a week, that sort of intense – I know, timing, eh) so I didn’t have time this week to double-check everyone’s feeds individually as I usually do – if you didn’t update the Master Schedule or tweet using the #WyrdAndWonder hashtag, I’ve probably missed you.

I’ll be fighting my way through Tomb U’ch Werc for the rest of the month so if you’d like me to sing your praises, please do add your links to the schedule spreadsheet to be sure you make it into the Quest Log.

Right – ready for the next phase? Let’s go find an adventure!