We’re in the heart of our adventures now, exploring new worlds, making new friends, finding new authors, characters and stories to get excited about. Worried you may have missed out? Grab a seat, friend. Your Wyrd and Wonder bards are here to sing you the tales of the past week…

As ever, I’ll start with a big THANK YOU to everyone who added links to the master schedule (it really does make all the difference and we love you unreservedly for taking the trouble).

This week, I’ll be covering lists, discussions, random posts of joy and the read-along – pop over to Dear Geek Place for a round-up of the reviews, interviews and giveaways. Keep a weather eye open for the Wyrd and Wonder Challenge Flashbacks from Jorie Loves A Story!

Discussion posts

• Jessticulates sighed at the state of British publishing, asking where is Welsh fantasy and when it get its Outlander moment?
• Charlotte asked whether you have a favourite SFF publisher / imprint over at Mug Full of Books
• Mayri the BookForager and Lynn’s Books got under the skin of VE Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic in their buddy read discussion (Part 1 | Part 2)

Top Ten Tuesday

Last week was a cover art prompt, which lent itself nicely to fantasy subversion!

• Annemieke wondered why her fantasy books with nature on the cover are all so dark-hued over at A Dance with Books
• Liz focused on fantasy animals at Redd’s Reads
• Jessticulates applied an elemental theme to her picks

…and catching up on a link from last week, Natalie shared her ten most recent fantasy reads at Too Short To Read

Fun with Lists

…of course, we didn’t restrict our lists to Tuesday!

• Caitlin celebrated her favourite fantasy cover artists at Realms of My Mind
• I looked back at some of the fantasy debuts since last Wyrd and Wonder
• Tammy looked forward to some upcoming YA releases at Books, Bones & Buffy
• Maddalena considered the books and authors gathering virtual dust on her TBR at Space and Sorcery…
• …and Starr K looked at ten fantasy series she wants to start at WOSFF Women of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Book Tags

We do love a book tag – tag yourself in and join the fun if one takes your fancy!

• Rachel of A Bookworm’s Paradise introduced herself with Get To Know The Fantasy Reader
• The Bookish Memory Check created by Tanja at Where Stories Lie is heaps of fun – two adventurers jumped straight in to give it a whirl: Peat Long | imyril at There’s Always Room For One More
• Desert Island Reads – our new tag for the Wyrd and Wonder challenge – was one of this week’s prompts. Cue much deliberation to figure out what books to be stranded with by: Beneath A Thousand Skies | BookForager | Every Book A Doorway | Fran Laniado | The Green Tea Librarian | Lost in Storyland | The Quaint Book Nook | SFF Book Review | Thoughts Stained With Ink

The Wyrd and Wonder Challenge

Jorie will be taking a look at some of the amazing pics you’ve all been sharing on Litsy, Twitter and Instagram, but I’m including blog post responses added to the schedule this week for your blog-hopping delight.

• Day 1 | We’re going on an adventure: RM Andrews invited us to enter the world of the Citadel
• Day 2 | Pop this in your book bag of holding
  • Natalie picked her best reads from the past five years at Too Short To Read
  • Dianthaa Dabbles has a list of rec lists!
• Day 3 | #MapMonday
  • James of Alligators and Aneurysms explored the opportunities for emerging in fictional mapmaking
  • Natalie settled on the maps of The Priory of the Orange Tree at Too Short To Read
• Day 4 | I Never Knew My Father
  • Peat Long focused on five mythological examples of the foundling archetype
  • Lisa gave some fictional orphans some love at Way Too Fantasy
  • Catherine broadened the scope to look at fathers (absentee and otherwise) in Game of Thrones (after all, there’s more than enough orphans in Westeros) at Based on the Book
• Day 5 | I Can Do This All Day: Peat Long celebrated five great fantasy underdogs
• Day 6 | Fly My Pretties
  • Lisa had a plethora of winged fantasy creatures to share at Way Too Fantasy
  • Mervi chose two favourite dragons
• Day 7 | Fantasy From Around The World: Heather shared some recommendations inspired by cultures across 3 continents at Based On A True Story
• Day 8 | Currently reading
  • Dina is juggling all the books at SFF Book Review
  • Lisa stacked up an (over)ambitious weekend reading pile at Way Too Fantasy
• Day 9 | Mother’s Day: Heather led the cheers for the greatest fantasy mother of them all at Based On A True Story
• Day 10 | Mixed Feelings: Peyton took the opportunity to explore her feelings about certain fantasy tropes at Word Wilderness
• Day 12 | Desert Island Reads – I sneaked these in up in Book Tags!
• Day 13 | Had Me At Hello:
  • Maxine took this excuse to showcase her favourite fantasy covers at Maxine’s Obsessions
  • Based on the Book picked some favourite fictional meet cutes
• Day 14 | Fantasy Voices From Around The World: if you’ve been looking to read more broadly, the party is here to help!
  • Anouk of Time for Tales and Tea shared some recommendations and her TBR
  • How about Finnish SFF? Mervi took a look
  • The team at the Fantasy Hive have heaps of suggestions to get you started
  • Not a direct response, but highly relevant to our Friday theme – Annemieke summarised her progress on her SFF Countries Project at A Dance with Books, where she’s reading SFF set in and/or written around the world
• Day 16 | Page to screen:
  • Lex Lingua picked some fantasy favourites that would be awesome to see
  • Line chose some historical fantasy at First Line Reader
  • Jessticulates imagined animated adaptations
  • Molly celebrated books based on video games at Molly’s Book Nook (cheeky flip, I like it)
• Tagmash – we’re loving the mash-up challenge posts that combine multiple prompts
  • Amy at A Thousand Worlds (Day 1-3 | Day 4-10) | RM Andrews at Beneath A Thousand Skies | Fran Laniado | Lex Lingua |Nicole at Thoughts Stained With Ink | Zezee With Books (Day 1-8 | Day 9-15)

To feast your eyes on the photo responses, check out the #WyrdAndWonder tag on Twitter, Instagram and Litsy.

Other treasure

Maxine kicked off the week with a classic fantasy soundtrack for Music Monday and did a midweek WWW check-in at Maxine’s Obsessions. My co-host Lisa embarked on a livetweet of the Ghibli classic Princess Mononoke.

Caspian the Bibliophile Bastard shared his TBR for the week – and pointed us at the World of Warcraft Reading Through Azeroth readathon running in parallel with Wyrd and Wonder through May, which uses character creation reading prompts to help shape your TBR.

Ever been tempted to pick up a new skill based on your fantasy reading? Charlotte at Mug Full of Books has taken up whittling. This sounds amazing, although my infamous clumsiness means it’s probably a skill I should stick to admiring in others…

Read-along round-up

We’re half way through The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart now (schedule details can be found here), with weekly discussions of our impressions and theories:

• Week 1 | Book Forager | The Quaint Book Nook | Claire Scott livings | Dear Geek Place | Dianthaa Dabbles | Falling Letters | The Fantasy Hive | The Green Tea Librarian | Jared Lopatin |  Jorie Loves A Story | Peat Long | There’s Always Room For One More | Where Stories Lie| Word Wilderness 
• Week 2 | Book Forager | The Quaint Book Nook | The Fantasy Hive | The Green Tea Librarian | There’s Always Room For One More | Where Stories Lie

Want to join in? Grab a copy and get reading – or slide into the comments on our posts to share your thoughts. If you have read the book or read ahead – please, no spoilers for future weeks!

Housekeeping

Don’t see your post? If it isn’t in the master schedule, that would why. Pop it in and we’ll be sure to include it next week (likewise if you missed the cut off this week). The Wyrd And Wonder party is so big that it’s the only way to be sure we see all your posts although I do my best to add in anything I see fly past on Twitter.

Want to join the party? You’re absolutely welcome – just add your name to the party rolls and we’ll announce you next week. If you’d rather slide quietly into the conversation, just use the #WyrdAndWonder tag when you make a post on blogs and/or social media (…and – altogether now – add your links to the master schedule).

Note that only people who have officially signed up are eligible to enter the international party give-away at the end of the month!

IMAGE CREDIT: pegasus images by Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com

If you’d like to use the banners on your own blog, you’re welcome to download this year’s graphics. Don’t forget to credit the artist.