Happy May Day – and welcome to a month of Wyrd and Wonder when an enthusiastic party of bookworms, gamers and other genre fans celebrate the fantastic. Wyrd and Wonder means tripping over blogs where we rave about our favourite fantasy books, yell about movies and shows, share the games setting our imagination alight. Sure, we enjoy fantasy all year round – but in May we do it together. So, what will I be getting up to?

We depart the tavern with over 40 adventurers seeking adventures and keen to tell you all about the amazing stories they have encountered recently. This year’s theme (yes, we do themes now) is the broad and generous gift of magic and the magical in all its forms, but we’re not here to pin you down – you might find magic in mouthwatering descriptions of food or the evocation of place. If low fantasy is calling to you this month, we still want to hear about it!

Meet the party

So who is setting out on our month-long quest to hunt the finest fantasy?

An epic welcome to the adventurers who join us for the first time this year: Nic of Dragon Rambles, Tiffany at Gazer of Books, Rebecca of Powder and Page, Azrah of Quintessentially Bookish, Anita of Series Book Lover and Janette of Wicked Witch’s Blog.

A warm welcome back to our Wyrd and Wonder veterans: Lauren of Always Me, Celeste of A Literary Escape, Heather of Based On A True Story, Mogsy of The Bibliosanctum, Tammy of Bones, Books & Buffy, Jen of The Book Den, Mayri the Bookforager, Nicole of Bookwyrm Knits, Calmgrove, the Captain of The Captain’s Quarters, Eustacia of Eustea Reads, Sia of Every Book a Doorway, Giulia of Every Fandom Has A Story, Vanessa of Fangirl Faction, the Fantasy Hive, Rachael the Green Tea Librarian,  Lila of Hardcover Haven, Calypte of Little Frog Scribbles, Loki’s Library, Athena of One Reading Nurse, Starr of Pages and Procrastination, Timy of Queen’s Book Asylum, Caitlin of Realms of My Mind, Maddalena of Space and Sorcery, author Jennifer Silverwood, Susy of Susy’s Cozy World, Anouk of Time for Tales and Tea, Natalie of Too Short To Read, Kirsten of Video Games As Lit, Peyton of Word Wilderness, and Zezee with Books.

Last of all, a big cheer for my fantastic co-hosts Annemieke of A Dance with Books, Ariana of The Book Nook, Lisa of Dear Geek Place and Jorie Loves a Story!

Want to join us?

It’s not too late (it’s never too late)! Grab a book bag of holding and your pocket handkerchief and join us – Wyrd & Wonder is a chilled event and we welcome anybody who wants to take part. Sign up to officially join the party, hop into the comments and chat along, or write a post and add it to the Schedule so we can swing by to chat about it. Use the #WyrdAndWonder tag across social media to join the conversation – although if you want us to boost your signal, please also add your links to the Schedule as your faithful hosts have not yet mastered the magic of being everywhere at once.

Thought you were in the party but don’t see your name here? You might not have ‘officially’ signed up – get your name on the list and we’ll include a shout out to you in next week’s Quest Logs.

What to watch out for

Wyrd & Wonder is what you make it, but we’ve lined up a heap of suggestions if you’re looking for ideas. You can tackle our Wyrd and Wonder prompt challenge or weekly Fantastic Fives; and as usual we have two read-alongs this year: Lisa and The Fantasy Hive will be jumping aboard Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and Annemieke invites you to discover the magic of The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. The read-along formats will be weekly discussions of set chapters to give everyone time to reach a similar point in the story – the first week’s questions will be going up on Wednesday 3rd May.

In general, expect a month of reviews, recommendations, interviews, live tweets, giveaways, discussions, book photography, memes, book tags and gentle fun – but at heart, Wyrd and Wonder is a personal adventure through the realms of fantasy so honestly? Do whatever you like.

Wyrd and Wonder is intended to be a chilled-out event for sharing our enthusiasm with like-minded people around a virtual tavern. Going in search of adventure is one choice; staying by the fire and enjoying everyone’s stories (aka hanging out in the comments) is still being part of the party! We’ll happily read and boost everything you post, but there’s no obligation except to be respectful and to share anything you enjoy.

You can find Wyrd and Wonder on Twitter and Instagram, where we’ll do some signal boosting and share our favourite contributions to the Challenge throughout the month.

Quest Logs

As always, there will be weekly Quest Log posts rounding up the party’s blog posts across the previous week. I’m passing the baton to Ariana at The Book Nook this year, so she will be sharing the honours with Lisa at Dear Geek Place each week.

The Master Schedule is our crystal ball for keeping track of everything going on so we can boost the signal in the Quest Logs. In past years, we often added links to the Logs that we’d seen on Twitter – given recent changes, we’re less likely to find your content by accident this year so if you want your posts to be included in the Quest Logs, please remember to add your links to the schedule. If your links go into the schedule after the Logs have been composed for the week, don’t worry – your link will get included in the following week’s Logs.

Wyrd and Wonder Challenge: Best Laid Plans

Host Annemieke has come up with a prompt for each day of May for those of you seeking inspiration for posts (or reading). Embracing the philosophy that you can do as much or as little as suits you best, I’ll be tackling just a few of the Challenge prompts over the month as blog or Tumblr posts, starting with today’s Best Laid Plans aka my Wyrd & Wonder TBR! I’m dedicating 2023 to mood reading so consider this as aspirational at best as I may decide last minute to go in a completely different direction, but at the moment it’s looking like ARCs all month:

• A Portrait In Shadow – Nicole Jarvis’s historical fantasy of the Italian Renaissance but with magical art is my current read, so watch out for a review later in the month
• The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan is a portal fantasy set in Inquisition-era Spain and inspired by Jewish folklore. I’ve got a gorgeous ARC to dive into later this month (and keep your eyes peeled – we might have a giveaway for you coming soon!)
• Rebecca Zahabi’s The Hawkling is the sequel to last year’s The Collarbound, an epic fantasy of magic, strength of mind and deadly secrets. As rebellion reaches the gates of the Nest, I’m rooting for the magic-immune iwdan, although I suspect I’m setting myself up for tears
• I’m wildly excited that Sumerian mythology has joined the current round of retellings, so Inanna by Emily H Wilson is highly likely to get a look in so I can cheer on my wise, crafty goddess of love, war, law and politics (let’s just call her the queen of everything) and her devoted handmaiden Ninshubur
• On audio, I’ve got The Way The Light Bends by Lorraine Wilson to haunt me with its liminal tale of grief and the sacrifices we’ll make for those we love… and if I get that far, I’ve got the second season of either Dark Heights or The Dark Tome queued up

What will you be reading during Wyrd and Wonder?