Welcome to Wyrd & Wonder 2023

The blog has been quiet in the last few months, but don’t mistake that for a lack of excitement, especially because it’s now May which means that it’s time for Wyrd & Wonder! Your friendly neighbourhood mages are back for a sixth year to lead you off the path and tempt you with shiny books and dangerous quests. But don’t be scared, because you’re in good hands! For those who are new to this concept, Wyrd & Wonder is a month long celebration of all things fantasy, in the form of book reviews, book tags, photos, Twitter threads, film watching, and anything else you can think of. We’re not picky, as long as it’s fantastical! For more information you can see my earlier post Announcing Wyrd & Wonder 2023 – the whole event is very informal, and if you only manage a couple of posts, that’s okay too! Just don’t forget to Sign Up so we know that you’re joining us!

And don’t worry if you’re not sure where to start; we have a Master Schedule where everyone will be sharing what they post, and where you can find all of our prompts to give you post and photo ideas. We also have a Discord channel this year, so do get in touch with one of the hosts if you would like to be added, or comment your Discord username and one of us will invite you.

But who are these hosts? Well, there is myself here at the Book Nook, Annemieke of A Dance With Books, Imyril of There’s Always Room For One More, Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story, and Lisa of Dear Geek Place – between us we have conjured up readalongs, challenges, and giveaways, and we’ll be alongside you the whole way cheering for everything you do! Just don’t be alarmed if we occasionally pull a Gandalf and disappear for a few days here and there – we are simply going to see what lies ahead! Apart from us five, the way to get the most out of this month is seeing what everyone else is up to and chatting to them, and to make that easier we’ll also be compiling everyone’s posts at the end of each week so you can catch up if you miss anything!

Important Note: if you want to ensure your posts are included in the roundups please remember to add all your links to the Master Schedule – we will try and keep an eye out for stray posts but we are only human and there’s no guarantee we’ll catch anything that isn’t already on the list.

The Prompt Challenge

Every day we have a prompt to help you with your blog post ideas and to inspire you to get that perfect instagram shot, and they’re all broad enough to allow for much interpretation. However, if you want some inspiration or clarification, you can find more detailed descriptions here. We will be posting every day on instagram @wyrdandwonder, so be sure to follow us and use the hashtag so we can see and share all your wonderful pictures!

1. Best Laid Plans	17. Alchemy
2. Rewind	18. #ThrowbackThursday
3. Divination	19. Witchy Cover Art
4. Magic Location	20. Mythology
5. Fae	21. Magic Casters
6. Historical Fantasy	22. Magical Community
7. Favourite Spells	23. Bite-sized Fantasy
8. #MapMonday	24. Astrology
9. Most Recommended	25. Magical Item
10. Necromancy	26. Marks of Magic
11. Magic Swords	27. #StackSaturday
12. Djinn	28. Eye of Newt
13. Dark Academia	29. Magical Destiny
14. #ShelfieSunday	30. Typographic Magic
15. Current Read	31. Favourite W&W Read
16. Best Villains

Readalongs

Just like last year, we have not one but two readalongs for you to join!

Annemieke is hosting a readalong of The Bone Witch by Ron Chupeco, and you can find her announcement post here, along with a schedule and graphics.

Lisa is hosting Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, with help from our friends over at the Fantasy Hive! You can find all the information for this readalong over here!

My Plans

Though I love a readalong, and have been wanting to pick up both aforementioned books for ages, I won’t be joining in this year because I am very focused on mood reading and so even my TBR may not be what I stick to.

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I’ve actually already started Assassin’s Apprentice because I’m on a Robin Hobb binge, and the others I definitely hope to get to over the course of the month, but it depends how quickly Royal Assassin becomes available from my library… speaking of Robin Hobb, this Wyrd & Wonder is where I’ll be introducing the Backlist Review feature to my blog, where I review older titles that I read in the past but didn’t review. This is only for things I’ve already read, rather than any older title that I pick up. It’s just a little way for me to show some love to some past favourites, and this month I’m starting with The Liveship Traders trilogy.

I also plan to reprise last year’s genius invention of Eurovision Looks as Fantasy Book Covers (please join me, it’ll be fun), and The Bookforager and I already have ideas for this year’s Tag Team Tag (grab a friend and join us for this one too!). Other than that, I’m going to see what I have time for, but hopefully I’ll manage to write up at least one review a week (other than the backlist ones), and get a few prompt-based posts out. The end of the month may see me quieten down because I’ll be in Canada for my brother’s wedding, but I’ll definitely still be reading! There will also be another post from me soon announcing a giveaway, I’m just trying to sort out the logistics of it!

That’s it from me, and so all that is left to do is wish you a wonderful start to Wyrd & Wonder 2023 and say that I cannot wait to see how many books get added to my TBR by the end of the month!

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ARTWORK CREDIT

Portal by Tithi Luadthong. 

The gorgeous artwork has been licensed for use for this event online. You are welcome to use the banners on your Wyrd and Wonder posts, but please make no changes and always credit the artist(s).