It’s Fantasy May, and as a fantasy author, I feel like writing a tribute to the genre I love so much is as necessary as writing the words for my next book. But creating another entry in this blog feels like adding a new, pristine tome to an otherwise forgotten, dusty library. Of course, my blog here is much more a tiny bundle of papers than it is a library, but I’ve always found myself fond of magical libraries.

This isn’t my first blog, nor is it my first abandoned, although of all my past blogging adventures, it is both the one I consider the most important, and thus, was abandoned the quickest. But, I won’t talk about all that today.

Today, or rather, eleven days ago, when I should have posted this, was the start of 2020’s month-long celebration of the fantasy genre and all it entails. Most days, I’m quite content to keep all my strange thoughts to myself, but in an effort to clean up this dusty old stack of papers and turn it into a library, I’ve decided to make a few posts about all the things I love about fantasy and the books within that vast genre label.

 With that, I’ll be starting with a basic to-be-read list for the entire month.

Firstly, I have the Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima, which includes The Demon King, The Exiled Queen, The Grey Wolf Throne, and The Crimson Crown.

Much to my surprise, I’ve already devoured these books earlier in the month. This was a strange experience for me, since I wasn’t expecting to like them much at all (you might ask why I bothered attempting to read them in that case, but let’s not worry about that, shall we?) and have been slowly working to distance myself from the YA genre.

But although these books weren’t perfect and fell into the many YA pitfalls that I often struggle with, there was more than enough good in them to draw me into the world and not want to leave.

Next up, I have the Arcane Acension series by Andrew Rowe, which includes Sufficiently Advanced Magic and On the Shoulders of Titans.

I’ve already finished book #1 and have started on book #2 today. I quite enjoyed the first book, despite it’s strange quirks and my constant attempts to edit it as I read along, and I didn’t learn that it was self-published and the winner of the Reddit r/fantasy Stabby Award for Best Independent Novel (2017) until after I finished reading it. Needless to say, I think it’s quite a good book for anyone who likes genres similar to LitRPGs, anime, and video games in general.

I will also be buddy reading the Strange the Dreamer series by Laini Taylor, which includes Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares, with my friend Kriti Khare from the Armed With a Book blog.

We’ve almost finished Strange the Dreamer already, and it’s honestly an easy addition to my list of all-time favourite books, even though I haven’t finished it yet. It’s so magical and beautiful and amazing. I won’t say much about it now, since I’m sure I’ll be talking about it lots when I’m done!

I’ve also got plans to read Spin the Dawn by Elizabith Lim and Wicked Fox by Kat Cho later in the month, which have both been on my TBR for quite some time now.

Since I suspect I’ll eat up all of those pledged books very quickly, I’ve also got my eyes on reading The Phoenix Empress by K. Arsenault Rivera, Dreaming of Zhou Gong by Traci Harding, and The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman.

Maybe I’ll surpass those books and read more than I could anticipate this month, or maybe I won’t quite make it through all of them. For me, what matters is the exciting anticipation of more books…

Are you participating in fantasy May? If so, what book are you most looking forward to reading this month?

—Erynn