Top Ten Tuesday #214

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, mine has been relatively quiet, my parents were away so I spent the week looking after the animals. I did get to go to a book signing on Saturday though, it was Derek Landy’s Cambridge stop for the new Skulduggery Pleasant book. It wasn’t as much fun going to a signing on my own, but it was great meeting Derek again and I got a suitably awkward photo, as is mine and Hannah’s tradition when meeting Derek.

Anyway, since it’s Tuesday, I have another Top Ten Tuesday for you all, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a pretty easy one, we’re talking Books From Our Favourite Genre, so naturally I’ll be talking about my Top Ten Favourite Fantasy Books. Since most of my favourites come from a series, I’m just going to be talking about my favourite book in each series, but if a series is on here, take it as me recommending the entire series and not just that specific book, as they will not all be the first book in their respective series (in fact, most won’t be)! Also I am not going to be able to keep this limited to ten, there are too many brilliant fantasy books that I love for that!

1. A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1)-VE Schwab

I love all of the books in this trilogy, but this first one will always be the most special to me, because it introduced me to the wonderful world that Schwab created and some of my favourite characters of all time, Lila, Rhy and Kell and of course it was the first VE Schwab book that I ever read. And it’s also just a brilliant book, so well written and has that wonderful immersive quality that I love in fantasy novels, you fall into it and just don’t want to come back out.

2. Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)-Leigh Bardugo

This was the Leigh Bardugo novel that set the bar for all the others for me, it was the first one I read and it was just so brilliant. Such a well crafted heist, a brilliant cast of characters with such a fun, and incredibly banter filled friendship and a world that I really loved. I found a new favourite author from this book, so naturally it had to go on my list of all time favourite fantasy novels.

3. The Raven King-(The Raven Cycle #4)-Maggie Stiefvater

Again, I love this whole series, but the final book just had a little something extra for me. It’s the final book, so you get the answers you’ve been waiting for the entire series. The characters are what really make this book (and series) for me though, they have such a wonderful friendship and they grow so much over the course of the series, so it was great to see that all come to the fore in the final book.

4. The Song Rising-(The Bone Season #3)-Samantha Shannon

I liked the first two books of the series, but this instalment was definitely the most exciting for me. It’s shorter, so everything feels a lot more tightly plotted, Paige’s character development is brilliant, the world is expanded so much and it feels like a real turning point in the series: so far the action has all happened in the UK, but as of the next book, we’re finally going to get to see Scion citadels in Europe which I’m super excited for!

5. Heir of Fire-(Throne of Glass #3)-Sarah J Maas

My ratings have been kind of up and down for this series, but this one was definitely an up for me. I loved Celaena’s journey toward healing in this book and really coming into herself and we get the introduction of the witches, which I know a lot of people felt iffy about but I personally loved, Manon is the best! Much like the above book, Heir of Fire also felt like a real turning point in the Throne of Glass series.

6. The House of Hades-(Heroes of Olympus #4)-Rick Riordan

The House of Hades is not just my favourite Heroes of Olympus book, it is quite possibly my favourite Rick Riordan book as well. We get so much brilliant Percabeth content in this, with them in Tartarus, which was quite frankly what we deserved after the brutal ending of Mark of Athena, Hazel comes into her powers more, we have Leo and Calypso for the first time & of course there’s Nico coming to terms with his identity. There’s just so much great stuff packed into this book, it feels far shorter than it’s 500+ page count!

7. The Last Olympian-(Percy Jackson and the Olympians #5)-Rick Riordan

It’s honestly tough to choose a favourite Percy Jackson book, I read them all in a matter of weeks in 2010 and loved them all so much but I think if I had to choose I’d go with this one. It’s such a satisfying final book in the series, you get the culmination of the prophecy that’s been building for the past four books, the final battle with the Titans and of course, the official start of the Percabeth relationship which is built up throughout the books.

8. Chainbreaker-(Timekeeper #2)-Tara Sim

I love the entire Timekeeper trilogy, but I think the second book is my favourite. We get to go to Victorian India, which is super cool, Daphne and Colton have brilliant and emotional development arcs in this book, the world is developed so much from the first book, there were lots of brilliant twists and turns and an incredible, gut punching ending.

9. Last Stand of Dead Men (Skulduggery Pleasant #8)-Derek Landy

I had to have at least one Skulduggery Pleasant book on this list, and I decided on this one as it is definitely up there as one of my favourite books of the series. It’s so fast paced and action packed, we get to see all of the Dead Men (Skulduggery and his group of friends together) and it’s the start of the climax of the Darquesse storyline which has been building since the fifth book.

10. The Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4)-JK Rowling

Of course I had to have at least one Harry Potter book on this list and this one is my favourite. You have the Triwizard tournament, Voldemort’s return, everything gets a bit darker and more dangerous, again it feels like a turning point book, which apparently I really love!

11. Legendary-(Caraval #2)-Stephanie Garber

Caraval has become one of my favourite series in recent years and having now read all three books, I can definitely say that this one is my favourite, I loved Tella as the narrator, the pace was a lot more even than in the first book, there was a lot more worldbuilding with the Fates and everything being introduced and there were a lot of brilliant twists and turns as well.

12. Children of Blood and Bone-(Legacy of Orisha #1)-Tomi Adeyemi

Another of my favourite fantasy reads from last year, this book took a lot of recognisable tropes and made them feel fresh because of the diverse cast of characters (yay for an entirely POC world!) and fantastic world building. I can’t wait to see what is to come in the sequel when it finally comes out at the end of the year.

13. Rebel of The Sands (Rebel of The Sands #1)-Alwyn Hamilton

I loved the mix of Arab and the Wild West in this book, they worked together really well. It was also such a fast paced, exciting novel, I couldn’t get enough of it and I though Amani was a brilliant heroine.

14. To Kill A Kingdom-Alexandra Christo

The Little Mermaid has never been one of my favourite fairytales (or rather Disney movies!) but Alexandra Christo’s dark twist on it made it feel fresh and new, I loved the heroine Lira who was so vicious but also grapples with her humanity because she’s not supposed to feel anything for the people she kills and I thought the slow burn enemies to lovers romance was brilliant.

15. King of Fools-(The Shadow Game #2)-Amanda Foody

I thought the first Shadow Game book was good, but this one just took things to a whole new level. There’s so much happening, twists and turns round every corner, brilliant character development especially for Enne, so many awesome women, great new characters and an ending that punched me in the gut.

16. Enchantee-(Enchantee #1)-Gita Trelease

This was one of my first reads of the year and it was so good! I loved the whole concept of magic in the French Revolution anyway, but this book merged them so well. I loved the main character Camille, the fact that her bond with her sister was so central to this book and Trelease’s wonderfully visual writing that made me feel like I’d been dropped in the middle of the court of Versailles.

So that’s it for my supersized list this week! I know I went a bit overboard, but it was impossible to narrow down my favourite fantasy novels more than this (in fact I could have added several more!). Have you read any of these books? Did you like them? Let me know in the comments!

That’s all for this week, I’ll be back next week with a new Top Ten Tuesday, we’re going to be talking about our Unpopular Bookish Opinions. I’ll be honest I’m not sure how many of these I have, but we’ll see if I can come up with enough to make next week’s list! In the meantime, I’m going to have a Writing Corner post up this week and hopefully I might start my new Book/Movie comparison feature and that’s something I’ve been wanting to do for ages.