After passing a bit of time on the Twin Peaks, I and everyone else are now at the Wyrd and Wonder Journey’s End. These are sad times, my friends. But it was another round of a lovely time celebrating all things fantasy.
This post is a hard one for me to write. Past me had to magic-eight ball what my favorite Wyrd and Wonder Read would be. Since I’m on vacation at the moment, I took a lot of time to schedule an entire month’s worth of content. That planning also included this post. Since my Kindle was my oyster, I only had access to e-books–the horror. (Even though I really wanted to read my physical copy of HOW TO BECOME THE DARK LORD AND DIE TRYING by Django Wexler.)
Anyway, I’m just rambling now. Let me seer this and guess that DREADFUL by Caitlin Rozakis is my favorite Wyrd and Wonder read. And it’s a standalone, hooray! It came out in the US on May 28!
Synopsis
A sharp-witted, debut high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival – all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree.
It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.
It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is… you.
Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed.
But as he realizes that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be?
A high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, an evil wizard convocation, and a garlic festival. All at once. All in all, Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks.
And that’s a Wyrd and Wonder Journey’s End wrap! Expect my typical monthly wrap up and June TBR a bit later than usual!
I just grabbed a copy of Dreadful from this week’s buy a stranger a book day, so yay! I’m looking forward to it.
It’s a fun read! I’m definitely happy I was approved for an ARC of it. I like this subgenre of slightly snarky fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I’ll be curious to see if Dreadful is your “real” favorite???? In any case I definitely want to read it.
Out of the books I read that fall under Wyrd and Wonder, this didn’t end up being my fav, though I still enjoyed it! I actually really enjoyed the sequel to a trilogy I started last year; the book is called SHADOW QUEEN by Nicola Tyche, which is an indie pub.
Interesting prediction! I’ve seen your review for this but I’m not sure what else you read for Wyrd & Wonder. I’m still keen on checking this out but I’m also curious to see if future-you agrees about this being your favourite, lol.
So current self doesn’t agree with my prediction lol! Out of what I read for W&W, SHADOW QUEEN by Nicola Tyche ended up being my favorite. It’s the second book in a self published/indie trilogy that I’ve been impressed with so far! I immediately bought the final book after finishing book 2!
I’m very curious to know if your prediction was correct! I’m quite excited to finally get my hands on this book. My preorder will (hopefully) be arriving tomorrow. 🙂
Turns out I’m not a very good seer, lol! I still like this book, but out of what I read for Wyrd and Wonder, SHADOW QUEEN by Nicola Tyche ended up being my favorite. It’s the second book in a self published/indie trilogy. It’s got some romance and great political deliberations and world building. It was 550 pages but I basically binged it when I could haha.
I hope you ended up enjoying Dreadful. What was your favourite in the end?
My favorite fantasy book that I read during Wyrd and Wonder ended up being SHADOW QUEEN by Nicola Tyche. It’s the second book in a complete trilogy that came out last year. 🙂
Ooh I’ll have to look into it as I don’t think I’ve heard of it before.