The Make Your Mythtaker readathon

What can I say, another month, another readathon? This month, I took part in Believathon II, and for June I plan to participate in something just as cool.

The Make Your Mythtaker readathon was designed by Ashleigh and Charlotte, the hosts of Myth-Take Reads – an online book club focusing on myth, folklore & fairy tale retellings in fantasy books. I’ve never actually participated in the book club, but I follow Ashleigh’s YouTube channel, A Frolic Through Fiction, and when she announced this readathon I knew I just had to take part. The idea is to pick a type of character you want to be from one of four groups – Warriors, the Royal Court, Rogues and Sorcerers. Within each group are four common characters from fantasy such as a knight, a monarch, a pirate or a faerie. For each character, there are four prompts to choose a book for. Once you’ve read those books in the specified order you will have “made” your myth-taker character. But each character also has a cross-over prompt, so you can for instance start as a jester at court then cross over the the oracle path with your third book and finish your journey by completing the final oracle prompt. Or, if you’re an overachiever like me, you can create a backstory for your character that mashes up three different paths and end up with a plan to read books for all four prompts in all three paths…

… which brings me to…

My Character

Image made using https://www.dolldivine.com/historical-witch-creator.php

Eloria Celest Teluma is the daughter of a powerful witch and a minor noble. At the age of five, she had a prophetic dream in which she foretold the death of the queen’s eldest son in a fall from a cliff. She and her mother immediately set out for the castle, but arrived too late to prevent the prince from leaving for his trip. The dream came true, and Eloria thus came to the attention of the royal family, who promptly installed her and her mother in a tower on the castle grounds. Now 21, Eloria spends most of her days making potions for the ladies of court and assisting with births. She has had two more prophetic dreams.

So, my Mythtaker has elements of three different fantasy characters: witch, courtier and oracle. Since Eloria is mainly a witch, that will be primary path and the one I shall be following first. Here are the prompts and my choices:

Read a book featuring an animal: The Bad Luck Lighthouse by Nikki Thorne. This is the Sequel to The Last Chance Hotel and features a talking cat named Nightshade.

Read a book with a foiled cover: A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer. Another sequel, I’ve wanted to read this since I finished A Curse So Dark and Lonely. The writing on the cover is foiled.

Read a book featuring a magic battle: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. Someone on Twitter told me this features a magic battle so I hope it does!

Read a book featuring occult themes: The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams. Coven.. witches. Occult. This is described as ” Adventures in Babysitting meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and I am excited for it!

Next up is courtier, since our Eloria is descended from a family of minor nobles and lives at court.

Read a book with a big cast of characters: Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb. Another sequel. The first book had loads of characters so I’m assuming this one does too. It’s also 675 pages, because apparently having a 12 book to-read list isn’t enough for me… I have to have long books in there as well?!

Read a book with one (or more) of the royal colours on the cover – red, purple or gold: The Land of Neverendings by Kate Saunders is mostly purple with some red.

Continue a series: I appear to be continuing several series, but for this prompt specifically I will be reading Everfound by Neal Shusterman and finally finishing the Skinjacker series. This one has 528 pages. Why do I do this to myself?!

Read a host favourite: Each of the hosts picked six favourites and I picked one from Charlotte’s list that I already had on my want-to-read list, The Twisted Tree by Rachel Burge.

Finally, I shall be fulfilling the prompts for the oracle path:

Go into a book blind: The River King by Alice Hoffman. I picked this book up from a free public bookcase for no other reason than I’ve heard of the author (but never read anything by her). I know literally nothing about it!

Read a book with a foiled cover: Twister by Juliette Forrest has foiling on its cover (which, by the way, is stunning!).

Read a book about books. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. I’ve had this book for ages and I’m not 100% sure on what it’s about, but there’s a library… and library implies books, yes?

Read a 5-star prediction: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. I’ve seen this praised a lot and I am hoping it will be a five-star read for me.

And that’s it. Here’s a picture of all my books together. It’s a big stack!

To find out more information about this readathon and see the prompts for the other characters, watch Ashleigh’s announcement video where she explains things so much better than me! You can also find loads of information on the Myth-Take Reads Twitter profile. And now I’m off to attempt to finish my current read so I can launch straight into #MakeYourMythtaker tomorrow!

Advertisement

Book challenge by Erin 12.0 reading plans

Good morning friends. I hope you’re all doing well and not letting the Christmas stress get to you too much. Today I have another book post for you, because honestly that’s the only thing I have the time or energy for right now! As you can see from the title, it’s the books I plan to read for Erin’s latest challenge, which starts on 1 January. I tried to make my list from books I already own, and I have something for all but one category.

5 points: Freebie – Read a book that is at least 200 pages. I chose all my other books first, then Jan challenged me to use a book for my freebie that was set in a different place to all the other books on my list. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie is technically set in fictional places, but is based on the Indian subcontinent so Jan said that was diverse enough ;-).

10 points: Read a book that starts with “I”. I went through all my unread books and would you believe I could only find one that starts with I? Into the Forest by Jean Hegland.

10 points: Read a book written by two or more authors. Beneath the Skin by Nicci French. Nicci French is actually two people, husband and wife Sean French and Nici Gerrard.

15 points: Read a book with a picture of a tree (or forest) on the cover. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson. My copy has trees on the cover… or tree trunks, but it’s clear it’s a forest.

20 points: Read a book with one of the following words in the title: who, what, when, where, why. The Man Who Didn’t Call by Rosie Walsh. I found this in a free bookcase a while ago and almost didn’t take it, but I’m glad I did because I didn’t seem to have any other unread books with one of those words in the title!

20 points: (selected by Vinay) – Read a book set in Africa. The Various Flavours of Coffee by Anthony Capella. I’ve had this book for years and didn’t even realise it was set in Africa until I read the synopsis when looking for a book for this challenge.

25 points: (selected by Darlene) – As a nod to our female family members, read a book that has one of the words in the title: mother(s), sister(s), wife/wives, grandmother (or variation of), daughter(s), niece(s), aunt(s). My Mum Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. I am assuming “mum” also counts!

30 points: (selected by Deborah) – Read a book that has won an Edgar award. I didn’t even know what the Edgar award was! So I looked it up on Wikipedia and went through the winners until I found one I own. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Rorsyth is a BBC Big Read book that I’ve been putting off.

30 points: (selected by Debdatta) – Read a “locked room mystery” book. I don’t actually have one on my shelves here, but I’m going to my dad’s for Christmas so hopefully I’ll be able to find the Agatha Christie books and use one of those (I believe she had a few locked room mysteries). If not this will be the only category I have to buy a book for.

35 points: Read a book from the lists given in Show Us Your Books faves from 2018. The lists are here. I chose Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone, which is on Kristen‘s list.

And that’s it. Those are my books. If you are taking part in the challenge, let me know what you’re reading (point me to your blog post if you have one). If you would like to join in, you can find all the information here. All books must be at least 200 pages, but the challenge runs from 1 January to 30 April 2020 so you’ll have plenty of time to read your books!