Ten book series I want to read

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is ten series I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t, so get ready to scream at me in the comments for not having read your faves yet! TTT is a weekly meme hosted by the fabulous ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish, head over there and check out next week’s topic so you can join in the fun.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

First on my list is The Lunar Chronicles because it’s probably the biggest, most popular series I still haven’t read yet. I’m taking part in a buddy read of Cinder next month, so this one is due to be rectified very soon! Have you read The Lunar Chronicles? Would you recommend it? I’m not usually a sci-fi fan, but I can’t escape how well-loved this series is.

Lux by Jennifer L. Armentrout

This one has been on my list for absolute years, and I’ve heard the love interest is serious book boyfriend material, but I’ve just never gotten round to it. If you’ve read Lux, did you love it? It has great Goodreads reviews, but I worry it will be a little too Twilight for my taste…

Shades of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Now, this one I really, really need to rectify! A Conjuring of Light came out this year so I can finally binge the whole series, I just need to get my hands on it. I have a feeling I’ll be waiting a while if I request it from the library…

Monsters of Verity by Victoria Schwab

Continuing the Schwab love, I also need to read This Savage Song and Our Dark Duet. Like, immediately. Which Schwab series would you recommend I read first?

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

I haven’t read any Marie Lu yet, but I hear all good things, so this is right up there on my list. It’s said to be a villain origin story, which sounds amazing (Vicious by V.E. Schwab is another villain origin story on my list) and it has a pretty high rating on Goodreads, so I’ll check this one out soon too.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

I’m not usually a fluffy contemporary girl (in case you didn’t notice from all the fantasy on this list!) but I’ve seen so many people flailing over this series and how cute and adorable it is, how diverse and amazing it is, so I put it straight on my TBR. This is another trilogy where the final book was released recently, so I won’t have to worry about a long wait between books!

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

Set in 19th Century Scotland? Yes, please! The Falconer sounds amazing, and I follow the author on Twitter and she’s just fabulous, so I’m dying to get round to this series soon.

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

I don’t even have an excuse for not starting this series, I own Rebel of the Sands and have Traitor to the Throne on hold at my library. I’ll definitely read this one in the next few months!

Gentleman Bastard by Scott Lynch

This is billed as part Robin Hood, part Ocean’s Eleven – how good does that sound? Living near Sherwood Forest, I have a soft spot for anything even remotely Hoody. Anti-heroes are definitely my jam, just ask Kaz Brekker. I’m definitely going to see if my library has this now…

Penryn & the End of Days by Susan Ee

This is another that has been on my list for years, and I’m slightly worried might not be my thing anymore. My tastes have changed quite a bit since Fallen and Hush, Hush. If you’ve read this, would you recommend it now?

Time for you to sound off in the comments – have you read any of these? Loved them? Hated them? Pop your TTT post links in the comments too, I need more series recs to add to my vertiginous TBR!

Lyndsey

Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Magge Stiefvater Review

I am really burning through The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater! I’ve already downloaded The Raven King and as soon as I finish listening to Nevernight by Jay Kristoff I’ll be getting stuck into the series finale.

If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, you can check out my no spoiler reviews here: The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves.

TL;DR Gansey is still looking for Glendower, Adam is still proud, Ronan is still angry, and Blue is still independent. Maura is missing, the Grey Man is back and his boss, Greenmantle, is on the hunt for the Greywarren (now aware that it is a who and not a what).

At the end of The Dream Thieves, Maura left a note for Blue to say she was going looking for Artemus – Blue’s father, who disappeared while Maura was pregnant and hasn’t been seen since. Now Maura is missing too, underground in the caves beneath Cabeswater.

Persephone is still helping Adam to master his powers and strengthen the ley line. His bargain with Cabeswater is effecting him more and more, making him darker and moodier, although he has learnt how to interpret its attempts at communication, which are often terrifying manifestations and visions.

“For so long, he’d wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam.”

Ronan is still trying to figure out a way to save his mother, and all the other dream things that fell to sleep when his father died. He’s getting closer, his mother is now living in Cabeswater, where she seems to function again. Unfortunately, his dreams are encroaching more and more on his daily life, forcing him to sleep in his car rather than endanger Gansey by dreaming up a hornets’ nest inside Monmouth.

“Ronan was angry-every one of his emotions that wasn’t happiness was anger.”

Ronan and Adam spend a lot more time together in this book, working together on secret plans and using their connections to Cabeswater to try and fix the problems that the gang are battling – namely Greenmantle and his obsession with the Greywarren.

“They regarded each other. Adam fair and cautious, Ronan dark and incendiary. This was Ronan at his most truthful.”

Blue and Gansey’s relationship develops really nicely in this book, they continue to grow closer despite the obvious barriers – the fact that Gansey will die within twelve months and Blue will kill her true love if she kisses him. So, small, surmountable obstacles then.

“Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn’t all-encompassing, that wasn’t blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she’d had this kind, she didn’t want the other.”

Colin Greenmantle and his wife, Piper, are absolutely brilliant villains – funny, snarky and completely immoral. Colin replaces the baddie from book one, Barrington Whelk, as the boys’ Latin teacher at Aglionby, which leads to some hilarious exchanges between Colin and Ronan in Latin. Piper is a fabulously self-serving, sharp-tongued, blonde bombshell with a seriously dysfunctional moral compass. Their relationship is just fascinating, I don’t think I’ve ever loved a couple of villains as much as the Greenmantles.

“She drifted towards the bedroom, on her way to have a bath or take a nap or start a war.”

The other star of this book is Jesse Dittley, a man who’s family farmhouse sits on top of a cave they suspect Glendower might be buried in. As it turns out, the caves are cursed and eventually kill every member of Dittley’s family, including his father and grandfather. He finds Blue’s short stature fascinating and seems to be permanently shouting.

“I AM JESSE DITTLEY. DID YOU NEVER EAT YOUR GREENS?”

We also get to know Malory, Gansey’s British friend, much more in this book. He travels over to Henrietta, accompanied by his emotional support dog, and helps the gang find the caves where the believe Glendower to be hidden.

“Malory, unhopeful: “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”

Jesse: “DO YOU WANT EARL GREY OR DARJEELING?”

Malory: “Oh, sweet heavens!””

I listened to Blue Lily, Lily Blue in two days (I was doing a lot of decorating and gardening due to us moving house next month) and I enjoyed it slightly more than The Dream Thieves. There are a couple of songs in this book, one being the moody and traditional Blue Lily, Lily Blue, the other being the catchy and annoying Murder Squash. I love the layers of art in these books, Maggie Stiefvater is a musician as well as a writer and always creates music for her books – one of the treats of listening to the audio books is not only hearing these songs aloud, but hearing Maggie playing her own music at the beginning and end of each book.

One of my favourite things about The Raven Cycle is the slow development of romantic relationships. The obvious one is Blue and Gansey, who aren’t able to be together because of the aforementioned curses, but also because they don’t want to hurt Adam, who liked Blue first. In this book we finally start to see some hint of romance between Ronan and Adam (that might be a spoiler if you know literally nothing about The Raven Cycle, but if you spend any time at all online – especially Tumblr – then you’ll already know, as I did, that they get together).

It’s been hinted at very subtly throughout the series that Ronan is gay – by subtly, I mean it’s not openly stated and he isn’t constantly eyeing up guys, it is suggested that he feels something stronger than friendship for Gansey in the beginning, but that feeling is obviously not reciprocated. It isn’t at any point (that I noticed) suggested that Adam is gay, or bisexual, until this book, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how their relationship develops in The Raven King.

I gave Blue Lily, Lily Blue 4.5 stars, because it was a more gripping read than The Dream Thieves and had less elements I wasn’t a fan of – if anything, the only thing I didn’t love was Malory, I’m not sure his presence really added anything to the story. The tension and suspense is still present in this book, and I am dying to seeing how it all pans out in the final book.

Have you read The Raven Cycle? Which of the four books was your favourite? I’ve seen online that a lot of readers weren’t happy with the finale so I’m slightly apprehensive, but I really need to see what happens to these characters now, I’m so invested!

Lyndsey

I am a member of the Book Depository affiliate program, so if you click through and buy any of the books mentioned in this blog I might make a little commission, but I am not paid to review books and all reviews are my own opinions!

Writing an epilogue

If you haven’t read my post on writing prologues you might want to pop over and give that a read – you can even read the original version of my prologue for The Fair Queen from my very first draft!

Epilogues, like prologues, are a hotly debated topic amongst writers. Some love them, some hate them. But they can add an additional layer to your work, when used correctly.

Let’s have a look at how to, and how not to, write an epilogue.

As I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, I’ve used a prologue and an epilogue in my current work-in-progress. If you read my post about writing your story’s ending, you might recognise the circular ending tradition. This is where your story ends in the same place as it begins, or the ending brings in elements that are reminiscent of your beginning.

I’ve used an epilogue to bring my story full circle in the sense that it is framed by a prologue and epilogue, each with a time jump (eighteen years earlier in the prologue, three months later in the epilogue). Elements from both the prologue and chapter one reappear in the epilogue to really tie it into the story.

I’ve always hoped to turn The Fair Queen into a series, with at least two, maybe three books. However, in my research into querying agents and publishers, I discovered that debut authors rarely get series offers, so it’s best to wrap your story up at the end in a way that will satisfy readers if there’s no sequel, but express to the agent/publisher that it could extend into a series.

With that in mind…

Dos and don’t of writing an epic epilogue:

Don’t

use an epilogue to tie up loose ends that should have been tied off in your story’s climax and following scenes
tack on a lot of unnecessary information that your reader won’t care about, if it doesn’t add anything to the story, cut it
leave your readers with more questions than you answer, you should be concluding the story rather than setting up a sequel (a few hints are fine if a sequel is definitely forthcoming)

Do

skip forward in time if appropriate, revealing the outcomes of events at the end of the story further into the future
write your epilogue from another character’s POV if your MC dies in the story’s conclusion, or if you intend to write a sequel from this other character’s POV
explain the outcomes for any much loved secondary characters who may not have been involved in the final scenes of the story’s climax

Your epilogue shouldn’t be dead weight dragging the ending of your novel down. Sometimes an exciting, action-filled climax requires a steady finish to give a satisfying end, but other times your story is best left off after the main action concludes. This is something your Critique Partners and Beta Readers can help you with, if they see the epilogue as unnecessary then it should probably be cut. If you absolutely love it leave it in, but be prepared for an editor to tell you to cut it later.

So there you have it, a few basic tips on whether your story needs an epilogue and how to make sure it serves your story and doesn’t end up getting cut later.

What are your thoughts on epilogues? Do you skip them? Love them? Do you have any advice on writing them? Leave me your tips in the comments!

Lyndsey