The Moon Also Rises: Wyrd & Wonder 2026

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I have borrowed my post title from the music album by Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane, because it is both fantastic and fantastical, which feels very appropriate for Wyrd and Wonder! In case you couldn’t guess from the images, this year we are embracing all the beautiful phases of the moon, because May will have not one but two full moons! For some this will probably mean stories of shapeshifters and moon spirits, but I will probably take a vaguer approach and my feeling at the moment is that I will be spending most of it in the world of Celtic and Arthurian stories (I am halfway through Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy right now). If you are reading this and have no idea what I’m talking about right now, do have a look at my intro to Wyrd and Wonder from last month, and then come back and read on about all the things we have in store for May!

Daily Prompt Challenge

Probably the most fun and dynamic element of our month is the prompt challenge, and I have to say that Annemieke was the driving force for these particular ones, she did a great job! You can follow the order or pick and choose; you can use them to inspire blog posts or your TBR, or even use them as a creative prompt!

PromptHint
1. Set Your PathShare your TBR
2. WerewolfWerewolves, awoo! Or: gothic tales, big shaggy dogs
3. TransformationsFantastic Five: tales of change, not shapeshifters
4. That’s Not a MoonStar Wars Day (moons that are more than appears)
5. BondedTop Ten Tuesday: soul mates or bonded mates
6. EclipseOvershadowed/underrated books
7. ReflectionsRetellings
8. Cast a Long ShadowFavourite fantasy since last Wyrd & Wonder
9. Half Moon in Aquarius Astrology. Or: tales of cleansing and forgiveness
10. Moon FlowersFantastic Five: lunar deities
11. KelpieWatery shifters. Or: cautionary tales, Celtic fantasy
12. Flower MoonTop Ten Tuesday: cover art featuring the (full) moon
13. Crescent OfferingsNovellas or short stories
14. WendigoWendigo. Or: possession, malevolent spirits
15. Current Read
16. New MoonThemes of rebirth. Or: the start of a new narrative arc
17. Dark SideFantastic Five: black magic, witches and monsters
18. EarthshineDebut or new-to-you authors you would like to read
19. Not at the FrontTop Ten Tuesday: sidekicks or sequels
20. IlluminationDuality of light and dark, light magic, or cover art
21. BansheeBanshee or tales featuring omens of death
22. Light the WayUpcoming releases to look forward to
23. Half FullHopeful / optimistic reads
24. SkinwalkersFantastic Five: shapeshifters
25. Children of LirShapechanging curses and folkloric tales
26. Out of This WorldTop Ten Tuesday: fave books by your fave authors
27. Bare ChestedHave fun with cover art or reinterpret as you wish
28. KitsuneKitsune or shifting tricksters. Or: morally grey
29. CelestialA divine story. Or: space fantasy
30. Blue MoonA character who grows. Or: a rare book
31. FavouritesFantastic Five: favourite things this month

Fantastic Fives

You may have noticed (or know from previous years) that each week there is a ‘Fantastic Five’ which just gives you an extra excuse to pull out all the lists and show off your books! This time they are:

Transformations: We’ll start the month reflecting on stories about changes – to people, to places, to ideas, to culture. This one is wide open to interpretation – faerie glamours, character arcs, rags to riches, renewal / rebuilding, social / cultural upheaval, places that are only accessible under certain moons, it all goes here. Save your shapeshifters though, we’ll be looking at them later this month.

Moon flowers: Moon flowers were sacred to Selene, Greek goddess of the moon. Lunar deities are common across the world and in fiction – who are your favourites?

Dark side: Time to dive into stories about things that roam the darkest nights. Think black magic, wicked characters and unearthly monsters.

Shapeshifters: It’s shapeshifter week! If you haven’t been sharing daily prompts now’s the time to share your favourite shifters or shifter stories. If you have, it’s time to look for less well known shifters and their stories.

Favourites: On the last day of the month, let’s have five of your favourite things from this W&W.

To see for yourself some of the suggestions from the prompts, or get ahead on the planning, do check out our Master Schedule, where you can add a link to each of your posts throughout the month to ensure that when we do our weekly Quest Logs we can share the love with all the other participants!

Readalongs

Mostly things are still up in the air, and you are more than welcome to start your own buddy reads for the month, but it looks like we will definitely be doing a buddy read of When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. Annemieke is hosting it, and I will be joining in.

Now, all that is left is to Sign Up! *chanting* Join us, join us, join us, join us! We also have a Discord server – OtherWorlds which is active all year round. If you want to know more about Discord, please sign up and comment on this or other hosts’ posts and we can get you added!

And don’t forget to always credit the artwork.

ART CREDITS

Moon magic by Varvara Gorbash

The gorgeous artwork has been licensed for use as part of Wyrd & Wonder. You are welcome to use the banners on your Wyrd & Wonder posts, but please make no changes. The artist has indicated AI was not used to create this image.

Sign Up to Wyrd & Wonder 2026!

Published on by azucchi4 Comments

Ahem… testing, testing, is this thing still on? Yes, this is my first time blogging since October, and it’s feeling a little dusty in here. I may do a post soon to update on what I’ve been reading and what’s been keeping me busy, but today I have far more exciting things to talk about: It is just over a month until our annual Wyrd and Wonder celebration! As you can see from our beautiful banners, we are going for a moon theme this year, because the 1st of May is a full moon and we couldn’t pass up that opportunity! But, for those of you who may not know, let’s take a step back and explain what I am talking about…

What is Wyrd & Wonder

Wyrd & Wonder is an online event taking place throughout the entire month of May, and it celebrates all things fantasy – books are the main event, but we’re not picky! Bring your films, TV series, video games, artwork, music and anything else you can think of, as long as it has that otherworldly twist to it. It’s an amazing opportunity to just revel in fantasy fiction by sharing our recommendations, book reviews, deep-dives, and book tags across blogs, Discord, and social media posts! It’s also a great way to get to know likeminded people, and most of my bookish friends come from participating in the event. It’s a great community to be a part of, and the most welcoming bunch of people I’ve ever met!

Continue reading “Sign Up to Wyrd & Wonder 2026!” →

Here come the dark and stormy nights

Published on by azucchi8 Comments

It’s October, my favourite month of all! The mist begins to rise in the valleys as I drive over the hills to work, there’s a freshness in the air that always wakes me up, and the trees have truly started to turn into a riot of colour. Of course, the days are growing darker too, which isn’t always great for morale but is the perfect time for us to light some candles, settle into a cosy chair, and get lost in a story. Which is why, starting on October 19th is our annual Spooktastic Reads mini event, a bit of a companion to Wyrd and Wonder but with a focus on the darker side of fantasy. It’s a very relaxed event, with no sign up and as much involvement as you’d like!

Continue reading “Here come the dark and stormy nights” →

Quarterly Check-In: September 2025

Published on by azucchi16 Comments

Hello to anyone still out there! It has been a few months since I opened WordPress or thought much about blogging, but I have been thinking about my fellow bloggers and have missed interacting with you all! It’s been a busy time for me… my daughter has been dealing with a chronic illness that involved lots of hospital visits and a lot of energy gone into getting her to take various medications, on top of the fact that toddlers are just a lot of work anyway (but still a delight)! Then in July I started a new job, working in a Christian organisation that has allowed me to contribute to something I really care about, though I do miss my days in the bookshop sometimes! And no longer being a bookseller means that it’s easy to lose track of the book world, and I am definitely out of touch with new releases! And so here we are, with my first blog post since May, and the hope that as I settle into the routine of this new quarter I can be a bit more present again. I do have a few recent reads I’d like to share reviews of soon, but to bridge the gap (and because I’m currently watching a rugby match) I am going to start with a look back on what the last few months have been for me reading wise.

Continue reading “Quarterly Check-In: September 2025” →

Voyage of the Damned Readalong: Weeks 2 & 3

Published on by azucchi1 Comment

Hey folks! Apologies for my absence, I’ve had a lot of family stuff going on in the last week and so I haven’t been able to comment on everyone’s posts, or set questions as intended. Thank you so much to Annemieke of A Dance With Books for stepping in with questions for week 2 and week 3! I am going to combine my answers, but as with week 1, I will be quite brief as I don’t want to accidentally spoil anything! But do beware that this post will have spoilers for the book up to chapter 21.

Continue reading “Voyage of the Damned Readalong: Weeks 2 & 3” →

Fantastic Fives: Lost at Sea

Published on by azucchi6 Comments

ARTWORK CREDIT
Mermaid by Yuri Arcurs Photography

Welcome back to Fantastic Fives, our Sunday feature during Wyrd & Wonder where we look at our top five in a particular topic. This week, we’re talking favourite fictional sea voyages! I missed our second week of Fives, but in our first session I decided to write a few verses to fit the theme, and though I had hoped to do so for every one, my brain is just not on the right wavelength. Hopefully I can at least close out the month with a few good verses!

Continue reading “Fantastic Fives: Lost at Sea” →

Voyage of the Damned Readalong: Week 1

Published on by azucchi8 Comments

It’s week 1 of our Wyrd & Wonder readalong, and I’m excited to hear everyone’s thoughts! Mine will be a bit more muted as I’ve read this before and don’t want to give anything away… I will try and capture my first-time thoughts as best as I remember, but I’m mostly here to facilitate everyone else to enjoy this whirlwind ride of a book! This week the questions were set by yours truly, and include Chapters 1-6, so there will be spoilers up to then. For a reminder of the schedule (it’s not too late to join us!!), check out my post about it here. So now, let’s dive in!

Continue reading “Voyage of the Damned Readalong: Week 1” →

Fantastic Fives: Davy Jones

Published on by azucchi8 Comments

ARTWORK CREDIT
Mermaid by Yuri Arcurs Photography

It’s the first of our Fantastic Fives, and let’s all pretend this was posted yesterday as it was supposed to be… this week the theme is Davy Jones: aka favourite nautical myths & folklore. I did choose five, and a book to go with each, but then I thought I’d do something different: I’m getting back into writing poetry and what better muse than the sea? So I am going to endeavour for all of our Fives to write a few verses that fit the theme and my choices.

Continue reading “Fantastic Fives: Davy Jones” →

Review: Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi

Published on by azucchi5 Comments

Navola is a city built on trade. Its palazzos and towers are conjured from its merchant wealth: barley and rice, flax and wool, iron and silver, arms, armies, lives and kingdoms are all traded here. And presiding over it all, the Regulai bank. By guile, force of arms and the cast-iron might of their money and promises, in just three generations the Regulai family have risen far from their humble origins: merchants beg their backing, artists their patronage, princes an invitation to dine at their table. The Regulai say they are not political, but their wealth buys cities and topples kingdoms. 

Soon, Davico di Regulai will take the reins of power. But the boy is not well-suited for his role. His heart is soft where it should be hard. He is credulous when he should be suspicious. He is tired of being tested and trained to inherit a legacy he is not sure he wants. But Davico is inextricably tangled in fate’s net and his doubts can only summon ruin. In the shade of Navola’s colonnaded porticoes, his family’s enemies gather and plot. In the shadows of its deep catacombs, assassins sharpen their stiletto knives. In the kingdoms of Cerulean Peninsula, princes and despots muster their armies. Davico’s only hope rests in the heart of a girl whose own family was destroyed by the Regulai, and in a crystalline orb the size of a human head, said to be the eye of a long-dead dragon.

When I see that there is a new fantasy out by an Italian author that is based on the history of Florence and the Medici family, you bet I’m going to read it! I decided to tackle Navola as an audiobook, all 20 hours of it, and I must commend the narrator who, though American, did a good job with the Italian-style pronunciations. I will tell you upfront that I have mixed feelings about this book having completed it, and I am conflicted about whether or not I would recommend it because there are many great elements and then a few things that I know will discourage particular readers. So I’m afraid you’ll have to go through the full (spoiler free) review and see if what I talk about sounds appealing.

Continue reading “Review: Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi” →

Setting Sail: My Wyrd & Wonder TBR

Published on by azucchi5 Comments

ARTWORK CREDIT
Mermaid by Yuri Arcurs Photography

I’m not going to lie to you all, May has snuck up on me, even as I kept staring it in the face. A lot is going on in my life right now, both good and bad, so I’ve not had a chance to think about Wyrd & Wonder in the way I had hoped to, but I’m getting into it now! There is nothing that stirs my heart in books more than naval adventures, double so when it’s got magic in it, so I’m very excited about this year’s theme. If this is the first you’re hearing about all this, do be sure to read my intro post to Wyrd & Wonder 2025, and my more recent update. The beauty of this event is you can participate at any level: want to have a post a day and read 15 books? Great! Want to write a couple of fantasy reviews and make sure your TBR is mostly fantasy? Great! Want to just bob along looking at everyone else’s posts and adding books to your TBR when their lists inevitably tempt you? Also great! And we’re not limited to books, either! We celebrate the fantastic through video games, movies, series, music, and art!

It’s not too late to join us, do Sign Up so we know to include you in our round ups and to look out for your posts. For that reason we have our Master Schedule where you can link all of your posts and easily blog hop to see what your fellow adventurers are up to. We also use it to create our weekly roundup posts, so please do be sure to link anything you want mentioned in those, though we do try and keep an eye out for any stragglers… and if you’re wondering who this ‘we’ is, I’m talking about your hosts: Annemieke at A Dance With Books, Lisa at Dear Geek Place, Jorie at Jorie Loves A Story, Imyril at There’s Always Room for One More, and myself here on The Book Nook! We also have a Discord server for casual chatting, so if you’re not on there get in touch with one of us and we’ll be sure to add you. Lastly, be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Instagram to see any news, and use #wyrdandwonder25 if you post.

My Plans

Is it cheating if two of my TBR are rereads? I’m hosting the readalong for Voyage of the Damned, which I read at the end of last year, so I’m probably going to speed read through and focus on my favourite moments. I also, time depending, will join in the buddy read of Ship of Magic because it’s too exciting an opportunity not to pass it up! And I’m looking forward to seeing what people reading it for the first time think. My other two are partly ways of clearing the shelves of books that have been there for a few years, but also were a great chance to stick to the theme. I’m also going to try and read Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race, which I have an advanced copy of.

I am hoping to post at leats twice a week, but it is a bit harder with life the way it is at the moment. But I am super excited to see what everyone else gets up to, and to add so many books to my TBR! Safe travels!