The fantastical adventure continues.

You chose to go into the dark, spooky forest. As soon as you step into the forest, you notice the air cooled instantly. The tightly packed canopy doesn’t allow enough sunlight to reach the forest floor, which also means there’s minimal flora or other underbrush that you’d typically see in a forest. The forest floor is covered with a strange, almost glowing moss that also seems to dampen the sounds. The scent of something (or many things) decomposing fills your nostrils. You look around but see no trace of humans or other beings.

You start along the narrow, winding path, occasionally stumbling over unseen roots. After walking for what feels like hours, you hear a small whimpering sound. Almost like someone crying. Walking toward the noise, you see a small cottage. You can tell the crying is coming from the cottage. You grip your small, rusty sword tightly.

Do you enter the cottage or keep going along the path?

I picked out 15 books (not counting the book I’m currently reading, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires) that I actually own.

And at 15, I may have gone a bit overboard on my Wyrd and Wonder fantasy TBR especially since April was a slow reading month for me. (I only finished 12 books and 3 of those were rereads and one a DNF).

I doubt I’ll get through all 15. But it’s good to have dreams and set high goals.

And honestly, I could have had twice as many books on my TBR.

(But shhh . . . we won’t talk about the two shelves and three stacks of to-be-read books sitting around my living room.)

I’d say I have a problem, but hey, I say, you can never have too many books.

I tried to pick a variety of sub-genres and settings to demonstrate the broad range of fantasy. (I’ll talk more about fantasy subgenres in a future post.)

And of the 15 books, 10 authors are female and three are minorities. I did not pick out the books because of their authors, but it’s nice to see the diversity, especially in the fantasy genre. Although I will admit now looking at the stack, I do not have any books written by a POCs, such as Olivia Butler. So that’s something to consider and another topic for a future post.

Without further ado, my TBR in no particular order:

• Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstances by Ruth Emmie Lang
• We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
• Slayer, Vol. 1 by Kiersten White
• Black Widow Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl
• The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Martinson by Quinn Sosna-Spear
• The Last Girl on Earth by Alexandria Blogier
• Earth to Charle by Justin Olson
• Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
• Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
• The Wee Free Men by Terry Prachett
• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
• The House With a Clock in Its Walls by Edward Gorey and John Bellairs
• Prison Ship by Martin Caidin
• The Ring by Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff

13 of the 15 books plus my current read can be found on Bookshop (read about me supporting indie bookstores here). I set up a Wyrd and Wonder TBR shelf. The last two books, The Ring and Prison Ship, are older books and not as readily available. But it’s always good to read classic fantasy. (I’ll also talk about some classic fantasy books in a future post.) These books came in my Half Price Books SciFi/Fantasy mystery grab bag, but you can find them on Thriftbooks here and here.

What’s on your May TBR? Share some of your to-be-read titles in the comments below.