This meme was created by E. @ Local Bee Hunter's Nook and you can find the announcement post here.
Also, side note, these aren't necessarily books that I own physically
but they're all on my Goodreads TBR and they'll mostly be the five most
recently added.
This Week's Prompt is...
Mythology, a genre of fiction I've really been getting into lately. I love learning about the original tales and then the author putting their own twists on them.
Piranesi's house is no
ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its
walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one
different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is
imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an
instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he
understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the
house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The
Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research
into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence
emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel,
revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
I'm not sure that this is based on particular myth but a lot of people have described it as having elements of mythology and fantasy so we're just gonna go with it! It's also got an infinite labyrinth and a weird but wonderful premise.
The Bear and the Nightingale,
Katherine Arden’s enchanting first novel, introduced readers to an
irresistible heroine. Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian
wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden
house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire.
Vasilisa’s gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of
Morozko—Frost, the winter demon from the stories—and together they saved
her people from destruction. But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her
people have condemned her as a witch.
In The Girl in the Tower,
Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened
villagers, she has only two options left: marriage or the convent. She
cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses
adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her
magnificent stallion Solovey.
Drawing on Russian folklore, this second book in the Winternight trilogy promises more adventure, demons and an impossible choice. A little ashamed that I still haven't found the time to continue this series!
Sanna is a mermaid — but
she is only half seavish. The night of her birth, a sea-witch cast a
spell that made Sanna’s people, including her landish mother, forget how
and where she was born. Now Sanna is sixteen and an outsider in the
seavish matriarchy, and she is determined to find her mother and learn
who she is. She apprentices herself to the witch to learn the magic of
making and unmaking, and with a new pair of legs and a quest to complete
for her teacher, she follows a clue that leads her ashore on the
Thirty-Seven Dark Islands. There, as her fellow mermaids wait in the
sea, Sanna stumbles into a wall of white roses thirsty for blood, a
hardscrabble people hungry for miracles, and a baroness who will do
anything to live forever.
This book obviously focuses on the mythological creatures mermaids and is a retelling of The Little Mermaid. I haven't heard too many people talk about this book but I was enchanted by that gorgeous cover and then the dark fairytale premise sealed the deal.
In the house of Helios,
god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But
Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously
alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for
companionship, she discovers that she does possess power - the power of
witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods
themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island,
where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths
with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the
Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and,
of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman
who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and
gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most
terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves
most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all,
whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she
has come to love.
Miller apparently writes amazing books inspired by Greek mythology and she's definitely an author that a lot of people recommend if you're looking for books to do with mythology. Circe sounds incredible and I just need that push to pick it up.
Nahri has never believed
in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century
Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better
than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars,
healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to
the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.
But when Nahri
accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to
her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical
world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the
warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with
creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins
of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the
circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city
of brass, a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.
In that
city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six
gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when
Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce
and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court
politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly
consequences.
After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for...
Taking inspiration from Middle Eastern mythology, so many people have fallen under the spell of this series. I'm usually wary when it comes to pure fantasy but I have a feeling this could become a new favourite (hopefully, seeing as I already bought the whole trilogy!)
Which books inspired by mythology are on your TBR? If you've already read some of these, let me
know what you thought! Leave a comment with your own #5OnMyTBR posts for
me to check out! Happy Reading!
