Aldwin Craig's Book Series for this Off-Season

[Eldredman 81]

Aldwin Craig here! I’ve always enjoyed reading in my spare time and you can too! As we continue to deal with a new world, due to Covid-19, we tend to stay indoors over going out. With the off-season around the corner, this is a great time to pick up a book, sink into your favorite couch, and get swept away to other places. You could be an avid reader looking for something new, or maybe you only read when you have to and want to pick up a new hobby out of boredom. Either way, here are some great book series that are a fantastic read for anyone!

Please take the time to read over a few book series I love and that I am excited to start reading. The off-season can be very boring when stuck at home.

 

The Empirium Trilogy

by Clair Legrand

Furyborn, Kingsbane, Lightbringer

I've heard quite a few people talk about this series and have good things to say about it. Once you start reading; you won't want to put any of the books back down. Here’s the synopsis for the first book in the series, Furyborn:

The stunningly original, must-read fantasy follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world…or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed…unless the trials kill her first.

One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable-until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire’s heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world-and of each other.

“Epic feminist fantasy.”-Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author

“Truly not to be missed…”-Kendare Blake, #1 New York Times bestselling author

The Wayard Children Series

by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, Beneath the Sugar Sky, In an Absent Dream, Come Tumbling Down, Across the Green Fields

The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire is the story of Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, a boarding school for children who come home from portal fantasy worlds and can’t adjust to their new lives. Currently while waiting for the play-offs to finish, this has become my go to series!

Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children

No Solicitations. No Visitors. No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy's arrival marks a change at the Home. There's a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it's up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things.

No matter the cost.

“This is a gorgeous story: sometimes mean, sometimes angry, and always exciting.” –Cory Doctorow for BoingBoing,

“A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll’s and C. S. Lewis’ classics.” –NPR

 

The Farseer Trilogy

by Robin Hobb

Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest

I have seen so many people talk about this series and read this series and love it. I’ve always been into adult fantasy series, and I think this is the perfect series for someone into it as well. The first book, Assassin’s Apprentice, follows Fitz, a bastard royal whose father is the crown prince. After he is left at the doorstep of the royal castle, his father abdicates the throne in shame and no one really knows what to do with Fitz. The king sees an opportunity in this and raises Fitz to become his royal assassin.

In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.

Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard cast out into the world friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals – the old art known as the Wit – gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin…

"Fantasy as it ought to be written" –George R.R. Martin

 

The Poppy War Series

by R.F. Kuang

The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, The Burning God

I'm very excited to read this intense series myself this upcoming Spring! This is an adult fantasy series that follows Rin, a girl who has trained her whole life for war and now finds herself in the middle of the third Poppy War. This book series draws a lot of inspiration from Chinese history and mythology and has a lot of real-world parallels to the Sino-Japanese Wars and the Chinese Civil War. It’s also a very dark story (surprisingly easy to read); so check the content warnings before reading.

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.

“I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year. I have absolutely no doubt that Kuang’s name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest

 

The Pendragon Series

by D.J. MacHale

The Merchant of Death, The Lost City of Faar, The Never War, The Reality Bug, Black Water, The Rivers of Zadaa, The Quillian Games, The Pilgrims of Rayne, Raven Rise, The Soldiers of Halla

Pendragon was my introduction into fantasy novels and I've been hooked on them ever since. I frequently found myself emotionally involved into Bobby Pendragon's life. Just imagine what it would be like to discover you aren’t the person you thought you were.

Bobby Pendragon was living the life of a normal 14 year old guy, until his Uncle Press appeared with a mission: protect all of time and space from a demon named Saint Dane, a cold-blooded villain who wants nothing less than the dismantling of humanity. The only force standing in Saint Dane’s way is a mysterious group of people called Travelers, and Bobby is surprised to discover that he is one of them.

Denduron.

Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal fourteen-year-best people. He has a family, a home, and even Marley, his beloved dog. But there is something very special about Bobby.

He is going to save the world.

And not just Earth as we know it. Bobby is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn’t quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution.

If Bobby wants to see his family again, he’s going to have to accept his role as savior, and accept it wholeheartedly. Because, as he is about to discover, Denduron is only the beginning….

 

1613 Words Claiming weeks of March 7, March 14, March 21

[Eldredman 81]

Claiming week 2 of March 14