Twelve Days of Bookmas Tag

In honor of the Christmas season, I’m publishing a post everyday leading up to Christmas, most of which will be book tags. And for today’s post, I’m doing the Twelve Days of Bookmas Tag, which was created by Milliebot Reads.

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A Partridge in a Pear Tree: A book whose plot and genre seem like an unlikely pairing

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

It’s a contemporary novel about a young Black woman working at a popular publishing company to whom weird things start happening once another Black girl is hired. I chose it for this category because it’s supposed to be a thriller, but it didn’t deliver on that.

Two Turtle Doves: Your favorite character pairing (romantic or non, hell, you can even cross fandoms if you want)

Fitz and the Fool from Robin Hobb’s series

There’s no better pairing. Fitz and the Fool are soul mates.

Three French Hens: A chunky trilogy you love

Phèdre’s trilogy by Jacqueline Carey

Apart from the trilogies that make up Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series, I also love Carey’s Phèdre’s trilogy, which begins with Kushiel’s Dart. It’s about a courtesan who’s marked by a god and trained as a spy, and uses her skills to save her country many times.

Four Calling Birds: Four characters you’d like to have a chat on the phone with

The Fool

I actually don’t like to talk on the phone, but a character I’d like to meet would probably be… the Fool from Hobb’s books simply because he’s still on my mind.

Five Golden Rings: A character whose jewelry (or, let’s be lenient and include general fashion) you would copy

Blair Waldorf & Serena Van Der Woodsen

That’s Blair and Serena from the original Gossip Girls TV show. This gold blazer Leighton Meester rocks when playing an older Blair is still one of my favorites from the show (and I’ve yet to find something similar that’s affordable, ugh!!), and I’m still in love with this dress Blake Lively wore  when playing Serena, who was attending a wedding at the time.

Six Geese a Laying: A trilogy you’d like to see get three more books

Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb

If you guessed that I’d pop the Realm of the Elderlings series in here again, you’d be right. I honestly didn’t plan on inundating this book tag with mentions of this series, but I can’t help myself today. Plus, I’d love another set of books — three more, to be exact. The last book of the entire series — Realm of the Elderlings comprises several trilogies and a quartet — Assassin’s Fate, ends with the potential for more books. I’d love to learn what becomes of Bee.

Seven Swans a Swimming: A water-based book you’d recommend (pirates, merms, cthulhus, whatever!)

The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes

Yes, there are books in the Realm of the Elderlings that have a water setting and pirates too, but you’re probably tired of me mentioning those books by now, so I chose The Deep instead. It’s a fantasy novella about what happened to the descendants of slaves who chose to take their lives by jumping overboard the slave ships.

Eight Maids a Milking: Favorite book about cows! Just kidding! (I mean, unless you actually have one…) Favorite book set in the country and/or on farm

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito (illus.)

Hmm… I don’t know how true it is, but I seem not to have read a book set on a farm (except Animal Farm), or about a cow, or a goat (because I was thinking to find a book about a goat, which I like, if I couldn’t find one about a cow or a farm). So I’ve decided to go with a book about cats terrorizing the famous horror manga artist, Junji Ito.

Nine Ladies Dancing: Character you’d like to dance with (it doesn’t have to be a slow dance)

Robbie

He’s a side character from Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older, a YA fantasy novel set in New York City that mixing art and ancestral magic. It’s been a long time since I read it, so I’ve forgotten a lot of details, but I remember enjoying it, especially the club scenes. So I’d have liked to dance with a dude like Robbie when I was that age — a young Haitian dude who knows how to dance.

Ten Lords a Leaping: A lordly (princely, royal, rich, whatever) character you’d like to see leap off a bridge

Prince Ladisla

Lol! There are so many, but I’ve decided to go with Prince Ladisla (instead of, like, Regal from Robin Hobb’s Farseer books in the Realm of the Elderlings series) from Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series since he gets his just deserts.

Eleven Pipers Piping: A character you think would be most likely to hire a band to serenade you

I… honestly can’t think of one.

Twelve Drummers Drumming: Drumroll please! Pick a book you love so much you feel it deserves a drumroll (if you can, make it something you haven’t already talked about this year).

The Inheritance by Megan Lindholm (a.k.a. Robin Hobb, haha!)

Yes, yes! Another Robin Hobb book but under another name (I think it’s her real name, but I can’t remember for sure and can’t be bothered to reread my review to find out). You might be thinking, “I bet she’s talked about this book this year.” But no, I haven’t. I hardly ever mention it because I tend to forget to do so. It’s a collection of a variety of short stories, some of which are set in the world of the Realm of the Elderlings, and all have Hobb’s flavor to them — characters suffering through some hard-ass times. There’s one story in it that I’d encourage fans of Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings books to read because it’s touches on how/why people began to settle in the Rain Wilds.

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Happy Holidays, y’all!