Magical Readathon: Orilium - Choose Your Own Adventure: Year In Aeldia 2025, The Boardgame - Announcement & TBR

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I'm sharing my TBR for this year's Choose Your Own Adventure: Year In Adelia, The Boardgame.  Like last year, it's a book per month choose your own adventure style additional challenge to G. @ Book Roast's Magical Readathon.  It's totally optional and this time around doesn't take breaks for the months of April and August for the main event at Orilium.  Each prompt you complete earns you 10 guild reputation points.  I'm really glad this bonus challenge is back because it was a lot of fun last year - and this year's looks even cooler.  Without further ado, check out my plans for this new adventure - to begin with we start at Orilium and adventure outward. Each number in a circle refers to the month of the year so you can only move to a larger number, but you can select different letter options depending on the path you have set out on.  

January - Start in the middle of the board and prepare for an adventure! Pick one of the below and stand on the selected tile. January has the same prompt for all number 1 tiles which is Book published in 2024, saying goodbye to last year and preparing for 2025! Put your character on one of the below: 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D

My choice: This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer - This horror thriller sounds like it could be good.  Plus, that cover looks awesome.  It was released January 16, 2024.

February - Pick a direction and work your way towards the number 2 spot. These prompts mainly correlate with your physical shelves and where the books are. 2D North East - book from the top right side of your shelf

My choice: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher - I'm so excited to read this one.  I've loved so many of her books and this looks very tempting.

March - Off to Adventure! 3D Match sundial (make sure your watch is aligned with the sundial!) - book with a sun or a clock on the cover

My choice: The Empress of Time (The Keeper of Night #2) by Kylie Lee Baker - I really enjoyed the mythologies explored in book one and am looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.

April - April's book can be part of your Sprint Equinox TBR if you’re participating and it fits both prompts. 4D Wait for morning (you cannot see where you’re stepping here, it’s best to wait for the morning light) - read this book entirely in the AM hours

My choice: The Thirty-Nine Steps (Richard Hannay #1) by John Buchan - So I had no idea that this was a book until recently, but I really enjoyed the two movie adaptations I've seen - the 1935 from Alfred Hitchcock and the 1959 from Ralph Thomas.  I've since heard that both are a bit different from the original story so I guess I'll find out.

May - 4D → 5D A Sundancer! (can it be?? You spot a dancing troupe of Sundancers. This is so incredibly rare, you cannot quite believe you’re witnessing it! You cautiously approach but keep your distance so not to disturb) - book where a main character is a dancer (or dance is important part of the book)

My choice: Elizabethan Life in Town and Country by M. St. Clare Byrne - I found this 1961 history at a used bookstore ages ago.  It is the only book that I can think of that I own that features dancing.  It seems to have several sections that focuses on dancing - there are even several entries for it in the index.

June - 6D Sketch Sundancer (you stay hidden, observing and sketching the sequences of the Sundancer, this will be invaluable to your professors back in Orilium, and you find yourself unnaturally relaxed, the moves may have hypnotic properties) - read a book featuring a fantasy creature

My choice: The Wolf's Hour (Michael Gallatin #1) by Robert McCammon - It's been awhile since I've read a werewolf book and this horror series opener sounds like something else.

July - 7D Write notes (you travel on, writing down the stories of people you meet, places you see, creatures that approach you, sprites and spirits that show themselves to you. There is such a beautifully hidden world out here, in the deserts rarely disturbed. It’s transformative!) - read one of your 5 star prediction books, write a review of your experience and share it online or with a friend

My choice: Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman - I've heard a lot of great things about this and I'm excited to read his newer horror story.

August - 8D Stargaze (you reach the part of the desert that is the furthest from any city, where the skies are the clearest! It’s a perfect mild night too. You lay down in your sleeping bag and spend the night stargazing, star mapping and dreaming) - read a book with stars on the cover

My choice: Sistersong by Lucy Holland - I'm always on the look out for a mythology retelling and this sounds like one I can't miss.  The stars are little but they're there!

September - September’s book can be part of your Sprint Equinox TBR if you’re participating and fit both prompts. 8D → 9C Travel to Kerador (it has been such a pleasant journey so far, but you’re ready to leave the calm behind and get some action! Kerador is always buzzing with activity and shenanigans, so Kerador is where you go! The very moment you cross the continents you're met by SEVEN Implings of a kind you’ve never met before. Is there such a thing as chaotic music type? Because this might be it. They ask you no questions and wait for no refusals, drag you by your sleeves and towards a lute. As you chuckle, you realise you may have just been roped into an Impling band?) - read a book with a purple cover

My choice: Bait and Witch (Witch Way Librarian Mysteries #1) by Angela M. Sanders

October - 10D Enter Laboratory (you arrive at one of the Research Laboratories, Daerune is famous for them. They check your credentials upon arrival and happily let you in. They seem to be so thrilled to have a fellow scholar visiting and are very keen to exchange knowledge and show you around.) - read a science fiction book

My choice: The Divide by Jeremy Robinson - I do enjoy sci-fi horror and I've been on the look out for kaiju books.

November - 11C Visit the Mage Tower (you spot a Mage Tower. You always wanted to visit one, this is perfect. Although you never thought you’d be going into one with such a silly motive hehe You storm it with the 7 Implings at your heels.) - read a fantasy book

My choice: The Birth of a King (The Legends of Kinthoria #1) by Deborah Marsh and Carol Marsh - I don't often read Christian fantasy, but this sounds like it has potential.  Plus, those three guys in the background look like they've been modeled after Legolas, Aragorn, and Boromir.

December - 11C → 12C Steal transmitter and stream band song (as you run up the, too many, stairs to the control chamber, you use a stunning charm on the warden unlucky enough to have gotten this shift. He surely did not expect anything of note to happen. How wrong was he! Three of the Implings seem to have loads of fun tangling the warden in some old rope (not very effectively but they seem to have too much fun so you don’t interfere). Onto the next task! You put your best tinkering skills to use and fiddle with the transmitter. There’s one in every tower, for emergencies and what not. Some would count this as just as important. Granted, most would not. This will broadcast to most homes in the area. And it’s a big tower. Should reach many! Okay, 3..2…1 and PLAY. You and the Implings explode in a song, some of your best work. Three of your favourite songs. The Mages Naked Eyes, Pants on Fire and Can’t Stop Tooting. All hits, truly. You flee through the window (broom to the rescue!) as the back up wardens barge in. Your adventures yield you the friendship of 6 unhinged Implings and a famous song written about you!) - read a book you’ve heard is humorous.

My choice: Dead Man's Hand (The Unorthodox Chronicles #1) by James J. Butcher - I've been putting this off for way too long.  It's finally time this year to start in on this series, even if I'm getting around to it December!

Have you read any of these books and are you planning on participating in this year long challenge?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!