The Happy Place 5 is a monthly series where a few friends and I post 5 of our favorites books for a certain topic or theme. The name is from a Discord group that I am a part of. We created the space to have a positive environment for a handful of close friends. All of us are bookworms, and many of us are bookstagrammers and bloggers. So we decided to start a blog post series together! I’ll link my friends blogs and posts for this month’s topic at the end of this post.

We all know that my two favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy, so what’s even better than that? A MASHUP OF THE TWO!!! I’m sure this surprises no one at all that this is the genre hybrid I chose to talk about today haha. I’m sure some of these you’ve heard me talk about before, but I can’t resist the chance to push them on you again!!

I don’t know if many of you keep track of who the publisher is for the books you read, but in general I don’t. There are so many! And the big publishing houses publish so many books it’s hard to keep track. There are a few exceptions for me, and today I’ll be recommending one in particular: Tor.com Publishing!

Jana (That Artsy Reader Girl) hosts the Top Ten Tuesday tag, and while looking at the topics (and her blog) I found this fun book tag! To be honest I don’t love Christmas songs haha. Mostly just because they’re overplayed – however! I love seeing the ideas/prompts that came out of each of these songs.

She answered her questions with books that she read this year, which I think is a great idea so I’m going to do that as well! As much as I can anyway.

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You”: Favorite bookish couple.

Okay I’m going to do two, one that is non-spoilery and one that is kinda spoilery. I don’t know how to make the text secret so the spoiler one will just be at the end of this section.

So the non-spoiler one! Josh and Hazel from Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating!! I love each of their personalities separately and I love even more how they are with each other.

SPOILERS FOR THE OCTOBER DAYE SERIES!!!!

(I love Toby and Tybalt!!!!!! I knew from the first book it would happen and when it finally did I was so happy).

END SPOILERS.

2. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”: Name a book where a character is away from home (school, vacation, etc.).

Gideon the Ninth! By Tamsyn Muir. Takes place at a semi-creepy crumbling down house (think more like mansion) where they can’t leave or contact anyone on the outside!

3. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”: Name your favorite “little” book (children’s book, short story, novella, etc.).

Way back at the beginning of the year I read The Test, a novella by Sylvain Neuvel. It was an easy 5 stars from me! It’s definitely better to go into it not knowing much, but it’s a really great sci-fi/dystopian novella.

4. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town“: What book(s) do you hope Santa brings you this year?

SOooooooo many. The new box set of the first three books in the Expanse series, Senlin Ascends, A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery.…I could go on forever haha.

5. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”: Which book turned your nose red (made you cry)?

Magic of Blood and Sea by Cassandra Rose Clarke! It’s not really a sad book at all haha it’s just that some of the scenes reminded me a lot of certain emotions I was dealing with at the time.

6. “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”: Your favorite book/kind of book to read during the holidays.

I’m not too much of a mood reader but I like being able to read series over the holidays! Since I have a lot of free time to binge read whole series haha. So I think this upcoming holiday season I’m going to continue the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire! I binge read the first 6 books in early October (whoa, how fitting for her name – didn’t even realize that at the time) so now I’m ready to continue Toby’s journey.

7. “We Three Kings”: Your favorite trilogy.

I didn’t actually read/finish many trilogies this year! But I did read The Queen of Sorrow which was the third in the Queens of Renthia trilogy. This is a super underrated adult fantasy trilogy that I love! And this installment was amazing.

8. “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”: A character you would love to be snowed in with.

I’m cheating and I’m gonna pick a group of characters rather than just one – I pick the characters from A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe! It would definitely be an entertaining day with all of them.

9. “Last Christmas”: A book that seriously let you down.

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye 🙁 I loved the premise of this one! But it just really fell flat for me and it’s one of the rare books that I actually dislike (rather than feel ambivalent towards).

10. “White Christmas”: An upcoming release you’re dreaming about.

Probably The Shadow Saint! I still haven’t finished the first book (The Gutter Prayer) but the first half of it was AMAZING so I’m already looking forward to the second book! And I already have it preordered too haha.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my choices! And if you haven’t read these, I hope you check them out 🙂

Somehow we’ve made it halfway through the year. How?? is that?? possible? I have no idea. Naturally, this means I’m looking forward to the second half of the year to see what exciting books are coming up. Let’s not think about the books I acquired in the first half of the year that I still haven’t read LOL. Here are some upcoming books that I’m the most excited for!

Thank you to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting/organizing Top Ten Tuesday!

Okay guys. THESE COVERS. I just. Cannot. They’re all so beautiful and I love them so much!!! Also it’s funny how the two covers with the black snake line up with one another 😂.

I have to say, of these I’m MOST excited for Angel Mage. Garth Nix is one of my favorite authors ever, and I’m super excited for him to be writing a new fantasy novel!!!! It sounds incredible.

Here are the summaries of the books from Goodreads! For some of them, they’re later books in a series so I’ve put the summary of the first book instead since I don’t want to spoil the series.