So there are certain words that appear in the synopsis or marketing of a book that just make me drop everything and immediately add that book to my TBR. Sometimes this works out in my favour, other times not so much.
So for Top 5 Wednesday this week here are my 5 Favourite Buzz Words.
1. Soulmates/Soulbond
I'm a huge sucker for this nonsense in all its forms. I will go out of my way to pick up anything that even slightly has to do with soulmates. I still prefer a slow burn over insta-love in this case though; and some of the best stuff I've read works actively to explore and subvert the trope. And though this is definitely something I see more often in fanfic, you put this in your synopsis and I am so in it's not even funny.
2. Reincarnation/Past Lives
Especially when it goes hand in hand with #1. Whoa-boy can I click that "want to read" button any faster? No. I cannot. I am 99.8% certain that watching Sailor Moon as a kid is responsible for this. But I can't even tell you how much I love it when there's history there... especially if there's a little bit of memory play with remembering past lives. UGH. GIVE IT TO ME NOW.
3. LGBTQ+
Okay, not a buzz word, per se, but stay with me here. Because I'm not really talking about your standard contemporary queer lit either. Not that it doesn't have it's place, it certainly does and is vitally important, but it too often ends in tragedy. No, I'm talking about your standard SFF romp (or any genre really) with queer main characters. Incidentally queer characters. A story that plays out in exactly the same way it would if it was about straight characters. More of this always please.
4. Historical Fantasy
Less of a buzz word and more of genre. I really like it when you combine a historical-ish setting with some fantastical elements. Necromancy in Tsarist Russia (The Gathering Storm), magical prohibition in the 1920s (A Criminal Magic), steampunk in the Wild West (Revenge and the Wild)... and so on! I'm in, let's do this.
5. X Meets Y
Okay okay, sometimes this gets a little dicey. Because some times the publishers get is SO WRONG and some times they get it SO RIGHT. It's hard to tell. Hence why it's at the bottom of my list. But done properly there's can be just enough intrigue for me to keep going and want to read it. These Vicious Masks, for example, is marketed as Jane Austen meets X-Men and that's literally all I needed to know before adding it. On the other hand, The Young Elites was supposed to be X-Men meets Assassin's Creed (noticing a trend here, are you?) and I absolutely loathed it. So. Hit or miss.And there you have it! What are your favourite buzz words? What did you think of mine? Let's chat in the comments!
