Set Your Path | as #JorieReads this Year 9 of #WyrdAndWonder! (which also marks her return!)

Posted Monday, 18 May, 2026 by jorielov , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

 

Wyrd And Wonder banner created by Imyril, Graphic Credit: Moon magic by Varvara Gorbash. The gorgeous artwork has been licensed for use as part of Wyrd & Wonder.

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A bit about why I LOVE Wyrd And Wonder every year:

Wyrd and Wonder is an annual celebration of the fantasy genre. Sign up to join the party as we explore worlds of myth and magic, re-imagine traditional tales, cheer on heroes (prefer villains? Sure, we won’t judge you) and discover the secret doors that lead from familiar streets to adjacent realms where a discourtesy or a misstep may land you in hot water. We’ll be reading books, watching movies, playing games and sharing our thoughts online through blog posts and social media with as many like-minded adventurers as care to join us – there’s always room by the fire for a newcomer with a tale to share. 

(official 2022 blurb)

This marks our 9th Year co-hosting #WyrdAndWonder (Imyril, Lisa, Annemieke, Ariana and I) and we’re celebrating Moon Magic & Celestial Fantasy wherein however you interpret that definition to be explored is open game this #WyrdAndWonder. We have several options of exploring our theme this year – from the Prompt Challenge (see the topics to respond to below – this can be used on #bookstagram, BlueSky or other social channels) as well as a blog post guide – if you wanted to tackle different prompts and write discussion posts about the stories which fit within the prompts themselves. It could be a wicked crazy reading list or it can become any ‘other’ thing you can think it could be because it is happily open to interpretation by you!

The best part about Wyrd & Wonder is that it allows you to take your own adventurous journey into Fantasy each May. You can parlay your bookish choices through the lens of our chosen themes OR you can chart your own course and take the adventure with us to paths of your own choices. However, you find yourself discovering Fantasy, we welcome you aboard the fuller breadth of what Wyrd And Wonder has become which is a community of Fantasy nerds who love to interact and cheer each other on every year!

For me personally, I LOVE finding the unsung heroes of Fantasy – the under loved stories and lesser-known authors and the stories which might get overlooked by other authors who might have more light on their stories during the year. I tend to read a heap of Indie authors especially in the Speculative realms and thereby, each year my reading adventures goes into unexpected territories of interest and roots out new voices of Fantasy.

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!!

I am sure you all are wondering where in the world Jorie has been all these long months – especially as I hadn’t meant to take such a long leave of absence from my blog! However, since the death of my father, I’ve gone through moments of clarity of focus (to read) and moments of indifference to begin a story. I’ve sat for long silent moments with my blog without the ability to convey a word or an emotion or a thought as well. In the end, nearly a full year has transpired, and my blog has been patiently waiting in the background of my life.

I’ve had ideas for posts – not full reviews, but other kinds of posts or discussions, which I wish I had had the time and inclination to pursue over the last months, but alas, between work and the stresses of life after a parent passes on – I simply haven’t found the right motivations to return. In February, I truly felt I was going to be able to recapture the joy of blogging and reading – as I was settling into one of my favourite Romance authors’ series (ie. Anna J. Stewart’s Hawaiian Reunions series) until I fell ill a few times that month and I just never recaptured my footing. All I managed to accomplish was a brief appearance on #bookstagram.

As Wyrd And Wonder started to come into sight, I *knew!* I wanted to take mental break from work (as I work 3x jobs now, seven days a week) and carve out niches of downtime for myself away from all my jobs. I am fast approaching burn out and desire to change my work patterns as much as the trajectory of my life to realign a better work-life balance but also, to switch industries and do something I’d enjoy more than what I’m doing now. However, that is a short-long term goal and for now, I was thankful for Wyrd And Wonder to be an event I could focus on despite the on-going chaos of my work life. It isn’t to say, I’m not happy at work – its rather, I feel a need to make a change and do something that renews my soul moreso than what I’m doing currently. If that make sense!? I mean, you can enjoy your job, but I can’t say I’m loving it to the point I’d like to retire out of this field (eventually). I’d rather be in a position where I’d thrive in the work and not even think about when to retire because each day would be renewing and uplifting just to be there. It is the old adage – love what you do and the rest will follow. I enjoy my work right now, but I’m not in :love: with what I’m doing by any scope of the imagination.

Towards that end, I’ve been enjoying the prompts on Instagram and have been showcasing them via our main feeds for @WyrdAndWonder. I’ll share those links below as I mention which of the prompts I’ve already answered, and which prompts I’m still working on to share for my personal #bookstagram feeds as well. This is what I LOVE about our event – as each year, I endeavour to seek out stories set in the theme of our concentration and find wicked lovely #newtomeauthors to read, listen via audiobook and/or mark down to purchase in future for adding to my own personal library.

This Wyrd And Wonder has been quite the adventure for me! My #libraryhaul is as impressive as it was last year and I can’t wait to start blogging my finds and sharing them visually on Insta too. This is merely a late introduction to what Wyrd And Wonder is all about inasmuch as a guide towards what I am doing for it both as a host and fellow reader/blogger. I am grateful to make my return online and I am hopeful after May concludes, I can continue to make strides of resuming the regularity of posts, reviews and features on Jorie Loves A Story as this is a project very dear to my heart and one that uplifts my soul. I’ve missed my blog but moreso than the blog itself, I’ve missed the bookish side of my life. I’m quite sure that is one part of my life my Dad would be sad to see I’ve let slip into the background. He *loved!* my blog and he loved hearing about my bookish life – we had so many lovely conversations about it all and I will miss sharing the new memories with him directly even though I know he’s still aware of them. It just took me longer to find my voice again and to find the joy in reading — emotionally I found this last year harder to muddle through than I realised it would become as so many special days and celebrations just didn’t quite feel the same for Mum and I. It has been our year of firsts without Dad and that in of itself has been a hard road.

Their anniversary is also in May and I know that will be an equally emotionally day for both of us. It isn’t that we wish he were still here in the condition he left us, it is that we wish we all could have had more hours and memories together before he became stricken with medical crises and issues that didn’t allow him the grace to continue to live with us as he once had. Anyone whose watched a family member slowly lose their health over a set of years and reside in a nursing home will understand – those moments are still precious to you, and you still want to be with them as long as they want to be here but it’s a different kind of reality too. I know we’ll be sharing stories about the better days and of the moments my Dad’s humour knocked our socks off. He had wicked brilliant humour. That will never leave me. Nor will his support for the readerly and writerly side of my life.

Some days and months just hit harder than others – which is why I’ve struggled to reclaim the ability to find the words to breathe life into my blog or to find the joy in creating graphics for Insta. This May, for whichever reason, enough time has gone past to where I feel myself more inspired to create and more encouraged in spirit to start to pick up books again and see where the stories will take me. Even before I blog about them, just reading again has been a balm to my weathered soul.

I’ve appreciated everyone who’s stayed with me on this journey and has patiently awaited my return. Which is why, if you’ve already joined us this month, kindly leave me a comment and a link so I can check out your blog and your posts; definitely share a link if your also on Insta, too! Or, if you’re not into Fantasy at all and want me to check out your latest posts, comment about those too! I definitely need to make my rounds and see what everyone else is up too right now.

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Journey with me into #WyrdAndWonder:

Wyrd And Wonder banner created by Imyril, Graphic Credit: Moon magic by Varvara Gorbash. The gorgeous artwork has been licensed for use as part of Wyrd & Wonder.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • #WyrdAndWonder
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Posted Monday, 18 May, 2026 by jorielov in #25PagePreview, #WyrdAndWonder, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, Twitterland & Twitterverse Event

#TheSundayPost | XXIV | About Jorie’s sudden absence online,…. and the sabbatical she’s on from blogging.

Posted Sunday, 10 August, 2025 by jorielov , , 3 Comments

#TheSundayPost banner created by Jorie in Canva.

[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books.. share them!

  • Enter your link on the post-
  • Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)
  • Link back to this post or this blog
  • Visit others who have linked up
  • Read this week’s #TheSundayPost!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Jorie’s life behind the blog:

Despite everything going on this Spring, I was still hopeful I could keep reading and keep blogging – as reading has always been able to renew my spirits. Especially if life feels like it is derailing a bit or getting overly stressful. Stories bring me a lot of joy to dissolve inside and find a respite from the afflictions of life. Spring felt different this year all the way round. From the quirky weather to the intensive pollen in the air outside. Not to mention the fact, Mum was boomeranging in and out of the ER like it was suddenly in fashion to know the ER staff by name. Allergy season took on new meaning when you have to defend how you’ve had asthma the whole of your life when your doctor thinks that it’s a new affliction and not an old one that has resurrected itself back into your life. I remember how fun that was for Mum to have to keep going to the ER in order for her primary doctor to acknowledge she was asthmatic. Oy.

By May, I felt we had turnt a corner, despite the fact Spring was also the season we thought we might be losing our time with Dad. He wasn’t doing too well and as the weeks passed, we were preparing ourselves for our final goodbyes as it felt like he might not survive the season. He rallied a bit and came through it despite the fact we still had our concerns about the rest of the year. May was also the month Mum had to have emergency surgery, and it took the rest of the month for her to recover from it. I was trying to focus on Wyrd And Wonder as a wicked good distraction as for a bit there it was a bit touch and go as they felt it would be routine surgery but when it took longer than expected we were all worried. Nurses, surgeon and daughter alike. The month slipped through my fingers and most of the posts I had drafted are still unpublished. I found a lot of wicked good authors who befit the Nautical Fantasy prompts we developed as a team behind Wyrd And Wonder, too. It was one of those enjoyable pursuits of hidden niches of Fantasy that I loved to undertake – despite the fact I didn’t get to properly finish the journey in May.

By June, Mum and I were settling into a regular routine of visiting with Dad whilst I was balancing a full work schedule until I realised I couldn’t continue working full-time at night during the Summer. The weather (ie. the intense heat and humidity) was affecting me something fierce this year and as I noticed my health and wellness declining, I decided to reduce my hours which my boss understood, and we left it open when I’d return to a full schedule as Summer can be a long-standing season here. It was a nice pattern of normalcy after a very difficult Spring.

All along, I was still reading – still working on reviews and attempting to post what I had been working on for Wyrd And Wonder. I was so positive about my progress into certain stories – most of them I received for review – that I felt I could definitely finish them by early June. The best part about life though is we can’t see too far into the future. We might feel blindsided by the way things happen in life, but it is better to greet life as it arrives than to have forewarning about certain things ahead of their occurrence. So, for me, when I was updating about my reading progress on certain stories, I truly was making progress and was hopeful to be able to share my thoughts about them even if a bit after the ending hours of May.

Until my father was hospitalised rather suddenly in the early days of June. It was just ahead of my birthday and I was already stressed at work as we were regularly short-staffed and/or having our shifts changed. I was going with it and pitch hitting as best I could but when Dad was rushed to the ER out of the clear blue, it threw us for a loop. I still remember the night we received the call – we weren’t in towne but we came back immediately and arrived shortly after Dad. It was one of those long nights in the ER and then finally upstairs in the ICU. I was calling out at work for the next day long before we spoke to his doctors as I knew I wasn’t leaving the hospital anytime soon that night. Read More

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Posted Sunday, 10 August, 2025 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, The Sunday Post

#TheSundayPost | XXV | About Jorie’s Mum and sorting out which stories to read

Posted Saturday, 23 August, 2025 by jorielov , , 1 Comment

#TheSundayPost banner created by Jorie in Canva.

[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books.. share them!

  • Enter your link on the post-
  • Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)
  • Link back to this post or this blog
  • Visit others who have linked up
  • Read this week’s #TheSundayPost!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Jorie’s life behind the blog:

It has been three weeks now since I shared the news of my father’s passing. The wall of fatigue that has been hitting me in waves whilst I work has been quite intense, but I don’t have the ability to take any more time off from working. I told my night boss I’d be returning to full hours on the 1st of September as well – not because I’m suddenly ready to return to full-time hours but because it’s going to be a necessity. I’ve been trying to moonlight a bit to off-set the lost hours from the night job but it is either wicked good or a lower than hopeful income gap solution. Thereby, I sorted out I need to finish out August on reduced hours but return in September to being double-stacked five days a week.

I’ve also reconsidered getting promoted at my day job – part of my hesitation were the expectations of the new job title and position; as it moves me into management. However, I’ve been running shifts by myself as a lead three times now in the last few weeks and I must confess, I’m enjoying the new challenge of it. Plus, I’m getting good at reading my co-workers – sorting out how to play to their strengths, put them on the right tasks and jobs and manage our time wisely. We’re getting things done on time or early and that makes me happy. I am also feeling more comfortable in this new position I’ll be rising into as previously I wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle it. I know a lot of my reasons for fobbing it off was due to my Dad’s situation.

Even before his health started to decline this year, I felt that I couldn’t take-on more stress and responsibilities than I was already doing on the job. I’ve been doing manager work without the promotion for awhile and I respect that they trust me in that role but to shift into that role officially took me a lot longer to realise I can do it. Now that Dad’s passed on, my upper managers took stock and notice that I really do need to move up and take-on the role I hesitated to accept. I spoke with them about my concerns, and they reassured me that I can play to my strengths and only tackle what I can personally handle whilst delegating other things to my co-workers and co-managers. That felt like a weight lifted. I’m not sure how long it will take to transition into that new role and pay scale but if it happens before the end of the year, I’d feel blessed.

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Posted Saturday, 23 August, 2025 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, The Sunday Post

A #HistFic Book Spotlight | “Lady of the Quay” (Isabella Gillhespy series, Book One) by Amanda Roberts

Posted Friday, 13 June, 2025 by jorielov , , , 4 Comments

Stories in the Spotlight banner created by Jorie in Canva.

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Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

You might be curious where I have been since Wyrd And Wonder concluded – as I had high hopes of getting a lot of wickedly delightful posts ready to share with everyone in the final weeks and days of May. Instead, I was overly exhausted by my Mum’s medical crisis that month and had to let the time run down off the clock and simply rest. I also changed my hours at work for the Summer to have more downtime and to recover my own health and wellness. Meanwhilst, our family was not quite prepared for another medical emergency in the family on the 7th of June. I’ll be sharing the details of that ordeal in another post over the weekend, however, for now, I am celebrating the discovery of this lovely novel and a #newtomeauthor by the pen of Amanda Roberts!

The fantastical stories will be forthcoming this month and over the rest of Summer, don’t worry but for now, I’d like to focus on my JOY and passion for Historical Fiction which has been quite the benchmark of focus on Jorie Loves A Story inasmuch as Fantasy and Science Fiction these past twelve years I’ve been a book blogger. It is the journey of time and feeling as if I’ve had the pleasure of becoming a time traveller through History which benefits me the most by the stories Historical Fiction authors create and develop through their keen eye for detail and their historical nuances of life as it once had been lived in their stories.

What drew my eye into “Lady of the Quay” was the premise of it – a woman who is not only fighting for her right to live but for the innocence she has to prove in order to stay free. I read a bit of a sampling of the story and came to appreciate how the tone of the story was writ. I wish this weren’t a digital first release – as I would be wicked thrilled to read the novel in full via a print edition as I cannot read digitally as most of my followers and bookish friends realise by now.

I happen to have a penchant of interest for these kinds of stories too. Where someone has something to prove and has to set their own mind to righting their own stars into a destiny of their own making. I love the unpredictability of these stories – and how it takes not just raw courage and strength of mind and heart but true grit to rise above circumstances and an unjust pursuit against your own character. I want to take this journey and fall in step with Roberts’ vision of her characters’ adventure. Knowing this is going to be a series is even more brilliant and I shall be cheering from the sidelines this will eventually go into print!

Plus, can we take a moment to appreciate the arrangement of the cover art illustration? I love book covers which either have a hidden message within them or creatively use visual images to convey a message of their own. This one was a bit of a collage effect, and it left a lasting impression. 

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A #HistFic Book Spotlight | “Lady of the Quay” (Isabella Gillhespy series, Book One) by Amanda RobertsLady of the Quay
Subtitle: Isabella Gillhespy series, Book One : Secrets are Dangerous
by Amanda Roberts

Knowing she is innocent is easy … proving it is hard

1560, Berwick-upon-Tweed, northern England

Following the unexpected death of her father, a series of startling discoveries about the business she inherits forces Isabella Gillhespy to re-evaluate everything she understands about her past and expects from her future. Facing financial ruin, let down by people on whom she thought she could rely, and suspected of crimes that threaten her freedom, Isabella struggles to prove her innocence.

But the stakes are even higher than she realises. In a town where tension between England and her Scottish neighbours is never far from the surface, it isn’t long before developments attract the interest of the highest authority in the land, Sir William Cecil, and soon Isabella is fighting, not just for her freedom, but her life. She must use her wits and trust her own instincts to survive.

Lady of the Quay introduces an enticing new heroine who refuses to be beaten, even as it becomes clear that her life will never be the same again.

From the author of the award-winning ‘The Woman in the Painting’.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Feminist Historical Fiction, Suspense



Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

Published by Hickory Press

on 22nd April, 2025

Available Formats: Digital First Release

Converse via: #CoffeePotBookClub, #HistoricalFiction
#HistFic, #IsabellaGillhespySeries and/or #WomensFiction

About Amanda Roberts

Amanda Roberts

Amanda Roberts has worked as an Editor in business-to-business magazines for over 30 years, specialising in out-of-home coffee, vending and foodservice/catering, including Editor of the global gastronomy title: ‘Revue internationale de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs’.

She currently freelances, editing UK-based healthcare titles – HEFMA Pulse, Hospital Food + Service and Hospital Caterer. She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Historical Novel Society and West Oxfordshire Writers. She also volunteers for Tea Books (part of Age UK) to run a book club/reading group for elderly people in the community.

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Posted Friday, 13 June, 2025 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, Book | Novel Extract, Book Spotlight, Historical Fiction, Indie Author, The Coffee Pot Book Club