Last Saturday, I met up with some of my favourite Toronto book bloggers in effort to be super productive with our blogs. We booked a meeting room at a local library, brought our laptops and notebooks and other gadgets and gizmos and we set off to schedule as many blog posts as we could! We also used this time to host Thomas Allen & Son to showcase some of their upcoming Spring releases!
On top of all of the fun shenanigans, the Toronto Book Tag was created by Joey over at Thoughts And Afterthoughts & Ambur over at Burning Impossible Bright. You should totally go check out both of their blogs! This tag is full of references, inside jokes and a little bit of shade about the wonderful city we live in! I hope you enjoy all of my bookish answers! Let’s get started shall we?
Warren The 13th and the All-Seeing Eye by Tania Del Rio & Will Staehle
I absolutely LOVE Warren The 13th! The design of these books is amazing and the story within is just as wonderful! I’m currently eagerly anticipating the second book which will be released later this month!
Synopsis: Warren the 13th is the lone bellhop, valet, waiter, groundskeeper, and errand boy of his family’s ancient hotel. It’s a strange, shadowy mansion full of crooked corridors and mysterious riddles—and it just might be home to a magical object known as the All-Seeing Eye. Can Warren decipher the clues and find the treasure before his sinister Aunt Annaconda (and a slew of greedy hotel guests) beats him to it? This middle-grade adventure features gorgeous two-color illustrations on every page and a lavish two-column Victorian design that will pull young readers into a spooky and delightful mystery.
Owlcrate Boxes!
Again, this is a tough one for me. I don’t really 
get a lot of book related merch…unless it comes from my monthly Owlcrate subscription. So there, that’ll be my answer. My favourite bookish merch are the lovely surprises that come with my Owlcrate box every month! This includes notebooks, candles, tote bags and so much more! This is the first subscription box I have ever subscribed to and I highly recommend looking into this box!
To learn more about Owlcrate, click here!
The Order Of The Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Not gonna lie. I really thought this award was going to go either The Fireman by Joe Hill or A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, but nope…J.K. Rowling has them beat with the 5th book in the Harry Potter series!
Synopsis: Harry Potter is due to start his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His best friends Ron and Hermione have been very secretive all summer and he is desperate to get back to school and find out what has been going on. However, what Harry discovers is far more devastating than he could ever have expected…Suspense, secrets and thrilling action from the pen of J.K. Rowling ensure an electrifying adventure that is impossible to put down.
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
Yet again, another award given to the Harry Potter series! I mean, Harry Potter could be the answer to so many different questions, but I think it fits perfectly here. I lovingly read those books when I was a kid…a.k.a. when I didn’t care as much about the aesthetic appeal of my shelves. They are definitely the most well read books I own.
Synopsis: Harry Potter’s life is miserable. His parents are dead and he’s stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he’s a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special. He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry. Though Harry’s first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it’s his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.
Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
Little Heaven by Nick Cutter had such promise. I loved how dark and creepy it was, but it was just so long and it took forever to go anywhere. As much as I love dark and disturbing, it also needs to get to the point quickly or my attention span dissipates.
Synopsis: An all-new epic tale of terror and redemption set in the hinterlands of midcentury New Mexico from the acclaimed author of The Troop—which Stephen King raved “scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t put it down…old-school horror at its best.”
From electrifying horror author Nick Cutter comes a haunting new novel, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, in which a trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven. Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. Stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust grips the settlement. The escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. The remaining occupants are forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is now marshaling its powers…and it wants them all.
Vicious by V.E. Schwab
I know this is an unpopular opinion and I’m sorry! I just couldn’t get on board with Vicious by V.E. Schwab. This book was so hyped up and I absolutely LOVE the Shades of Magic series so I had very high expectations going into this one that sadly were not met. Maybe I’ll revisit one day and see if my mind changes at all.
Synopsis: Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
You know, I don’t read a whole lot of books that contain fictional maps unfortunately. I tend to enjoy family trees a little more to be quite honest. I think the issue lies with the fact that I don’t read a heck of a lot of fantasy. So, I may totally override this question and talk about a family tree instead. I just recently finished reading The ROanoke Girls which is probably one of the more disturbing books I have read in a long time. And the family tree just adds to the overall darkness of this novel.
Synopsis: After her mother’s suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother’s mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran fast and far away. Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.
A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
I remember as a kid I pronounced Hermione as “her-me-own”, that is until my mom heard me say it out loud one day and was quick to correct me! However, I’ve already featured Harry Potter twice on this list, so here’s another answer for you. Now, I haven’t read the Game of Thrones books just yet, but I can imagine if I hadn’t watched the show before reading the book, I can promise you that I would never have pronounced Daenerys Targaryen they way it is supposed to be pronounced.
Synopsis: Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.
And there you have it! The newly created Toronto Tag! I’d like to tag ANYONE who lives in Toronto or the Greater Toronto Area…but of course, even if you live on another continent, please feel free to play along if your heart desires!
Thank you for reading!
Big City Bookworm 
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