Liquid love. Coffee book tag

It’s hard to imagine a day without reading. Even if it’s just a couple of pages before dozing off at night, I like to hold my book a day. It’s even harder to imagine a day going by without several hot beverages. Starting the day with some tea and near noon moving on to coffee. It’s not an addiction, it’s a lifestyle.
I am, in fact, surprised that it took this long for someone to pair the both up and create a steaming tag full of caffeine. Well thank you, BangadyBangz, for doing this. Enough talk, time for a sip!

1. Black.
Name a series that’s tough to get into but has hardcore fans.
I think several of the longer epic Fantasy series fit the Black Coffee-category. I mean, look at The Wheel Of Time series. Fourteen books of considerable length. Same goes for Malazan Book Of The Fallen, you have to be very brave of heart not the be the slightest bit daunted by it.
Of the ones I’ve read, the Sword Of Truth series by Terry Goodkind is quite fitting in the sense that it’s a very tough ride to sit out. The series is big and tends to border on political/philosophical-preachy, especially from the second book on, where the main male character becomes a douche with a moral stick up his arse. While it is not everyone’s cup of coffee, the series has its loyal fanbase. I used to be a member, but I’ve since resigned and belong to the ‘enjoyable but there is better’ group.

2. Peppermint mocha.
Name a book that gets more popular during the Winter or a festive time of year.
Harry Potter. End of discussion. Whenever I pair books and Winter in my mind, I get flashes of Hogwarts in the snow and start craving some hot coco.

3. Hot chocolate.
What is your favorite children’s book?
Not to mention Harry Potter again, I’ll go with any book by Marc De Bel. He is a Belgian children’s author and I devoured every single book of his when I was between the ages of nine and twelve. In fact, at that age, he was the author to read when you were a kid in Belgium. I particularly liked his Blinker books and the one about the Boeboeks. Of the latter, I reread Het Web Van De Suikerspin (The Sugarspider’s Web) a million times. Funny, exciting and brilliantly written. Just lovely!

4. Double shot of espresso.
Name a book that kept you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
I have several (obvious) answers to this one, such as every single book in the Hunger Games trilogy and such. But the one that sticks out because it is genuinly amazing from start to finish is Brandon Sanderson’s The Hero Of Ages. When reading this I devoted every moment of spare time to reading it and I kept reading till the wee hours of morning to finish it. Bloody amazing.

5. Starbucks.
Name a book you see everywhere.
Every single latest craze in YA-land. They start appearing on BookTube and GoodReads and not before long they fill the shelves of the Belgian bookstores in their fancy Dutch translation.

6. That hipster coffee shop.
Give a book by an indie author a shoutout.
Ben Galley! I can’t for the life of me remember how I stumbled upon him, but I was charmed by his online prescence and bought his books. Right now, I have all five on the shelves, being the complete Emaneska Series and the first book in his new series, Bloodrush. With the appropriate amount of embarrassment I have to admit to only reading the first Emaneska book, The Written, but I can tell you it was such a good book! Hence why I kept bying his books. I mean sure, the lad’s got pretty eyes, but you have to give me more than that… Worth checking out if you’re into epic/dark Fantasy, Western Fantasy or just good books in general! Or if you like stunning covers.

7. Oops! I accidentally got decaf.
Name a book you were expecting more from.
An obvious choice here is The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I knew the chances of me liking it a lot were slim, but still I wondered what the fuss is all about. To me, this was just a run-of-the-mill book of which a school library has dozens upon dozens. There was nothing really that made it stand out to me to validate the craze. Still, not a bad book per se, just bland. Like decaf.
One that did come as a surprise, was Kim Harrison’s The Undead Pool. This is the twelfth and penultimate book in her urban Fantasy Hollows series about bounty hunter witch Rachel Morgan. The previous books in the series went from strength to strength, so my expectations were really high. Coming out of The Undead Pool I felt, well, undead. Neither dead nor alive. It just wasn’t up to par with the previous novels and I had a hard time grasping what was going on. I have faith that the last one will bring the series to an explosive conclusion, but this one was a let down, sadly enough.

8. The perfect blend.
Name a book or series that was both bitter and sweet but ultimately satisfying.
It’s far from an original answer, but Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy and George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series are the perfect blend. They contain a mixture of everything and while at one moment I’m laughing and rooting for the characters and the next I’m lying shattered and heartbroken on the floor, at the end of the ride I have a great and satisfactory feeling. Brilliance on paper.

Pour yourself a steaming mug of liquid love and tell me your answers to these questions. Enjoy your coffee!