Wyrd & Wonder: Zone In On Comfort

Each week during Wyrd and Wonder has a themed ‘top five’ style post and this week’s theme is Zone In On Comfort. This focuses on your five favorite comfort reads or five ingredients that make a book a comfort read for you! I’m going to focus on the ingredients that make up a comfort read for me and feature a book that exhibits at least one of these.

1. School Setting – Cliché? Perhaps. Comforting? You bet! I love a good school setting, though now that I’m getting older, I prefer it to be more collegiate in nature.
2. Underlying Mystery – I literally cannot get enough of what I’ve dubbed the fantasy/mystery hybrids! These are books set in a fantasy or magical world but a central component of the plot is actually a really great mystery story.
3. Heavy on the Politics – This is definitely not going to be everyone’s definition of comfort, but I LOVE a good book that focuses on politics, courtly intrigue, and perhaps even some political espionage. Especially if a character is more than they first appear!
4. Romance – I am thriving in this era of the romantasy book. I love a well done, beautifully written romance, but I equally love a good toxic, trash romance with the stereotypical dark and brooding bad boy.
5. The Roman Empire is my Roman Empire – GIVE ME ALTERNATE ROME. GIVE ME ROME IN SPACE. GIVE ME ROME IN AN ACTUAL HISTORICAL ROMAN SETTING. 

**Bonus** I also love a book with a good sense of humor – this is super subjective though and humor doesn’t always work for me. Shout out to KJ Parker and Ben Aaronovitch for their particular brands of dry funnies.